20 years ago, the country seemed to have successfully thrown off the corruption of a decades old dictatorship.

Still, the Philippines finds itself in the same predicament after staging another "successful" people power revolution.

What makes it worse is the current administration seems to have learned from the past & will not allow history to repeat itself yet again.

The people feel it was all just a waste and are not too keen on putting themselves in harm's way again so that a different set of politicians can fleece them. But they are seething.

They are being fed the line that the economy is getting better all the while inflation is quite tangible. The true backbone of the economy, the overseas workforce, is under unbelievable pressure from the falling US dollar.

The masses, though too jaded to act, is like a volcano building up pressure all the while "doming" but not erupting.

They see the evidence of corruption from the lowest rung all the way to the top of the government. Bribery is everywhere. Its their sick culture. They are resigned to its acceptance. The 9/11 terrorists probably decided to learn to fly in the philippines precisely because of the state of affairs.

Poverty is the norm. Crime rate is high. They hear news of corruption that would've netted a couple elites $137 million dollars in just one single deal.

The top brass of police & military further demoralizing the masses by their unwavering pledge to "uphold the constitution," i.e. keep the current administration in power at all costs.

Soon the rising dome of this volcano will begin to show cracks from the pressure build up inside it; the seething angst of its exploited masses. Its the immovable object destined to meet the irresistible force.

The situation in the Philippines is a tinderbox sitting on an enormous amount of inflammable mass.

The wife of a freind at work is from the Phillipines, and she is afraid for her family there.

The status of the government there can also be seen in other nations of the world. Crumbling and rotting from the inside out. I've been to the Phillipines and it is a very beautiful country, but also extremely poor.

The situation of the government there can be seen as a reflection to a degree in other countries. In the U.S. it does not matter who gets into office, democrats or republicans. Once they get into office, we have the same thing again.

Dear all,

I live in the Philippines, and all you say is true. Or at least I feel it is true. Last time I went and rant about this, MODs penalized me, but that's just me. Probably because I was too emotional?

We have a lot of educated people here and most of my people are linguists, musicians, and jack-of-all-trades and masters of some. Let me try to describe how we are in my own words/analogy.

Here in the Phils., we feed pigs with what we call "kanin baboy" and it's basically a mixture of left-overs. So suffice it to say that a Filipino individual in another country is stunning and impressive like a creme brule or an exotic fruit or a pancake... but put together and all mashed up - we are kanin baboy.

We are plagued by secret societies and the ruling elite. We are intelligent, but we dare not think for we are religious. We believe in so many things but never ourselves. It may be because of our history?

Unlike other countries/regimes, we never really paid blood for our "freedom". Questions like, "Why are the Japanese rich and affluent when they fought our allies (US and the Allied Forces) and raped our women and plundered our lands?" arise and so do, "Why is God punishing us when we're the only ones worshiping Him hereabouts?" [then sometimes, "Why is Vietnam ahead of us when they looked like us in the 60's just 10years ago? Isn't Vietnam an enemy of the US? Did I not kiss the @$$ of Spain and the US?"].

Yes, we did have the KKK, and it does have the same initials as the KKK of another country. but those were our rebel heroes back then, who also operated with the pyramid stucture and used the all seeing eye as a logo so GO FIGURE!!!

That was then, so is it still today... [ramblings and rants!]

The Philippines is an amazing contradiction, even more if you consider that it was one of the top economies in the Asia Pacific Region during the 60's, even above Korea.

It has a very well educated bureaucracy and business community but the over-population and corruption are big obstacles for a fair development. And since the export of workers is the biggest source of income for the country, that together with religion promotes the constant high growth of the population, which is probably one of the main issues against any economic improvement of the population.

At the end, probably is the religion what contains them. And of course, don't forget that most of the "values" affecting the Philippine government and culture were seeded by the Spaniards ... divide and conquer.