CLARK FREEPORT – The Department of Tourism (DOT) slogan “It’s more fun in the Philippines!” seems to be to the contrary in this freeport as well as in nearby Angeles City.
According to at least two groups of professional photographers, the Pinoy Video Makers and the Wedding Portrait Photographers of the Philippines, it’s no longer fun to shoot for photographs in Clark.
Professional photographer Robert Canlas said a fee of P10,000 is being charged by the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) for a pre-nuptial photo shoot in Clark.
He said his clients would rather go to Macau, Malaysia or Singapore where everything is free after you booked a ticket. Their governments even encourage it by offering discounted hotel accommodations just to help promote their cities, he said.
Canlas said some of his colleagues have done pre-nuptial photography in some of the most sensitive and secured places in the world like the World Trade Center in the USA. He said New York City even allowed the use of fire trucks and police cars as props for the photo shoots.
He said some of the best in the business like prominent fashion, wedding and editorial photographer Patrick Uy and renowned Russian fashion master photographer Oleg Mischeyev were turned off by the seemingly inhospitable attitude of some Clark authorities.
Canlas said Mischeyev believed that the Clark Parade Grounds, which is actually rectangular, symbolizes eternity. Canlas said Mischeyev told him that “way back a long, long, time ago he used to photograph Americans in Clark but now it comes with a stiff price.”
Another incident involved a family of five from Macau who went here to participate in the Radio Controlled Model Aircraft Demonstration in February as part of the Hot Air Balloon Festival.
Canlas said the Macau tourists were surprised when taxi drivers at the SM City Clark terminal separated them and were charging them P1,200 for two taxi cabs that will bring them back to their hotel in Clark.
Canlas said the crew of PEP TV came to their aid by bringing them back to their hotel in their vehicle.
A proprietor of a travel agency said she witnessed how a tricycle driver charged P500 fare from SM Clark to nearby Century Hotel from a couple, an American and his Filipina fiancée.
She said she happened to be at the hotel when she saw the couple pay P500 to the tricycle driver who immediately left. She said she was told by the couple that they came from SM. She said this incident is not isolated but is happening all the time in Angeles City.
It can be recalled that an official of the DOT in Central Luzon has lamented the lack of sensitivity of policemen in Angeles City who prey on tourists.
He recalled an incident some years ago involving American tourists who visited the Holy Rosary Parish Church in Angeles City to see where a World war II Japanese Zero fighter plane crashed on its roof.
But local policemen accosted the driver of the jeepney they hired for being “out of line” and shooed the tourists away.
Meanwhile, the DOT said recently that Philippine tourism sustains its robust performance as foreign visitor arrivals for the first four months of 2013 reached 1,649,458 or a 10.12% increase from the same period in 2012.
The first four months represent 30 percent of the target arrivals for 2013, with the month of January yielding the largest volume of 436,079 visitors and February generating the highest growth of 15.52%.
