By Jigs Carabeo

Oh okay! The citizens of the world have won! We have won. The pandemic has been adeptly conquered and almost all countries on the planet have opened their doors again to local and international travelers to boost their battered economies. 

Gone are the stringent requirements and hassle of complying with all documentation for travel. For the moneyed and those who were fortunate enough to have saved their funds but shelved their plans temporarily, today’s revenge travel is like a defiant global movement to show the world how it has defeated the pandemic. Here’s to you, Covid-19, with arms lifted and a dirty finger up in the air! 

The people’s wanderlust needs to be satiated big time, and rightfully so. It is a human right to travel. It is enshrined in the constitutions of the world. It’s akin to open season at the OK Corral! Yee haw! Have money, will travel! Have no money, will borrow from credit cards then will travel! We think we have this all figured out.

My family had been blessed to have our fair share of travels pre-pandemic, over a dozen foreign trips, and a handful of local trips. Yeah, mea culpa—shamefully, I admit, it might have been a wrong decision to go abroad instead of exploring our own country. 

At that time, I was probably thinking that foreign family trips were more impactful. Ooops! Nope. Lest someone reacts violently, it was definitely not for social media posts, but primarily for my two children to experience a foreign culture. In my mind at that time, my two children, aged 11 and five, would have more to learn and experience abroad rather than here.  

We could be in Japan or South Korea with the same flight duration as a flight to the northernmost part of North Luzon, give or take a few hours with the necessary road transfers to and from the airport. I hate long driving, such a lame excuse. Besides, I always felt that local travel could be made any time we wanted to. Then the pandemic struck.

During one of my musings, I realized that my two kids hadn’t even been to Baguio, the summer capital of the Philippines! They haven’t been to Cebu, our Queen City of the South! The children and I have not even set foot in the Land of Promise—Mindanao! Indeed, this was a shocking and a bit shameful revelation for me. 

I strongly feel I betrayed our dear motherland, cavorting with and helping other nations while ultimately and unabashedly neglecting her—or relegating her to second fiddle. I was not aware, let alone mindful, of how local travel could provide jobs, which would, in turn, benefit their families’ subsistence, which in turn could keep the local tourism business and related businesses afloat and ultimately help our country’s economy as a whole. It’s a whole economic ecosystem!

The pandemic opened my eyes to this. Airports, renowned theme parks, popular resorts, hotels and bed and breakfasts, malls, and restaurants all around the world had been eerily empty for far too long. Popular tourist attractions normally teeming with people were closed. It was understandable as experts were still “developing” the preventive protocols to combat the pandemic. 

Millions lost their jobs, and countless businesses succumbed. On those fateful days, the world economy came to a screeching halt. A real-life and real-time post-apocalyptic scenario unfolded right before our own eyes. Those were, indeed, scary times.
 

Knowing now what I did not know then, I made a promise to myself and the two children, now 23 and 17. Next time we travel, I will bring them to these places in our country to balance their learning experience. Not only will we be able to contribute in our own small way to jumpstart our own nation’s tourism chain, but more important, I will also empower the kids with knowledge of our own roots and heritage. As a father, whose age is running toward senior citizenship at breakneck speed, it’s the best I can do for them to even things out.
 

Consider this as a pitch and a plea. For those in the midst of today’s revenge travel frenzy, please consider local travel too, or at least have a balanced local and foreign holiday itinerary. It’s the least we can do to make a small difference and help one another in this season of go, go, go, as often as you can, as far away as you can. Yes! Go to Singapore but don’t forget to go to Siargao. Visit Australia but also spend time in Davao. Experience Japan but also experience what Marinduque has to offer, and so on and so forth. Happy, safe, and blessed travels, everyone!