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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Our American Heritage
By Antonio C. Abaya Written Feb. 20, 2007 For the Standard Today, February 22 issue My two articles Idiot Candidates (Feb. 04) and An Idiot Nation (Feb. 11) drew a flood of reactions, literally from all over the world � I didn�t know until now that I have a faithful reader in Kazakhstan � and more than 90% of them were positive and supportive of my three proposals for electoral reforms. Namely, that a) all candidates for all elective offices must pass qualifying exams, so that the stupid and the ignorant are discouraged from entering politics, no matter how popular they may be with the squealing masa; b) individuals who have been convicted of or indicted for serious crimes should be barred from seeking public office; and c) senators should be elected on a regional, not national, basis, so that all regions are always represented in the Senate. Three readers have taken exception to my statement that �American-style liberalism has created an Idiot Nation that can no longer tell right from wrong.� In several previous columns, I have also written that �American-style liberalism� has prevented this country from solving its communist insurgency problem. Let me explain. Contrary to the three readers� allegations, I am not blaming the Americans for our problems. Those who have read my earlier writings know that it is not so. During the early 1990s debate on the American military bases, I was one of the few columnists who argued for their continued presence, until 1998, the centenary of the Philippine-American War and the rich symbolism that that event carried. Daily Inquirer columnist Larry Henares, who sided with the communists just because he shared their anti-Americanism, called me the most pro-American writer then, and he meant that in a pejorative, not complimentary, sense. When I referred/refer to �American-style liberalism�, I meant/mean American liberalism as filtered through the unique prism of Filipino Malay personal and social traits, which has often led to permissiveness, laxity, failure to enforce laws, reluctance to accept rules and regulations, distaste for discipline, a tendency towards anarchy, usually excused on the grounds that such an attitude is more �democratic.� As far as I know, this �democratic� attitude is not prevalent among our fellow Malays in Indonesia and Malaysia , especially in how they went about solving their communist problem. Never mind the Indonesian Solution, in which anywhere from 300,000 to three million communists and suspected communists were summarily executed by the Indonesian military from 1965 to 1972. I wrote that this solution cannot be a model for the Philippines . A reader, who does not hide his pro-communist feelings, wrote that the Philippines has been following an Indonesian Solution for years. That is an exaggeration. Just as one swallow does not a summer make, so also a few hundred dead comrades, though regrettable, do not an Indonesian Solution make. Of more interest to the Philippines would be the Internal Security Act, a legal and constitutional instrument inherited by the Malaysians (and Singaporeans) from their British colonial overlords. This empowered the state to arrest any suspected �subversive� and detain him or her indefinitely and without trial. This was how Malaysia (and Singapore ) broke the back of their communist movements in the 50s and 60s. It is still in their statute books and is now used primarily against suspected Islamic terrorists. But such a method would not pass muster in the Philippines because of our inherited �American-style liberalism� � which had no influence in Malaysia or Singapore � under which Filipino communists were/are free to organize, mobilize and proselytize against the state, even as their armed wing, the NPA, wages a violent revolution to overthrow that state. Guess which country is still stuck with a communist insurgency. Sir Robert Thompson, the British pro-consul in what became Malaysia and Singapore, who engineered the Internal Security Act in the 1950s, laid down five principles for defeating the Communists, the most relevant being the fourth principle: �The government must give first priority to identifying and defeating the political subversives, not the guerillas. The communist front organizations and the civil apparatus are the ultimate threats to the nation.� (See my article �McCarthyists�, June 28, 2006 ). Again, it is difficult to see how this no-nonsense attitude can ever be adopted in a country with 40,000 lawyers � another legacy of �American-style liberalism� � whose professional bias seems to be to prevent the state from infringing on the rights of everyone to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, including those who are expressly committed to destroying and overthrowing that state. It is not only in dealing with the communist insurgency that the Philippine state has been emasculated by �American-style liberalism.