With the Trip a No-Go, a Bonus Post!

Well, Typhoon Santi came through and left quickly – with not a lot of rain but strong winds. Boats from Batangas to Mindoro were cancelled on Friday and Saturday. We heard that 700 people were waiting in Batangas pier. Boats were scheduled to run this morning (it’s already Sunday here), but with the rough waves, the holiday travelers, and having to leave early tomorrow to get to the spa, we decided to reschedule Mindoro for the weekend of the 14th (can't wait, but I'll have to!). Instead, yesterday I updated my resume – and I started working on a federal job application. That’s making the most of a “snow” (in this case typhoon) day! Our power was out from 6:30 am until the generator went on at 11:00; the downed power line was repaired by 1:30. Today I called Makati hotels to find day rates – this afternoon we’re going to enjoy this sunny, not-humid day (it might be the nicest day in Manila since I got here!) and go to a pool! I wrote some post-script haiku, so check that entry.

On a more serious note, something I’ve been thinking about – at the Asia-Pacific Housing Forum, then while researching the UNDP, and most recently while reading up on Stairway’s work, I keep running across the Millennium Development Goals. I’ll list them here, so we can all think about how much work there is to be done (and how lucky we are...):

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day
- Achieve Employment for Women, Men, and Young People
- Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
- By 2015, all children can complete a full course of primary schooling, girls and boys
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
- Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
- Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
- Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
- Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
- Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it
- Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
- Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
- Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
- Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
- By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
- Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system
- Address the Special Needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDC)
- Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States
- Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term