A collection of things in the Philippines that are surprising, different, unusual and often remarkable. Everytime you observe oddball things like these, you really have to see them as opportunities to teach, educate and improve.

We are installing the new fibre-cable sir!

At a notoriously busy intersection in Makati, Manila I found a crew installing new a new fibre cable across the street, in the middle of the day - awesome!

fibre-installers-1 fibre-installers-2

No seriously, we are the guys installing a new fibre-cable sir…

A week after spotting the guys installing cable across a busy intersection I found another fibre-install marvel with a crew digging a “micro-trench” - the trench is about ~15 centimeters deep and carries critical infrastructure. After 3 months the trench was still not repaired or correctly covered leading to mototcycle accidents and local residents to address the hazard by filling them in with dirt and rocks. micro-trench-fibre-1 micro-trench-fibre-2

Infrastructure providers don’t co-operate

It’s stunning to observe how deep-rooted the rivalry is between infrastructure companies in the Philippines, in the telecommunications industry this really stands out. It’s not uncommon to see three or more sets of the same infrastructure installed right next to one another even when it’s ugly, gets-in-the-way and frequently just dangerous.
three-mobile-towers five-telegraph-poles-lots-cable

Quikshare WIFI and dancing-pigs

I found myself riding on a medium-distance bus for a few hours and discovered a dancing-pig attached to the back of the seat. The promise is for free content using your mobile handset, the problem is that the software breaks the security model of your handset to do so - ouch!
quikshare-on-bus-seat