� Our electoral culture has likewise been stripped of all considerations of right and wrong, all the way from the Idiot Comelec to the Idiot Voters. I cannot imagine that a convicted child rapist like Romeo Jalosjos � or unrepentant putschists like Gregorio Honasan and Antonio Trillanes - would ever have been allowed to run for public office in Malaysia or Singapore , or even in the bastions of liberal democracy in North America and Western Europe . This is really incomprehensible, and can only be explained by the contradictions � to use a favorite Marxist buzzword � of �American style liberalism.� The influence of �American-style liberalism� is more pervasive than most Filipinos are aware of. I recall being invited to take part in a weekend workshop in the Puerto Azul resort during the early months of the Aquino presidency in 1986 or 1987. The workshop solicited ideas from the assembled media persons, academics, government executives and businessmen, on how media should or could relate with government. My contribution was to suggest that all radio and TV stations in the country should be pooled in a one-hour interactive nationwide hook-up everyday during which the people speak directly to the government about their needs, and the government speaks directly to the people about what it is doing for them, without the intervening prism of often biased commercial media with their own hidden agendas.. This idea was hooted down, especially by the media persons in attendance, on the grounds that government had no business meddling in media, that government must compete with commercial media for the viewers� attention, that government propaganda had no place in commercial media. (How could Cory Aquino possibly have competed with Vilma Santos and Nora Aunor?) These were very �American� ideas, even if those who raised these objections were not aware of it. Until around the 1950s, all radio broadcasting even in the most liberal countries of Western Europe were government monopolies. Private American-style radio stations, with their wall-to-wall pop music and commercials, first broadcast from �pirate ships� anchored outside the territorial waters of European countries, and sought to draw listeners away from government stations heavy with classical music and boring government programs. Now, of course, private commercial stations are the norm of the day. But my point was that radio and TV programming should not be confined solely to commercial broadcasts, which tend to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to grab or protect market share, and hence tend to propagate idiotic programs that idiotize their audiences. Media corporations should be reminded that the airwaves do not belong to them; they belong to the people as represented by the state and the government. The government that licenses media corporations to use those airwaves also has the eminent right to take back even only one hour out of 24, to use the communication network, if it had the imagination, in the tasks of nation-building. But these concepts are alien to Filipinos used to �American-style liberalism� that frowns on government presence in media. Finally, one reader who disagreed with the idea of qualifying exams for all candidates for public office wrote that �it will defeat the idea of Democracy and further diminish the spirit of Equality which in Mature Democracy is held by its subjects more (?) than all the rights.� Spoken like a true Jeffersonian democrat, except that Thomas Jefferson�s idea of Equality and Democracy did not include the Negro (excuse me, African-American) slaves, of which (or whom) Jefferson owned several. Democracy and Equality in the Jeffersonian sense applied only to educated, property-owning Anglo-Saxons. Athenian democracy � said to be the mother of Western democracy - likewise, embraced only the freemen in Athenian society and did not include the vast slave population. At any rate, if qualifying exams are such an affront to the Democratic Ideal, then we should do away with all such exams altogether. From now on, let open-heart surgeries be performed by ambulance drivers, if they feel like it; let jetliners be flown by the stewardesses, if that is their wont; and let the next high-rise condominium be built by a committee of unemployed drug addicts, if they think they can do it when they�re stoned. Let the stupid and the ignorant run for president or senator or congressman if they think they can win. This pseudo-democratic logic puts more weight to personal gratification than to personal qualification. . Our most precious heritage from the Americans was the public school system, unique among all colonized peoples, which gave the Philippines in 1946 a literacy rate of 67%, compared to only 9% in what became Indonesia , and only 15% in what became Malaysia and Singapore , and only 15% in what became Vietnam . How and why we lost that advantage in the past 40 years is probably our most tragic loss. