Philippine Politics or Why They Should All Get Stuffed
The Philippines is (rapidly become was) a place where there were boundless natural resources. Tropical, but not too bad. We get our share of storms and earthquakes and other natural disasters, but it's managable.

Our curse comes from Philippine politics and its entrenched TraPos. For those of you not familiar with the term, trapo refers to a dirty old rag used to clean up stuff aroung the house or in the car. It's also used to refer to TRAditional POliticians. (I love my country's fascination with wordplay.)

The economy hasn't gone under yet, but it's getting there. Corruption has soared since the days of Marcos, and that's saying something. Even the former opposition activists have noted as much...

What do politicians think they're supposed to be doing? Serving the people? Or serving themselves? I'm trying to formulate my stance on how the whole political mechanic should work in the Philippines, knowing how the game is currently played...

Should we establish minimum qualifications for certain positions? Should we change the method of choosing leaders? Should we just go the Americans and say... "remember that bit about preferring a Hell run by Filipinos rather than a Heaven run by Americans? Just kidding."

I mean, look at Erap - he gave the Americans such a hard time about the bases and how they mess around in our politics, and then he wanted to go there for surgery. He probably has houses there too.