This postcard was Sherwin’s second attempt to reach my mailbox; I am glad that he was ultimately successful. The card is oversized (13 cm x 17 cm), and he sent it inside a clear postcard sleeve — which leads me to believe that he sent his first postcard that way, and that the sleeve got caught up in the machinery, and that the postcard was probably devoured. The sleeve on this postcard was lucky to have made it through.

Surrounding the map on this postcard are a number of images of beautiful destinations throughout the islands. Rather than enumerate all of them, I will tell you that I especially like the second image at the top (“Colorful Ati-atihan Festival, Kalibo”) and the third image in the right-hand column (“Beautiful lagoon of El Nido, Palawan”). Wish there was a single view postcard available of that one. Sherwin is from the Bicol Region, famous for the perfect cone of the Mayon Volcano, depicted in the third image in the top row.

This card was produced by PhilippinesPostcards.com, which has some terrific Philippines e-cards available to send for free, and of course actual Philippines postcards to buy.

“The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It’s why we participate in all of these great international organizations.

“There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power — and here I think you’re referring to military power — then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can’t deal with.

“I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

“So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don’t think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.

“We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years… and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home… to live our own lives in peace.”

– Secretary of State Colin Powell, at the World Economic Forum, 26 January 2003, responding to an assertion by George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, that the United States ”is in danger of relying too much upon the hard power and not enough upon building trust”.