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Homework

1. Read the article below:

Five (5) Pieces of Evidence Prove it is now Safe to Travel in the Philippines
By Ralph Jennings, Forbes

Southeast Asia’s 7,641-island archipelago of

under-subscribed beaches and widespread use of
English naturally brings tourists. Add in clean
hotels with a pool and bar for $30 per night. In
2012, the Philippine government began building
on that fame with a slogan to lure more people.
The foreign tourist headcount reached 5.9 million
in 2016 which increased 11% from 2015. But away
from the bars and beaches a lot of travelers
complain. They couldn’t get internet connections,
got stuck in Manila traffic, and the cities didn’t
feel safe. media.philstar.com
Ninoy Aquino International Airport 1 as of 2017

Tourism is a pillar of the country’s economic growth. So, the travel industry is fixing some of the
problems that upset visitors the most. Now, a traveler will find these five (5) signs of a more supportive
tourism industry:

• More free Wi-Fi and it works more often.

Travelers in the Philippines who need to correspond with family or colleagues back home once waited
until reaching a hotel, sometimes only to find the Wi-Fi didn’t work in the room. Now, the Manila airport
terminals have free Wi-Fi and it works with a quick, unconditional sign-on, and no questions asked. Yep,
just like airports anywhere, finally. Some long-distance coaches, Victory Liner for example, have Wi-Fi
on their more modern buses. It may be slow, but it works.

• Manila is mostly traffic-free -- at night.

By day, a ride across Metro Manila takes 60 to 90 minutes. The city of 12 million people lacks in-town
expressways or commuter rail stations compared to other Asian cities of its size. But a lot of Cebu Pacific
flights land or take off after midnight, requiring ground transit at those hours to and from the airport.
Have no fear: Traffic moves smoothly at night for relative lack of people on the roads. Long distance
buses also leave Manila in the wee hours for other parts of Luzon Island, the country’s largest.

• The airport’s main international terminal has modernized.

Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1, where most airlines base their international
flights, once functioned so badly that a website for budget travelers rated it the world’s worst place to
get a plane in 2011. The departure hall was so small that boarding pass lines would snake around
awkwardly and get tangled. Some passengers reported thefts and lack of running water in the
restrooms. Once past immigration, there wasn’t much to do except buy more souvenir dried mangoes
for someone else back home. In 2015, the airport emerged from a 1.3 billion-peso ($26 million)
renovation that at least makes it look cleaner, gives passengers more space to line up, and comes with
more F&B choices.

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• Airport Loop bus cuts out risky taxi trips.

Grabbing a cab from the Manila airport into town isn’t just a cakewalk out to the curb. As of April 2017,
you could wait in three (3) places for taxis of two (2) colors and at least two (2) pricing tiers. Travelers
regularly complain of cab fare overcharges or drivers who won’t give change. There’s no light rail airport
station. But a shuttle bus called Airport Loop goes to hotels and major intersections in Metro Manila
for less than $1, per this review. The buses were apparently there all along but harder to spot and relied
on an old fleet until a couple of years ago, this overview says.

• It’s getting safer to go out.

The Philippines wasn’t ever categorically dangerous to the casual street roamer like some cities in the
Americas. But clusters of people hanging out in front of graffiti-marred, disheveled cement buildings in
the cities still unnerve a lot of foreigners. Thefts, pickpocketing, and especially drug dealing have
tapered markedly since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in June 2016. He has acted on his harshly
worded pledges to eradicate crime even if it takes the extrajudicial killings of criminal suspects.

Lifted and modified from:

Jennings, R. (2017, April 06). 5 Pieces of Evidence Prove Its Now Safe to Travel in the Philippines. Retrieved October 09, 2017, from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/04/06/5-new-reasons-you-should-travel-now-in-the-philippines/#1811ab6c42d7

2. Create a Response Paper from the article with no more than seven (7) sentences. It must contain
information on the benefits of the Philippines’ tourism industry from the government and businesses.

3. You will be graded according to the rubric below:

Criteria Description Points
Content Comprehensive, accurate, and complete; key ideas are clearly 40
stated, explained, and well supported.
Organization Well organized, coherently developed, and easy to follow; displays 10
and Writing no errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and sentence
Convention structure.
Total 50

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