Prescription for poverty (Part I)

One of our readers forwarded an email containing what is described as a "very interesting, eloquent article written by an American, Barth Suretsky. His observations are interesting and his comments about our culture and his respect and love of the Philippines are nicely written. Due to the worsening situation in our country, let’s hope this will make an impact on other Filipinos who read it."

I have decided to print completely Suretsky’s thoughts, although this has been making the rounds of blogs and reprinted in a number of websites. Because of space constraints, the second part will be continued in the Monday column. Here is the first part of Suretsky’s article.

"My decision to move to Manila was not a precipitous one. I used to work in New York as an outside agent for PAL, and have been coming to the Philippines since August 1982. I was so impressed with the country, and with the interesting people I met, some of whom have become very close friends to this day, that I asked for and was granted a year’s sabbatical from my teaching job in order to live in the Philippines.

"I arrived here on Aug. 21, 1983, several hours after Ninoy Aquino was shot, and remained here until June of 1984. During that year I visited many parts of the country, from as far north as Laoag to as far south as Zamboanga, and including Palawan. I became deeply immersed in the history and culture of the archipelago, and an avid collector of tribal antiquities from both northern Luzon and Mindanao.

"In subsequent years I visited the Philippines in 1985, 1987, and 1991, before deciding to move here permanently in 1998. I love this country, but not uncritically, and that is the purpose of this article.

"First, however, I will say that I would not consider living anywhere else in Asia, no matter how attractive certain aspects of other neighboring countries may be. To begin with, and this is most important, with all its faults, the Philippines is still a democracy, more so than any other nation in Southeast Asia.

"Despite gross corruption, the legal system generally works, and if ever confronted with having to employ it, I would feel much more safe trusting the courts here than in any other place in the surrounding area. The press here is unquestionably the most unfettered and freewheeling in Asia, and I do not believe that is hyperbole in any way! And if any one thing can be used as a yardstick to measure the extent of the democratic process in any given country in the world, it is the extent to which the press is free.

Flawed democracy

"Nevertheless, the Philippines is a flawed democracy, and the flaws are deeply rooted in the Philippine psyche. I will elaborate. The basic problem seems to me, after many years of observation, to be a national inferiority complex, a disturbing lack of pride in being Filipino.

"Toward the end of April, I spent eight days in Vietnam, visiting Hanoi, Hue, and Ho Chi Minh City. I am certainly no expert on Vietnam, but what I saw could not be denied: I saw a country ravaged as no other country has been in this century by 30 years of continuous and incredibly barbaric warfare. When the Vietnam War ended in April 1975, the country was totally devastated. Yet in the past 25 years, the nation has healed and rebuilt itself almost miraculously! The countryside has been replanted and reforested. Hanoi and HCMC have been beautifully restored. The opera house in Hanoi is a splendid restoration of the original, modeled after the Opera in Paris, and the gorgeous Second Empire theater, on the main square of HCMC, is as it was when built by the French a century ago. The streets are tree-lined, clean, and conducive for strolling. Cafés in the French style proliferate on the wide boulevards of HCMC.

"I am not praising the government of Vietnam, which still has a long way to travel on the road to democracy, but I do praise, and praise unstintingly, the pride of the Vietnamese people. It is due to this pride in being Vietnamese that has enabled its citizenry to undertake the miracle of restoration that I have described above.

Most tawdry in Southeast Asia

"When I returned to Manila I became so depressed that I was actually physically ill for days thereafter. Why? Well, let’s go back to a period when the Philippines resembled the Vietnam of 1975. It was 1945, the end of World War II, and Manila, as well as many other cities, lay in ruins. (As a matter of fact, it may not be generally known, but Manila was the second most destroyed city in the entire war; only Warsaw was more demolished!)

"But to compare Manila in 1970, 25 years after the end of the war, with HCMC, 25 years after the end of its war, is a sad exercise indeed. Far from restoring the city to its former glory, by 1970, Manila was well on its way to being the most tawdry city in Southeast Asia. And since that time, the situation has deteriorated alarmingly.

"We have a city full of street people, beggars, and squatters. We have a city that floods sections whenever there is a rainstorm, and that loses electricity with every clap of thunder. We have a city full of potholes, and on these unrepaired roads, we have a traffic situation second to none in the world for sheer unmanageability. We have rude drivers, taxis that routinely refuse to take passengers because of ‘many traffic!’ The roads are also cursed with pollution-spewing buses in disreputable states of repair, and that ultimate anachronism, the jeepney!

"We have an educational system that allows children to attend schools without desks or books to accommodate them. Teachers, even college professors, are paid salaries so disgracefully low that it’s a wonder that anyone would want to go into the teaching profession in the first place.

"We have a war in Mindanao that nobody seems to have a clue how to settle. The only policy to deal with the war seems to be to react to what happens daily, with no long range plan whatever. I could go on and on, but it is an endeavor so filled with futility that it hurts me to go on. It hurts me because, in spite of everything, I love the Philippines."

More next week.

Poker satellite back at Angeles City

Satellite/qualifying competitions for the 3rd Philippine Poker Tour (PPT) Million-Peso Hold’em Championship return to Angeles City, Pampanga, this Sunday, April 29, 2007. Registration starts at 1 p.m. at the Casino Filipino Angeles, host of the second of a series of tournaments that will give local players the chance to be the next poker millionaire champion.

Qualifying/satellite tournaments are ongoing in the following venues: San Mig Alabang Town Center, every Wednesdays and Fridays; Elbow Room at MetroWalk, Pasig, every Thursday; Casino Filipino Tagaytay (5th May); and Casino Filipino Lahug, Cebu (19th May).

Details of the prize structure and tournament rules for the 3rd PPT Million-Peso Hold’Em Championship are posted in the official PPT website, www.PhilippinePokerTour.com. Interested parties may also call the PPT Secretariat (c/o Cindy) at 817-9092 or 812-0153.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 4th Floor, 156 Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected] or at [email protected]. For previous columns, you may visit my website at http://bizlinks.linkedge.biz.