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles since 2001 in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to Our American Heritage Hi Tony, If only majority of our people will read your articles in the newspaper, they will know what's going on in our "Idiot Society". Some of my Canadian colleagues were surprised that you can evade prosecution in the Philippines if you can run for high office and win. One good example is Jinggoy Estrada. He was charged with plunder with his dad. Now he is a senator. With the wheels of justice is as slow as a carabao, he is free as a bird. Keep up the good work, Tony, someday our people will realize that they were always screwed by our "Idiot Officials". I hope that there should be an Intellectual Revolution to change the sickening system. Best regards, Agustin Bacalso, (by email), Canada, Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww An excellent and insightful essay - "Our American Heritage." American liberalism is destroying the U.S. , as it has adversely affected the Philippines . Liberalism is actually an oxymoron for there is nothing liberal about emasculating a people and destroying its culture as modern liberalism does everywhere it flourishes. I recently attended a conservative political rally in Los Angeles in which obnoxiously-noisy counter-demonstrators were from communist front groups. When a conservative American of African decent rose to speak, the communists (some of whom were holding signs "end racism") shouted "go back to Africa ." Unfortunately, even literacy tests are no guarantee of avoiding buffoons as politicians, but it might be a healthy start - and, definitely, those with criminal records should be excluded. Max Ricketts, (by email), La Mesa , California , Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Thank you for sending this article ,I always forward it to my friends here in Hamilton . Ont. Canada....My name, by the way, is Mrs. Teddi Wender....been resident of this country since 1969 and there are a lot of us here so I forward articles from my friend from Los Angeles, Lucy Luciani,, They are written by you....I very highly admire you for your fluent and powerful use of words and your command to elucidate issues so we can comprehend them...Keep them rolling!!! Mrs. Teddi Wender, (by email), Hamilton, Ont. Canada, Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Many of us had been reading the sharp and straight-forward analysis of this TONY ABAYA about the Philippine situation. In most cases he simply surfaced up in a witty and simple way what most people in the Philippines know but won't dare put out in the face of those who rule. It's along this line that I have been praying for him, and for all journalists who seem to be getting on top of the list of "endangered species" in the Philippines . Please keep him too in your prayers. We need him/them. Tony Gomowad, (by email), Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww TONY, PERFECT: KUDOS TO YOU! LET US ALL MAKE THESE HAPPEN! YOUR THREE PROPOSALS- A,B,C, ADD TO THIS, D: PUBLIC FUNDING OF ELECTIONS- AND YOU WILL ELIMINATE THE MAIN REASON OF GRAFT AND CORRUPTION, TO FUND PERSONALLY EXPENSIVE ELECTIONS, AND TO STOP PAYBACK TO LARGE FINANCIAL SUPPORTERS AND SPECIAL INTEREST LOBBYISTS, THAT RUIN OUR NATIONAL WELFARE. AND WE WILL HAVE OUR MUCH NEEDED NATIONAL REBIRTH. UNDER THIS PROPOSED NEW SYSTEM: OUR ELECTED INTELLECTUAL LEADERS CAN DEDICATE THEIR TALENTS AND ENERGIES TO NATIONAL ISSUES, NATIONAL PROGRESS, NATIONAL WELFARE, AND BECOME RESPECTABLE STATESMEN, NOT DISREPUTABLE VOTE TRADERS- POLITICIANS. WE ARE NOT AGAINST AMERICANS. WE HAVE MORE TO THANK THEM FOR. WE HAVE HAD MORE ADVANTAGES COLONIZED BY AMERICANS IN LESS THAN FIFTY YEARS THAN BY THE SPANIARDS IN MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED YEARS. THE AMERICANS HAVE BEEN, COMPARATIVELY, THE BEST COMPASSIONATE COLONIZING POWER IN THE WORLD. BUT WE HAVE TO DESIGN OUR OWN DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT THAT IS COST-EFFECTIVE. AFFORDABLE BY OUR THIRD WORLD ECONOMY, WITHOUT COSTLY LIBERAL LAWFUL, MINDLESS, OBSTRUCTIONISM TO OUR SOCIAL ORDER AND GOVERNMENT, AND THE GENERAL DECADENCE OF LIBERAL MORAL, MATERIAL AND NATIONAL VALUES, ONLY AFFORDABLE AND TOLERABLE BY A VERY AFFLUENT TECHNOLOGICAL AND ENTERPRISING DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT WHERE THE MASSES ARE CREATIVE, PRODUCTIVE, LIVING WELL PROVIDED FOR, AND HAVE A MAJORITY OF VOTERS BETTER-INFORMED IN SOCIAL AND GOVERNMENT ISSUES, IN A ONE-MAN- ONE VOTE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. Rod Gabuya, (by email), Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Tony, Let me share with you an idea on elections, Philippine-style from a friend of mine. Each time we conduct national and local elections, collectively, we spend billions of pesos. The elected officials, during their term, steal from the government coffers to �repay� themselves their expenses plus some profit. And it seems we are caught in this cycle of what Secretary Neri calls �booty capitalism.