If there is one lesson I learned from my trip to Thailand, it's that if a country has interesting and wonderful things to offer, all it has to do is aggressively promote it to the rest of the world.
In the wake of a political unrest that made headlines and alarmed tourists for a couple of months, Thailand's tourism industry has managed to bounce back as quickly as it crumbled in April and May.
It invited the media to see for themselves how alive the streets of Bangkok are, how flamboyant its ladyboys have remained, and how flattering it feels to be the recipient of Thai hospitality.

It is sad that the Philippines' tourism campaign -- once the talk of South East Asia, thanks to Wow Philippines TV commercials that graced international channels such as CNN and the BBC -- has fallen by the wayside in recent years, for a number of reasons. Some of my friends argue that the height of our country's glorious marketing period was also the peak of insurgency that led to the kidnapping of foreigners in some of the country's most beautiful places. Some would say that Richard Gordon was the only man to have ever accomplished anything when it came to telling the world what we had to offer, and the fact that he no longer has control over the Department of Tourism is a shame.

I think that it simply isn't a priority. I don't know how much of the government's budget is allotted to tourism, but it certainly isn't enough. I don't see any TVC airing on CNN, and I don't even know if they are campaigning in Dubai, where half a million Filipinos live and interact with two hundred other nationalities.

We are not making waves. We are not making noise. We are barely surviving.

What do we do? Well I can start by exploring my country.
And then spread the word.