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Yup, abu sayyaf, the filipino al qaeda is there. When I visited there was armed guards in front of most buildings. My Mom says that when she was growing up there was lots of open space and flowers. Now everything is fenced and walled in. Manila can seem worse, though, because of the places where there are shanties next to highrises.
I have cousins in Zamboanga and Manila. The English of my cousins in Zamboanga is pretty terrible, not that I'm complaining because at least they can speak it. But it takes ten minutes just to greet each other.
My cousins from Manila speak perfect English. In fact, on the phone people know they are not from the United States because their English is too perfect. They enunciate every syllable, and I don't know anyone in the U.S. that does that. I slur words, overenunciate, eat my words, mumble the end of my sentences, and butcher pronunciations altogether. And I graduated from College with Honors!
It's a sad state of affairs in American education when you can tell someone isn't from the United States because they speak American English too well. Am I off topic?
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