We must not give up our dream because of today. For if we look at ourselves, we have all the resources — human and natural —to become what we Filipinos choose to be.
Our economy is bankrupt. We cannot pay our foreign debt. Within the next two years, whether or not our foreign loans are restructured, prices and taxes will continue to rise. The peso will continue to fall. The domestic market will contract further. More workers will lose their jobs; more students will be forced to drop out of school. Hunger will spread, and disease will not be far behind. Crime will continue to stalk the streets even more menacingly. Anger, resentment, and frustration will escalate. Dissidence will propagate, and repression will intensify. The government has lost all credibility, yet it refuses h) do the decent thing: return power to the people. Instead it continues to deny the people their basic rights and freedoms. And the calloused behavior of some of its leaders mocks and defies this cherished Filipino value.
Yet we must not give up our dream because of today. For if we look at ourselves, we have all the resources — human and natural -to become what we Filipinos choose to be. Our population is about 53 million, and that’s the 17th largest potential domestic market in the world.
We are a literate people. Our adult literacy is 75 per cent, the 40th highest worldwide. Sixty-three per cent (63 per cent) of our young people in the 15-19 year age group are enrolled in secondary schools, which is about 50 per cent higher than the average for countries like ours. And 27 percent of the 20-24 year age group are enrolled in colleges and universities, which is twice the average of countries like ours and more than that of some developed countries like the United Kingdom, West Germany, Australia, France, Belgium, and Switzerland.
Our land area is 300,000 square kilometers, the sixty-third largest in the world. It is rich in natural resources. Less than half of our land has been systematically surveyed for mineral but commercial quantities obtained of the thirteen basic raw materials required by a modern industrial economy have already been discovered: bauxite, chromium, copper, iron are, lead, manganese, nickel, phosphates, zinc, natural rubber among these. And we also have the human drive to develop these.
Encounters with nations which invaded and occupied us or traded with us have made us open to change and quick to adapt to it. Our people are ingenious and fast learners, competitive and achievement-oriented, rational and practical, and dedicated to freedom and independence. We are, let us nor forget, the first Asian people who revolted against a western imperial power, Spain; the first who adopted a democratic republican constitution in Asia, the Malolos Constitution; the first to fight the first major war of the twentieth century against another western imperial power, the United States of America. Since 1972, we have suffered the brutal repression of martial rule, but freedom still burns bright in the hearts of most of us.
You said:
Hi, I always search the internet to search reading materials about nationalist Filipinos during Marcos time like Ka Pepe, Ka Tanny, etc. I am glad, I found one. HOw could I have copies of Ka Pepe’s book like “A nation for our children”? thanks.
— Egay on Your stories