� My friend�s suggestion is this: Why not just conduct a nationwide draw, much like lotto or the sweepstakes, which is very popular. Everyone knows how it is done. The mechanism could replace the Idiot Comelec and the PCSO is already in place for this task. The drawn tickets shall be matched randomly with all positions that are up for grabs � from president, senators, down to the last barangay captain or councilor. In that manner, true democracy (Philippine style) is achieved since all persons presently qualified for all positions have statistically equal chances of being elected. Emphasis on the word �statistically� must be made because we might also have an idiot PCSO. (Remember when the agency was under attack by Sen. Lim?) My friend argues that under this system, government saves what would have been spent to conduct the elections. Then, the elected officials, since they did not spend much getting the positions, may perhaps steal less. Does this promote the democratic principle, or simply add to the idiocy of this nation? (The latter, I�m afraid. ACA) Tet Gambito, (by email), Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I think you are about the most perceptive writer and columnist in the local scene today. I thoroughly enjoy your very well written and informative articles. In your latest article, you mention that "Our most precious heritage from the Americans was the public school system ..." True, but I think we should also credit the Americans for installing in the Philippines a system of Public Health. As a small boy in pre-war Ermita, I recall how the "Sanidads" (whom we as children dreaded) would go from house to house vacinating the residents against cholera and smallpox. I recall before the war that it was common to see people with faces like golf balls, all pock-marked by the ravages of smallpox. Dr. Victor Heiser, the first American Public Health director, wrote much about the state of public health in the Philippines in his now out-of-print book "An American Doctor's Odyssey." Yours truly, James Litton, (by email), Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Mr. Abaya, Maybe it should not stop at filtering the candidates. Maybe what we need is to have qualified voters to select the people who will run the government. What I'm trying to say is that a person, even if he/she is a citizen of the Philippines , should not be allowed to vote if he/she is not a taxpayer or tax filer. The only people who will be qualified to vote are the ones with a permanent address and the voter's registration card will be mailed to his/her address. I realize this will not go anywhere. Politicians like to cuddle the 'masa' to get their votes. Look at Erap. Up to now, he still plays the 'masa' game. Anyways, it's just a thought. Thanks. Chito. Salalac, (by email), Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, I suspect that those who oppose your ideas regarding the mess that we are in because of our American Democratic Heritage, have hidden agendas. They want to perpetuate this kind of national buffoonery, because it suits them well. Politics (our kind) is the fastest way of going up the social ladder and immense wealth and privileges, just ask the incumbent Mayor of Makati. You don't need a Masters, Ph.D, M.B.A, or any post-graduate courses, just be popular with the squealing masses and you've got it made. It's gotta change. We can no longer tolerate it. What's wrong with the Indonesian Solution ? It was good for Indonesia , why can't it be good for us ? Could you please elaborate ? A million lives... what's a million lives ranged against 88 million squealing Filipinos ? Maybe it would be good for the environment. Personally, what figures is the carrying capacity of the Philippines ? I think it's just 40 million. Sincerely, Auggie P.Surtida, (by email), Tigbauan, Iloilo , Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: Sixty years of actual experience with American-style democracy are enough to show that it is a system of government that has failed the majority of the Filipino people, benefiting only the political and economic elites who constitute but a small minority of the population and who have effectively colonized the country for their own selfish parochial interests. Given this empirical evidence, POSSIBLY the Philippnies would have fared better as a U.S. colony rather than as a colony of the Filipino elites themselves, Or, possibly better yet, as one of the states of the United States . The United States itself is not a perfect union. As an ongoing experiment in political and economic organization it still has its flaws. Gradually, however, through a process of gradual and purposive evolution, those flaws and imperfections are being corrected or remedied. The Philippines can amend or completely change its Constitution according to the prevailing mood and following the Machiavellian wishes of its political and economic elite. It can go Con-Con, or Con-Ass, or Con-what-have-you. No matter what the proposed change, the