Pinas, Land of Dramatic Contrasts

The Philippines is a land of dramatic contrasts.
Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich whilst the masses remain abjectly poor.
Here is a land where freedom and its blessings are a reality for the minority and an illusion for the many.
Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy.
Here is a land of privilege and rank - a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste.
Its government is financially almost bankrupt, its state agencies are ridden with debts and honeycombed with graft, its industries in pathetic distress. There is no organised, no methodical overall economic planning, but only haphazard attempts to modernize, confused by a multiplicity of cravings and desires.
So, Filipinos are depressed and dispirited… without purpose and without discipline… sapped of confidence, hope and will.

The fault is mainly theirs. They profess love of country but love themselves, individually, more.

Ninoy Aquino. July 1968.