THE PHILLIPINES: "Would the lady in row sixteen like to come up and give us a song? A big clap for the fair-haired lady with the white shirt," the handsome young air steward shouted down the plane's crackling intercom.
The announcement woke me from my snooze. I had been up early to catch the Cebu Pacific flight from Zamboanga city in the southern Philippines to the capital Manila. I looked to my right and my left. No fair-haired lady sitting beside me. With horror I realised I was the focus of the steward's attention.
"Yes you Ma'm. Come on up" Manuel chirped.
I stuck to my seat, vigorously shaking my head. The steward eventually ignored me. I was given no warning that singing competitions were the current rage on Philippine domestic flights. For the next 30 minutes, I was entertained by passengers singing their hearts out, some badly, for a prize of a leather wallet cum mobile phone holder.
Welcome to the Philippines, a land where the sun shines, everybody smiles, and people love to sing . . . even on aircraft.
But this happy in-flight scene is a long way from the misery on the ground in a country where acute poverty, political corruption and a shattered economy provide very little reason to sing, or to smile.
On the outskirts of the Philippine capital, Manila, shanty towns line pot-holed dirt tracks that wind through vast squatter settlements.
In the Payatas district, a mountain of the city's waste rises to a height of 150 feet. Ironically tagged "the Promised Land", this steaming rubbish dump is both home and livelihood for thousands of the poorest Filipinos. Ten thousand tons of rubbish is offloaded there every day.
Ragged armies of scavengers, many of them barefoot children, pick through the mounds of rubbish spread over 74 acres. Elderly women carry sacks of plastic, glass and scrap metal for recycling co-operatives. The hardest workers can expect to earn 100 pesos, less than $4, for a 12-hour day. It is good money compared to the $1 a day to be earned on labouring jobs in the city.
The Philippine President, Ms Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, visited the district on January 20th to celebrate her first anniversary as president. But she stopped well way from the stench of the dump site.
It has not been a good year for Arroyo. Twelve months ago, she was swept to the post of president in a second "people power" revolution after her playboy predecessor, Joseph Estrada, was deposed. The country has been racked by economic turmoil, worsening crime and more killings and kidnappings in the south ever since.
In the last few weeks, Ms Arroyo has seen the return of United States forces after an absence of 10 years to assist the Philippine army against the Abu Sayyaf group, which has links with Osama bin Laden's al- Queda. US soldiers - 660 will be based in Zamboanga in the south - will soon start joint training exercises with local troops.
There is widespread dissatisfaction with Arroyo in this country of 80 million people, where almost half of the population live below the poverty line. The view is that the smooth, Yale-educated economist and daughter of former president Diosdado Macapagal has failed to end the culture of corruption that has dominated the country for decades.
The economic problems are staggering. 40 per cent of the budget is committed to debt servicing, and per capita income is stuck at the same level as in the mid-1980s. Population growth remains a problem, with President Arroyo bowing to the Catholic Church's strident opposition to an effective national birth control programme.
It has not been all bad. Gloria can take credit for containing the budget deficit, cutting inflation and boosting tax collections in a society where tax evasion is a way of life. Even critics concede she heads an administration that is less corrupt, and more disciplined and focused, than its predecessor.
The President's biggest political problem remains her inability to connect with the poor, who were Estrada's strongest constituency. Although the former movie star, now in prison awaiting trial on corruption charges, stands accused of being a thief, a drunk and a womaniser, Manila's poor still adore him.
Hiring a crack media team to work on her image has not helped. The President employed the renowned advertising firm, Buston-Marsteller, on an $800,000 contract to improve her ratings. Last week more eyebrows were raised when, on her return from a visit to the United States, Arroyo announced she wanted to hire the former New York Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, as her crime buster and consultant on law and order. If he accepts, he would confront a growing drug problem and kidnap gangs that prey on businessmen and drive away investors. The country's tourist industry has been decimated as a result of the activities of these bandits.
However, it would take more than Giuliani's zero tolerance policy, which helped clean up New York, to crush the Abu Sayyaf group. To shore up her political position, Arroyo needs to have a more substantial plan up her sleeve.