country would in all likelihood still be in the vise-like grip of a small minority of Filipinos who have proven themselves very bad colonizers. (But will the white-majority in the US agree to take in 85 million dark-skinned, quarrelsome Filipinos into the union? I rather doubt it. ACA) Mariano Patalinjug, (by email), Yonkers , NY , Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I agree completely with your recommendation. Certain minimum standards for national elective officials must be satisfied to measure their strength of mind and character. How can Congress legislate if the nation has a Congress built around actors, sports celebrities, and other people of questionable character like the Revillas, the Lapids, the Ejercitos, etc. People who left the country must come back and give to this nation a new breed of leaders without stains in their character and without plaques in their brains. Dr. Nestor P. Baylan, (by email), New York City, Feb. 24, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww "My contribution was to suggest that all radio and TV stations in the country should be pooled in a one-hour interactive nationwide hook-up everyday during which the people speak directly to the government about their needs, and the government speaks directly to the people about what it is doing for them, without the intervening prism of often biased commercial media with their own hidden agendas.." Direct feedback in open fora to top officials candidly delivered is the best way to test how bright (or dull) our leaders are. It is a joy for me to watch President Bush's special report when he meets the media and tries to answer carefully phrased questions by the reporters present....How pathetic the picture suddenly turns out to be when this president stumbles all over the place...saying...NOTHING OF VALUE! (Sigh). Tony As a media man from the sixties in Manila bolstered by new infotech strides I endorse this idea wholeheartedly...and cut down on red tape (which is the source of corruption but bypassed by wireless direct technology of today). Yes, let us endorse this, tocayo,. once again...with greater vigor! Tony Joaquin, (by email), Daly City CA , Feb. 25, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Why don't you put your proposal to a test? Why not ask a high school graduate, for instance, to apply for an engineering license? If PRC rejects the application by virtue of lack of academic qualification, then it can be argued to PRC ( a quasi-judicial body) and even to the Supreme Court, the unconstitutionality of the professional laws for lack of equality in application. Inversely, it will put the qualifications for elective positions in question. Maybe this is the small stone you need to create the ripple. The worst thing that can happen is that it is the professional laws that will be revised to accomodate anyone without the qualifications to be at par with the requisites for elective positions. That will be the day of judgment. Serrano, (by email), Southern California , Feb 27, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Mr. Abaya, Very well said - I heartily agree with your idea of putting into place qualifying exams for all candidates. I am certainly appalled that convicted child molesters and putschists can run for office! My thoughts are, with its 7,000+ islands and how many different ethnicities, the Philippines is deeply prone to the negative effects of misinformation, wildly varying levels of education, and pluralism to an exaggerated degree, and this allows for almost anyone to find pockets of support from people who know little more than to blindly support someone based on propaganda, family ties, groupthink psychology, etc. Like the failed Confederate government of the United States in its early years, there doesn't seem to be enough of a center of power to allow the country to govern itself efficiently. Is this true? I also wanted to react to the following statement by one of your readers: �Finally, one reader who disagreed with the idea of qualifying exams for all candidates for public office wrote that �it will defeat the idea of Democracy and further diminish the spirit of Equality which in Mature Democracy is held by its subjects more (?) than all the rights.� The key words that struck me there are, "Mature Democracy." How mature is Philippine democracy really, despite being the oldest in Asia? As you pointed out in your article, the Americans and the Greek Athenians in their early years knew that opening up the opportunity to govern the country to just anyone was a recipe for disaster. As it does not pander specifically to the elites, a qualifying exam would be a good, modern program (untainted by the overt racism in early American policies) to keep Government of the Country the hallowed institution that it should be. Please continue writing. Yours, Basilio Valdehuesa, (by email), New York University, NY, Feb. 28, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Let's not just focus on qualifications of candidates. While