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[av_heading heading=’VIEWPOINTS | My poor Philippines!’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY OSCAR CRUZ
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Thursday, March 23, 2017
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THIS IS certainly not merely about the poor, the pitiful if not downright miserable socio-economic standard of living of a big number of Filipinos.
Neither is this but the phenomenon of many men/fathers and women/mothers leaving the country to find and have their means of living in foreign nations and wherefore about the thousands of poor and miserable people who live under bridges, have their houses by the canals, sell whatever things in the streets, sleep on the sidewalks – not to mention those who occupy houses built for others.
This is about ENERGY – with its up and down prices, its ill-effects on health and the environ. Their producers lord over the consumers who then resort to illegal and hazardous connections, who use candles or gas to light up their houses.
This is about TRAFFIC – that harasses passengers, that takes a lot of precious time to go from one place to another. So many traffic chiefs have been named one after the other. But traffic jams even become worse from one year to another.
This is about DRUGS – which is anything but life-giving, life-enhancing. So it is that prohibited and thus illegal drugs have become synonymous with death, be someone a user, a seller, a distributor, a manufacturer.
This is about CRIMINALITY – that means among other things, downright selling of women and/or children, grossly cheating or stealing, seriously crippling or downright killing these and those individuals for whatever reason or purpose.
This is about the DEATH SENTENCE – that goes hand-in-hand with an unjust justice system where the powerful and the wealthy are exempted therefrom, where only the helpless and miserable are strictly covered.
This is about MINDANAO – that is synonymous with discontent that leads to unending deadly warring tribes lording it up in different sections of the region, and where foreigners are now and then kidnapped for ransom under penalty of death.
This is about the New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines – whose members have become experts in causing apprehension and fear, collecting taxes here and there, destroying assets, ending lives such that it has come to treasure deadly dissent instead of unity and peace.
This is about CHINA – that is now slowly but surely conquering the Philippines in the latter’s territorial rights not with guns and bullets but with economic baits and social commitments and promissory benefits. USA already did this before.
This is about the USA and the EUROPEAN UNION – that look down on the Philippines as if it were under their socio-political jurisdiction, telling if not threatening the latter with economic sanctions and socio-political pressure.
Philippines, my poor Philippines!/PN
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