Post

re: Hungary, Thailand...and the Philippines (Bienvenido Macario, Philippines) (John Eipper, USA, 09/27/06 4:57 pm)

Bienvenido Macario replies to Steve Torok's 27 September post:


Steve, I am willing to help you in any way I can with your Hungary
Thailand project. I would have suggested getting Prime Minister Thaksin
invited to the Philippines, except that it is too close for comfort and
too soon.

The Philippines is the nation in dire need of getting its independence and
sovereignty revoked. Christopher Jones is not entirely wrong with the
idea of a state losing its independence, except that it should not, in my
opinon, be Poland. Pope John Paul II is one of the best popes the Roman
Catholic Church has ever had, and Poland practically donated him to the
world.

Philippines & Puerto Rico
The Philippines and Puerto Rico both became US territories in the
aftermath of the Spanish-American War [1898]. The Philippines through a
plebiscite allegedly marked with fraud, opted for independence in 1946,
despite Manila being the second most-devastated allied city in World War
II--Warsaw being the first.
So, should Puerto Rico be offered independence and the Philippine regions
be given the option to revert back to a US Commonwealth? Now after 60
years, billions of dollars of aid from US taxpayers and loans from the
IMF-World Bank, the Philippines is still a developing country! If you
have a student still in high school or college after say 20 years, don’t
you think it’s time to have the student or students examined for the
possibility that such student is mentally handicapped and in need of
special education, care and attention?

But the Philippines is really one small region composed of several
nations. This may explain why it is almost impossible to unite the
islands and why Spanish colonial authorities found it easier to divide and
conquer a readily divided archipelago.

During the Spanish regime, passports were required for locals who would
travel from one region to another, even on the island of Luzon.
From 1946 to the present, except for Pres. Estrada’s short-lived term, the
Philippines never had a Tagalog or Bicol president. And the most
marginalized group are the Tagalogs and Bicols.

I think it is time to give these various groups a choice whether they
would want the status quo or independence. Doing the same thing over and
over and expecting a different result is insanity. The various peoples of
the Philippines must be allowed to chose. Free will is the basis of democracy.
The eight distinct Philippine languages are Tagalog, Bicol (very similar
to the Maori language of New Zealand), Ilokano, Pangasinan, Kapangpang,
Ilonggo, Waray, Cebuano. Each of these nations has their own separate
epic poems written in their own respective languages.


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