I agree that we should screen out the unworthy as much as it could be systematically and rationally done, the same should also apply to voters. We simply cannot have a huge mass of unthinking voters forcing the majority choice; I would like to think that the framers of populist democracy intended that this would have resulted from a process of deliberate thought. There must be a way to ensure that we have only educated and informed voters actually picking out the most qualified candidates to elective positions. Being merely 18 years old should not suffice as a qualification to the right of suffrage. You have to be reasonably aware of your responsibilities and the consequences when that right is exercised. By all means, give everyone a minimum of one vote as a matter of democratic right (whether such right be stupidly exercised or not) but those who pay more taxes consistently and honestly, and effectively demonstrate competency in exercising suffrage should be given extra votes. This peculiar weighing will hopefully enable the thinking and better-qualified voter to balance out the "stupid masa" who inflict unworthy elected officials on the rest of us. As to how this equitable and rationalized system of suffrage can be operationalized can be best left to the experts who should be left alone by politicians and unscrupulous interest groups in the process of formulation. It does sound radical but I believe that it is worth a try if only to see politicians pander less to the movie star-struck crowd and come up with a real program of government and legislation to sell to voters. And I further believe that this system gives a bigger voice to those who pay far more for the cost of government rather than those who just get a free ride and basically serve as mindless voting blocs for hire/sale every election time. When, oh when? RR, (by email), March 04, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Reactions to �Seize the Moment� (Feb. 18, 2007) Tocayo, This is the sort of forum I thought of ..vis a vis your columns, but with hard copies for high school, college and post-grad Pinoys all over the nation...then you and your ideas have that impact...for they can be discussed and commented on. Mabuhay ka! Tony Joaquin, (by email), Daly City CA , Feb. 27, 2007 wwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, My wife shops at the military commisary here in Virginia . The price of Spam has gone up at least 10% here. It is now $2.20, a few months ago it was $1.99 Another reason; there are more Pinoys in Virginia now sending balikbayan boxes. Regards, Frank, (by email), Virginia , Feb.28, 2007 wwwwwwwwww Hello Tony, It is great that the rate of exchange from dollar to peso is going down in peso's favor. Good for Philippines economy and good for our fellow Filipinos who MAYBE can get a cheaper imported goods, and I say only MAYBE, because our traders had the habit of taking advantage on this situation to get more profit by keeping the selling price even when acquisition price is going down. Then there's the question of why? who's getting the credit? Is it because of the administration? I say definitely NOT. The main reason why the exchange is going down is because of the Filipinos abroad who are sending more and more money to their families and friends back home. When the cost of living goes up, our people abroad tend to send more, so their families can cope up with expenses. That's what's happening now, the administration is so full of corruption, dirty politics and BS that cost of living continues to go up, our people kept complaining and suffering that relatives and friends abroad are sending more money than usual, more BB boxes, plus the fact that more and more Filipinos are going abroad to earn more. They will go anywhere, even in areas where there is war and more dangerous places just to get out of Philippines and help their families to survive and keep them from hunger. To date, how many OFW's do we have, plus the immigrants, and other naturalized citizens of other countries, and the TNT's abroad? It's probably by ten million now. Dollar remittances goes up every day coming from all over the world send in by these people . Last year there is a recorded 12.4 BILLION DOLLARS sent back home, and that is only the recorded ones. What about the money being brought in by Filipinos going home , money being sent in thru them by friends and relatives for their families back home? (They do this to avoid paying the excessive remittance fees), plus the money being spent by these people back home for every visit, (Hotels, restaurants, local goods brought back, tips, etc. etc....). How many Filipinos goes home everyday? Flights are always full and these people are also bringing BB boxes worth millions of dollars a year. Plus the BB boxes that is brought in by BB box carriers. Who's accounting these? These are worth probably billions of dollars every year. 10, 15, 20 years ago, these dollars and BB boxes sent back home are insignificant, but now these