POOR COUNTRY-RICH COUNTRY

by Fred C. Wilson III

Aug 13, 2010
What the future may hold – Part One

Philippines will have honest government, incorruptible captains of industry, quality national health care, a viable economy, stable population, and religious leaders who’ll teach adherents to strive after things seen and take to heart words of the late Pope John Paul II who urged believers to work for the here and now that Heaven will take care of itself.

SEIZING THE PRIZE

With the new Philippine president there has been a marked increase among Fil-Ams wanting to help their poor. Throughout the year various Fil-Am groups host fund raisers to help less fortunate Filipinos. Cultural events are springing up all over the Mid-West, other sections of the United States, and Canada to promote Filipino awareness and stewardship. The recent Eskwelahang Pinoy sa Konsulado 2010 at Chicago’s Philippine Consulate was a positive reawaking. The purpose of the four class programs was to encourage Filipino Americans and interested others of all ages to get a better understanding of Filipino languages, religions, and customs.

It appears that the demon’s grip on the Filipino people can be loosened. Here’s what two Internet posters said about the coming prosperity back home: “Prosperous? Maybe-surely, the Philippines would be completely different from what it is today though it’s really hard to tell. Given the location and geography of the country, we will be highly dependent on the seas. We would also be exporting a substantial portion of our natural resources. If our country was as it should be, there would probably be no overseas workers. Since the people of the Philippines wouldn’t be dominated by outsiders the country would be firm culturally.

As a matter of fact the Philippines would no longer be called the Philippines and its’ people Filipinos. Our country would be called by a new name.

“Our being a colony for centuries has no bearing on our country’s current crisis. There are a lot of former colonies that are now thriving. If you believe that Malaysia has more economic potential than the Philippines think again. That country was once a colony of the British. Ok, so Japan is definitely doing better economically and were never colonized by any country; but have you forgotten that it was burnt to the ground by US bombs? The Japanese made good use of the aid money they got from Uncle Sam to rebuild and modernize. “What I’m saying is whether Spain colonized us or not we may still have been struggling. OURMESS-IS-OUR-MESS and not because of what happened centuries ago. Had we had it together English and Spanish would never have been our official languages. We would have retained our alphabet, possibly settled in Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, sent manned missions to Mars, and developed a cure for the common cold.”

Helping people is a good thing but if we give them too much they will become lazy and become beggars. Rather we must teach them how to help themselves. We Filipinos frequently misuse the word democracy. Most of us think that when a government is democratic we can do anything we want. This is not true. The people need to open their eyes to the world and change themselves.”

Here’s a little story about the root cause of all the RP’s problemscorrupt politicians. Throughout my 32 year teaching career I mostly worked in multi-racial schools. Being tri-racial (½ Native-American, ¼ African-American, ¼ Jewish) I preferred it that way. Once a little Mexican-American girl asked me if there were any racial groups I disliked. I told her the truth that I was prejudiced towards one group. The girl, a 6th grader, asked was it Mexicans? I replied no, that I liked Mexican though I’ve met a few I didn’t like not because they were Mexican but they were jerks who happened to be Mexicans. A little African-American boy asked me a similar question only this time his question pertained to Blacks. I told him the truth replied that I liked most Blacks though there were some I didn’t like not because of their race but because they were jerks who just happened to be Black. This went on for some time…a little Vietnamese-American girl, a Polish-American boy, two Puerto Rican girls, a Haitian-American boy, finally a Chinese-American boy. I told them I harbored no ill will towards any racial group. By now the kids were perplexed since I covered the entire gambit of humanity and never singled any one group out as enemies.

I finally said that I despised politicians and considered them vermin so low as not worth their weight in bags of wet doggydoo (s***). My reply brought the house down! My class laughed so loud that Security came to our door to see what the matter was. To quote Robert Ringer’s bestselling book ‘Winning through Intimidation;’ ‘government the player with the gun is the root cause of every problem on the planet.’ When an army can’t seize its objective by storm, it does the next best thing, lay siege to their enemy’s strong hold then batter them into submission. You starve them out and take control only when your enemy is too weak to stand and fight. If you storm Heaven with prayers, keep your sites (objectives) clean, have fanatical devotion to the task on hand you’ll be victorious and change will happen.

Reader I’m outta’ word space and gotta’ go. Next week’s part two we’ll show you how Philippines could achieve and maintain 1st World status. GOD bless you; that’s it for this week’s Mega Scene’s Philippine Adventures. “Change the politics-change the man/woman.”

-your writer-
(vamaxwell@yahoo.com)