HIGH LIFE: A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Visit to Philippines Is All Relative : Travel: Sunny Hills sophomore on vacation finds similarities and differences in the country of her ancestors.

“Oh, think twice. It’s just another day for you and me in paradise.”

Phil Collins’ voice floated through the car’s stereo speakers as I drove the streets of Manila in December.

My family and I were visiting relatives in the Philippines, where 90% of the citizens are poor and a middle class is almost nonexistent.

The three-week trip really forced me to think twice about my life, trapped as I have been for 16 years in the microcosm that is Southern California. I never truly realized that people in other parts of the world live so differently.

Poverty touched me closer than it ever had before because I saw my relatives living so close to it, and because I realized that it was only by fate that I escaped it. My father, an engineer, and my mother, an accountant, met and married in the Philippines, but they moved to the United States 18 years ago to pursue a better standard of living.

My grandmother on my mother’s side and one of her daughters, however, still live in Tayabas, about 60 miles southeast of Manila, the country’s capital.

A foot of sewer- and rainwater flooded the central street of her neighborhood during our visit. The dingy water lapped upon the doormats of the rusty and often door-less shacks that lined the street.

People who were without bathrooms bathed, unconcealed, on the sidewalk under a running water pipe.

The neighborhood’s other streets are unpaved and barely wide enough to allow the passage of a car. Densely packed houses and a mass of loitering children, adults and chickens, dogs and cats suffocated the streets. Movement was frustratingly slow in this crowded and communal world.

We spent Christmas Day at my grandmother’s house, which is in the nicer part of Tayabas. Her house has running water, a TV and a toilet that flushes. But there isn’t running hot water, and the electricity is often turned off for hours by the government. The citizens call this rationing a “brownout” and didn’t complain, even if they had to bathe by flashlight.

On Christmas Day we attended Mass (the country is predominantly Catholic) and received visitors at my grandmother’s house.

Groups of children were out and about, singing Christmas carols in hopes of receiving money or candy. Few had received presents or had a Christmas tree.

I had visited the Philippines for the first time five years ago. Since then, neither the people nor the places had changed much. It’s almost as if time moves more slowly because of the perpetual, oppressing heat and humidity.

While my brother, sister and I have matured into almost entirely different people over that time, my cousins seemed to have the same faces and personalities.

Shoemart, the equivalent of our May Co., is still the country’s major department store, and Jollybee, which is like McDonald’s, remains the fast food restaurant of choice.

People prefer to shop in the street markets, which are like swap meets, rather than the shopping malls, even in Manila.

The traffic in the capital city and on the country’s highways is even more crowded than are our freeways during rush hour. Impatient drivers often turn two lanes into three by squeezing their cars in between two others. Drivers have to be aggressive here if they ever hope to reach their destinations.

We often drove between Manila and the district of Pampanga, a rural area to the north where my dad’s brothers and sisters live, but because of the traffic, it took three hours to make the 20-mile, one-way drive.

Two things come to mind when I think of Pampanga: beautiful, green fields and the smell of caribou droppings.

Most Pampangans have a blunt honesty and are generally more demonstrative in terms of hugging and kissing than people from the city. They speak Pampangan (which I couldn’t understand), a derivation of the country’s official language of Tagalog.

My grandmother and aunt speak Tagalog, which I can usually understand but have difficulty speaking.

The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo last year minimally affected Pampanga, which is about 35 miles south of the volcano. Volcanic ash buried 10 feet of basement in my aunt and uncle’s three-level house. They continue to live there, though the lower level now has a dirt floor and a considerably lower doorway.

The value of the peso, the Filipino currency, dropped since my last visit. In 1987, the exchange rate was 20 pesos to $1. Now, it’s 25 pesos to $1. And everything is relatively inexpensive. A bottle of Coke costs about 25 cents.

In residential neighborhoods, sodas and snacks are sold out of houses, with the money and items exchanged through barred windows. Unlike here, the Filipino government hasn’t establish separate residential, commercial and agricultural zones.

While I would never choose to live permanently in the Philippines, my recent visit was an eye-opening experience. The country lacks the order I have always taken for granted, but I must admit that life is more relaxed there.

Jhoanna Infante, 16, is a sophomore at Sunny Hills High School, where she is a page editor for Accolade, the student newspaper, and a member of the Junior Statesmen of America and Key clubs.