are the only thing that's keeping Philippines alive. Without these, Philippines would have been blown out of the map, chaos, hunger, civil war, sickness, massive killing, looting, riots and disorder due to lack of food and shelter could have happened. Philippines is still lucky because of our love for our families, our closeness, resilience, flexibility, industriousness, love of God, patience, knowledge, and our sense of humor. Despite of all these problems, more and more senior Filipinos are choosing to live back home. With their savings and pensions, they tend to live a better life back there than abroad. Cost of living is still cheaper when their pension and savings are in dollars. A mere 2000 US dollars/month of pension plus their savings is good enough for an older couple to live on in the Philippines, while 2000 dollars/month here in America is barely living in a government assisted convalescent home. Thank you, Fred Santos, (by email), San Ramon , California , Feb. 28, 2007 wwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi Tony and everybody, CARPE DIEM! And may I suggest that, as we seize the moment, we shed ourselves of prejudice, hatred, suspicion and egocentrism lest we become a run-away rocket that could explode and destroy the GOOD that is already building up. We have to accept (or swallow, for the hopelessly biased) the INDISPUTABLE numbers (not necessarily those coming only from the Administration and certainly not from its detractors, Ibon surveys, etc.) that the economy has improved a lot since after EDSA-2 DESPITE repeated efforts by those who wish to put this Administration down as they are threatened by its success. I dare say that HAD the anti-government forces and those who continue to idiotize the squealing masa (quite a graphic term, ha) shifted to a more constructive mode of fiscalizing, we could have achieved more and now in a much better situation slugging it out in the world market for our share of its benefits. WE have, no doubt, what it takes to succeed in our dream of raising the quality of life of our people. Ironically, we, too, are our own worst enemy due to selfishness and defeatist attitude that makes our induced pessimism self-fulfilling. We keep on talking about corruption in all levels to the point of making it appear that corruption is the norm rather than the exception. This becomes the general impression and thus expected to be so to the glee of the detractors and doom-Sayers. Some are even proud to admit that they have resorted to bribing to get their way smoothly over others and yet later shout about corruption that they themselves patronized or even instigated. In fairness, the administration never downplayed the contribution of our OFWs. Its very significant contribution has always been part of its growth statistics without counting though the hard-to-quantify underground economy and unrecorded remittances. It is however unfair to credit whatever gains we are making solely to OFW remittances. No matter how one hates this Administration (for whatever scripted reason) you have to credit it with surviving in the midst of opposition/leftist destabilization and still able to manage the economy by making unpopular decisions or taking bitter pills that lead to a healthier if not robust economy. Since time immemorial people of the world move to where the greener pastures are. This is a natural human phenomenon that starts when farmers leave the comforts of home to go to the fields to work the land. Where the struggling middle class employee trek daily to work away from his out-of-town subdivision to earn a better than average living in some foreign company in the City. Our Diaspora did not happen overnight under this administration. Rather, it is fair to say that the increasing number is because of the apparent improvement in the lives of those left behind that gave the impetus for others to join the band wagon. Apart from frustrations in seeing no let-up to destructive politics. (By the way, why are Korean families coming in droves to settle in our supposed God-forsaken country? They probably see something good that jaundiced eyes fail to see.) The remittances serve to jumpstart or prime the economy in many areas. Astute businessmen take advantage of this by bringing goods and services closer to where the purchasing power is resulting in microeconomic activities. One does not need a Ph.D. in economics in some Ivy League University abroad to tell us that this results in economic stimulation that results in perking up the industries that results in job creation that results in having food or more food on the table of Juan de la Cruz and his neighbor Mang Andoy. Only the na�ve, mentally dishonest, the opposition and the leftists (not necessarily in that order) will expect this to happen overnight then blame the Administration if they do not see it happening the following day! Shalom and Carpe diem! E.J. T.Tirona, (by email), Paranaque City, Feb. 28, 2007 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |