But let's pause a while and try to understand how well we are doing as an investor and tourist attraction and try even to relate this with the number of international airports we have.

First off: How many international airports do we in fact have? Let's count them. You have Laoag, which is meant to attract the gamblers to the casino there; you have Clark aka the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport; you have Manila with its Terminal 1, its Centennial aka PAL terminal, its Domestic terminal and the white elephant Terminal 3; you have Cebu; and you have Davao, I think even Zamboanga is tagged an international airport. I won't be surprised if Puerto Princesa's airport, Iloilo's and Bacolod's are also called "international" airports. Which brings us to at least five or even nine international airports in the Philippines.

Add two more if the plans to build the Cagayan airport and one on tiny Panglao island push through.

And how many tourists have we welcomed to our shores? A whopping total of three million is what I understand to be the total figure. At least, that is, of the legal arrivals who properly register with the BID.

But is the figure of 3 million something to cheer about? Yes, if we contrast it to historic figures. No, if we contrast it to the figures of our neighbors.

The World Tourism Organization, based in Madrid, Spain, has published data (for 2004 unless otherwise indicated) showing the following figures of tourist arrivals for countries in our region: Malaysia, 15 million; Thailand, 11 million; Singapore (2003 figures) 5.7 million; Indonesia, 5.3 million; Vietnam, 2.9 million; Philippines, 2.2 million; Cambodia, 1 million; and Laos and Myanmar, 200,000 each. The same data shows 8 million for Macao, 13 million for Hong Kong and 41 million for China.

More recent figures highlight even further the growing gap between our arrivals and those of our neighbors: Malaysia, for example, claims to have welcomed 17.55 million tourists in 2006. Hong Kong claims to have welcomed 2.4 million tourists - for the month of March alone, and China claims to have welcomed 132 million overseas tourists in 2007.

So what's wrong with the Philippines? Surely it is not a lack of international airports. And yet it is to building new airports that many of our planners seem to be focused on. Maybe because, like the case of Terminal 3, there is money to be made on the side?

When the NAIA administrators issued a release some months back that the NAIA has been rated to be "up to global standards" my immediate reaction was that global standards must have gone down significantly. Maybe they were referring to the runway - a bit bumpy, as a Cathay Pacific pilot once warned - or the approach lights, or the ability of our air traffic controllers to guide planes in and out of the airport in whatever weather condition. Maybe, in these areas, we are "good enough" for international standards, though definitely far from the standards of a Hong Kong international, or a Changi, or an Incheon, or a Souva.whatever the name of the new Bangkok airport is, or even that of the new Ho Chi Minh airport.

Security? Well, long before the Americans imposed restrictions on non-passengers entering air terminals - you will be amazed that before 9-11, departing passengers in the US could actually be escorted by relatives and friends all the way to the boarding gate, and similarly welcomed right there! - we were already limiting access to the airports not so much for security reasons, I think, but for practical reasons, given our cultural trait of having every parent, brother and sister, cousin, nephew and niece and grandparent from both sides of the family be part of the "hatid" and "sundo".

Airport facilities? Now this is where I was skeptical about the findings, because surely the NAIA 1 terminal isn't up to global standards unless, as I said earlier, we've lowered this just to make NAIA pass, the way the Supreme Court, for example, lowers the passing rate of the Bar exams to make more examinees pass.

In fact I once came across a chat room of Pinoys where the question posed was this: Which do you consider the worst airport in the world? And you can guess which the runaway winner was. Maybe the chat room folks were being unfair to the NAIA - surely there are worse airports out there - but then again why make ourselves feel better by comparing our facilities to the worst of its kind when in fact we should always be challenging ourselves to be the best of the lot?

Oh well, if the plans for Cagayan and Panglao push through, we will soon have a dozen international airports servicing tourists whose numbers don't even add up to a flood. But will that stop the building? No, not specially if for every government project there is a "bukol" here or a "tongpats" there. Not to mention the bonanza that will go to the owner of the real estate surrounding the airports!

I guess that famous line "If you build it, they will come" doesn't apply to our airports and our tourists. It is more like "If you build it, I will earn."

From the looks of it, to foreign tourists, WOW Philippines is still WHY Philippines, if you ask me.