Ignore the reality that current president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, is the daughter of a former president who ruled from 1965 to 1969. Forget the fact that she became Undersecretary of the Department of Trade and Industry in 1987. Disregard the truth that she was the classmate of US president Bill Clinton at Georgetown University. Don’t bother with the knowledge that she has a PhD in Economics.

 

By the way, did we mention she has two sons and a brother-in-law in the House of Representatives? All throughout, she still expects the Philippines to become a developed nation “in twenty years”. She couldn’t do it in her prime, what makes her think she could do something after she retires?

 

Despite, or in spite, all these, the following historical act of supreme dumbness puts her government on top of our annual list.

 

On the 23rd of November 2009, Andal Ampatuan, Jr., mayor of a small town in the southern part of the country, masterminded the massacre of fifty-seven civilians, thirty-four of them journalists. His brother, Zaldy, and their father, Andal Sr., were both incumbent governors of other provinces at the time. The Ampatuan clan was, up until the time of the massacre, a close political ally of Arroyo having helped obtain for her thousands of votes during her reelection bid in 2004. In fact, Andal Sr. was reportedly in the presidential palace when his son ordered the massacre.

 

(This is similar to President Obama’s close friend and political ally executing reporters of Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS and Associated Press, along with wives and relatives of a few Republicans. Ok, that was farfetched but you get the point.)

 

Ironically, the Philippines was already on the watch-list of various human rights groups and the US Congress over a great part of the last decade. Before this carnage, the country was the fourth most dangerous place in the world for media personnel, after war torn Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. Without an official war and without the involvement of the longest communist insurgency in Asia, the Philippines is now ranked number one.

 

 

Adding to this incompetence is Arroyo’s Executive Secretary, retired General Eduardo Ermita. With years of formal military training in the US and decades of military service, he once served as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. Upon retirement he became a member of the House of Representatives. He now plays a significant role in the current Arroyo cabinet. When asked why the massacre was not prevented, his response was government officials were “only human.”

 

(Perhaps Ermita expected American troops stationed 100 miles away to do the intelligence job for him, like most Philippine politicians do).

 

Arroyo and Ermita represent the bulk of national politicians in the Philippines who are American-educated. In fact, a great number of former and current members of the Cabinet, Senate, and House of Representatives were educated in some of the best American colleges and universities (for a complete list click here).

 

Even more surprisingly, some of these politicians boast a legacy of American education dating back to their parents or grandparents during a time the Philippines was ruled by the United States. After three or four generations, with all that education and historical connections, can Filipinos really expect anything different?

 

To put this in proper context, over the last fifty years the whole world experienced the greatest creation of wealth in human history. Thirty years ago, the Philippines was second to Japan in Asia in terms of economic growth, and China was still a full-fledged communist nation.

 

Today, Japan is the second biggest economy in the world, China is fast catching up, and the Philippines is one of the poorest nations in the world with a daily per-capita income of just $9.

 

What props up the economy? Billions of dollars in remittances from more than ten million overseas workers – more than ten percent of the nation’s population – employed all over the world. To gain the best perspective of this situation, if you gather one hundred national government officials and one hundred Filipino nurses or overseas workers, the nurses and workers contribute more to the national economy than most, if not all, the national government officials combined.

 

 

Despite most national and local government officials receiving their education from some of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Asia and around the world, a virtual nobody, Efren Peñaflorida, equipped with a blackboard and second-hand books on a push cart, was awarded the 2010 CNN Hero of the year.

 

For the past fifteen years, ever since Arroyo was Vice-President, Efren has educated poor children in the slums of Cavite (a province two hours south of the presidential palace).

 

If the national government of the Philippines is not a mockery of democracy and capitalism, we don’t know what is.

 

What's keeping this nation from becoming the new Somalia, Sudan or Iraq? American presence and intelligence in Manila and Mindanao.