High Dynamic Range Photography by Carl Roessler

The Philippines

Manila, Corregidor and the Memorial of the Pacific

From 1977 to 1988, the Philippines were one of our most active diving destinations and favorite dive regions. The country was colorful, the people enormously friendly.

When I was first approached to take divers out to the best dive sites, the boats were not even close to our standards for comfort, but a couple of years later the M.V. Seaquest appeared and we could house sixteen divers comfortably. Now we had the country to explore. From Manila with its Memorial of the Pacific (where more than 30,000 allied war dead lie beneath white crosses around a huge pavilion) to Corregidor http://www.corregidorisland.com/ the destroyed island fortress which led to the fall of the Philippines and the Bataan Death March. Corregidor held out valiantly, and when it was finally overwhelmed, General Jonathan Wainwright sent a message to Washington that began, There is a limit to human endurance…

We traveled South to dive in Batangas Province and drove North to Banaue and Ifugao to see the 2,000-year-old Rice Terraces (which were actually under construction over several thousand years). One day in the late 1970s, Jessica and I were returning to the Manila Hotel from a morning in the city. We heard a commotion in a side corridor, approaching where we were standing at a bookshop right off the immense main lobby.

The commotion was James Bond (actually, Sean Connery), followed by a horde of reporters.
When they reached a point a few feet from where we were standing, Mr. Connery turned, drew himself to his full Bondian height and addressed the reporters. (Gentlemen,” he said. “I am now going to walk across that lobby—alone.”

Connery turned on his heel and walked—and the reporters stood frozen as if struck dumb. Whoa! That is Command.

The Memorial of the Pacific is an extensive memorial containing more than 30,000 wooden crosses arrayed about a magnificent central pavilion within which are huge mosaic of the major battles in which they fell.

The Philippines will always have many wonders for me; memories of ones experiences can never be taken away…

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Corregidor and the Memorial of the Pacific

Manila, Memorial and Banaue