關於 best cable television ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

#手動轉
幫手SD EMAIL去今日中環粗暴拉低女市民的西裝友間公司到(可自行修改）

info@lgt.com
lgt@lgt.com
[email protected]

Subject: Concerning Mr. Alfred Chow's public misbehavior

Attn: CEO of LGT

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing to express my deep concerns on the public misbehavior of your employee, Mr. Alfred Chow was as shown on television news channel today.

Alfred Chow has been captured live TV to physically assault a lady passerby right outside Exchange Square in Hong Kong during lunch time on 13 November 2019. It is of great regret to witness such absence of human decency in a distressed environment these days. While we can represent different spots on the political spectrum, however the underlying common ground is mutual respect where unfortunately Alfred Chow is obviously lacking.

I appalled honestly when I was seeing an employee of your organization with such his disappointing behaviors, given that drastically deviates from the core values of a prestigious private bank like LGT. With the best interests of your high net worth clients in mind, it is particularly worrying for clients’ confidential informations handled by similar employee be lacking integrity. This will inevitably impose enormous risk about our reputation in your company where I hope this can be addressed appropriately by your capable management team.

Please see the below internet source regarding the evidence is come from CABLE TV for your reference. Hopefully your company will take further action or appropriate punishment to relevant employee’s misbehaviour.

Yours faithfully,
(Your Name)

【時事新聞】

Donald Trump, Bucking Calls to Unite, Claims ‘Mandate’ to Be Provocative
旋風再起，川普的口無遮攔，竟源自於選民的委任

Donald J. Trump’s behavior in recent days — the political threats to the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan; the name-calling on Twitter; the attacks on Hillary Clinton’s marriage — has deeply puzzled Republicans who expected him to move to unite the party, start acting presidential and begin courting the female voters he will need in the general election.
唐納•J•川普(Donald J. Trump)最近幾天的行為—像是對眾議院議長保羅•D•萊恩(Paul D. Ryan)發出政治威脅、在Twitter上罵人、攻擊希拉蕊•柯林頓(Hillary Clinton)的婚姻—讓一些共和黨員深感困惑。他們原本希望川普能動起來，並團結全黨，開始表現出像個總統的樣子，並著手爭取他在大選中所需要的女性選民的支持。


But Mr. Trump’s choices reflect an unusual conviction: He said he had a “mandate” from his supporters to run as a fiery populist outsider and to rely on his raucous rallies to build support through “word of mouth,” rather than to embrace a traditional, mellower and more inclusive approach that congressional Republicans will advocate in meetings with him on Thursday.
但川普的選擇反映出了一個不尋常的信念：他表示自己得到了支持者的「授權」，要以一個激情四射的民粹主義局外人的身份競選，並依靠喧鬧嘈雜的集會，通過「口耳相傳」的方式來尋求支援，而不是採用更傳統、圓滑、且更全面的方式。國會的共和黨員將在週四與他舉行會面時提倡後者的形式。

Mr. Trump’s strategy is replete with risks. Roughly 60 percent of Americans view him negatively, according to pollsters, who say more-of-the-same Trump is not likely to improve those numbers. While a majority of Republican primary voters said they were looking for a political outsider, Mr. Trump will face a majority of voters in November who prefer a candidate with political experience, according to primary exit polls and several national polls. Many Republicans think they will lose the presidency and seats in the House and Senate if he continues using language that offends women and some racial and religious groups.
川普的戰略充滿風險。民調專家們認為，約60%的美國人對川普抱持負面的評價，並指出若是川普不作出重大改變的話，是不太可能改善這些數據的。儘管大部分共和黨初選選民稱他們期待出現一個政治局外人，但初選出口民調和幾次全國性民調顯示，川普在今年11月所面對的選民中，大多數更喜歡有政治經驗的候選人。很多共和黨員認為，如果川普繼續使用會冒犯女性及一些種族和宗教團體的語言，他們將失去總統的寶座和參眾兩院的諸多席次。

Still, Mr. Trump’s message, tone and policy ideas have drawn followers who are more passionate than Republican nominees typically enjoy, and he has monopolized the political conversation and news coverage of the race. Some Republicans argue that he cannot afford to change his stripes too much, while strategists in both parties say he is shrewdly sticking with a style that drowns out attacks that could deepen his negative rating.
但川普的觀點、口吻和政策理念依然吸引了一些追隨者。他們比典型的支持共和黨提名人選的選民更熱情，並且川普壟斷了有關政治的談話和新聞媒體對選舉的報導。一些共和黨員主張川普不能改變太多，而兩黨的策略師則認為他是在精明地堅持一種風格，而這種風格會把可能加深對其負面評價的攻擊淹沒。

“His rally rants and Twitter brawls are meant to dominate the media coverage and public conversation so that Democratic challenges have less space to break through all of the noise,” said Guy Cecil, the chief strategist and co-chairman of Priorities USA, the “super PAC” supporting Mrs. Clinton. “He doesn’t want people talking about his record or positions.”
「他在集會上的咆哮和在Twitter上的爭吵是為了主導媒體報導和公眾談話，這樣一來民主黨的挑戰就沒有太多餘地去突破所有這些噪音，」支持希拉蕊‧柯林頓的超級政治行動委員會「優先美國」(Priorities USA)的首席策略師兼聯合主席蓋伊•塞西爾(Guy Cecil)說。「他不想讓人們討論他的過去記錄或其他職務。」

Mr. Trump, in a telephone interview, compared his candidacy to hit Broadway shows and championship baseball teams, saying that success begot success and that he would be foolish to change his behavior now.
接受電話採訪時，川普將自己的候選人身份比作熱門的百老匯表演和奪冠的棒球隊，稱成功是成功之母，並表示現在改變行為舉止是愚蠢的。

“You win the pennant and now you’re in the World Series — you gonna change?” Mr. Trump said. “People like the way I’m doing.”
「在聯盟內獲勝了，現在要參加世界大賽，這時候改變？」 川普說。「人們喜歡我現在的方式。」

He argued that he stood a better chance of inspiring voters in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania if he was his authentic self, rather than shifting from populist outsider to political insider to please a relative handful of Republican elites who are part of the establishment he has railed against for months. He said his huge rallies, where outbursts of violence and racist taunts have vexed many Republican leaders, and his attacks against adversaries on Twitter and in television interviews would continue because he believes Americans admire his aggressive, take-charge style.
他說，只要堅持做真實的自己，而不是從一個民粹主義外行變成一個政治內行，好取悅相對而言屬於少數的共和黨精英，他就有更大的機會去爭取俄亥俄和賓夕法尼亞等州選民。共和黨精英正是他數月來所抨擊的建制派的一部分。他說他會繼續舉辦大型集會，繼續在Twitter上和電視採訪中回敬對手的批評謾罵，因為他相信美國人欣賞他這種好鬥、發號施令的風格。支持川普的大型集會中，充滿爆發力的暴力行為和種族歧視的酸言酸語，使很多共和黨領袖大為光火。

“I think I have a mandate from the people,” Mr. Trump continued, referring to his victories in 29 states, including Nebraska and West Virginia on Tuesday night. “The people are tired of incompetent leadership at the highest level. They’re tired of trade deals that are ripping our jobs apart and taking their wages.”
「我認為我得到了人民的授權，」 川普繼續說。他指的是他在29個州取得的勝利，包括週二晚上在內布拉斯加和西維吉尼亞州的獲勝。「人們厭倦了最高階層者在領導方面的無能。他們厭倦了就業機會被破壞，厭倦了掠奪他們的工資的貿易協定。」

Mandates are usually claimed after a presidential candidate wins a general election, not a party nomination, but part of Mr. Trump’s style and strategy is to project a supreme confidence in himself and his popularity with voters. Several Republicans said they put little stock in his claim, arguing that he had won support from only a fraction of the electorate and had yet to prove he was worthy of leading the entire Republican Party, not just his fractious and highly visible wing.
總統候選人通常是在贏得大選，而不是黨內提名後稱自己獲得了授權，但川普的風格和戰略的一部分就是展現對他自己，以及選民所對他支持的超級自信。多名共和黨員表示他們幾乎不相信川普所說的話，且認為他只是贏得了全體選民中的一小部分人的支援，尚需證明他適合領導整個共和黨，而不只是他所在的那個脾氣暴躁且愛出風頭的派系。

“Donald Trump did earn a mandate from Republican primary voters,” said Senator Patrick J. Toomey, a Republican facing a tough re-election fight in Pennsylvania, whose primary Mr. Trump won with 57 percent of the vote. “My advice to him is that he should now consider how he will appeal to the many Republican and non-Republican voters who have serious concerns about his candidacy.”
「唐納•川普的確從共和黨初選選民那裡贏得了授權，」面臨著激烈的連任競選大戰的賓夕維尼亞州共和黨參議員派翠克•J•圖米(Patrick J. Toomey)說。「我對他的建議是，他現在應該考慮如何向對他的候選人身份嚴重關切的那許許多多的共和黨和非共和黨選民來爭取支持。」在該州的初選中，川普贏得了57%的選票。

Former Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire said that electoral mandates were a fallacy in American politics, and that leaders only did well when they focused on “ideas in the center that unite people.”
前新罕布夏州參議員賈德•葛列格(Judd Gregg)表示，選民的授權是美國政治中的一個謬論，且領導者只有在把重點放在「把人們團結起來的核心理念」上時，才會有好的表現。

“I don’t even think the 1980 Reagan landslide gave Reagan a mandate,” said Mr. Gregg, whose state gave Mr. Trump his first win in the primaries, and who has not decided if he will follow through on his pledge to support the Republican nominee. “He was effective because the country was in terrible shape and he was able to bring large numbers of people behind his ideas. Trump hasn’t done that.”
「我甚至認為雷根1980年的壓倒性勝利都沒讓他得到授權，」尚未決定是否兌現支持共和黨提名人選承諾的葛列格說。在他所在的州，川普贏得了初選中的首場勝利。「他能有效發揮是因為當時國家是一個爛攤子，所以他能夠讓大量民眾支持自己的觀點。然而川普還沒做到這一點。」

But Patrick J. Buchanan, the conservative commentator and past presidential candidate, said Mr. Trump was rallying historic numbers of voters with a mix of conservative ideas and anti-establishment populism that evoked, among other politicians, Ross Perot and his magnetic appeal in the 1992 campaign. Mr. Perot lost, of course, but Mr. Buchanan said that Mr. Trump might stand a better chance.
但曾經競選過總統的保守派評論人士派翠克•J•布坎南(Patrick J. Buchanan)表示，川普正在用保守思想和反正統民粹主義的結合，團結一群規模空前龐大的選民。這種反正統民粹主義讓人想起了羅斯•佩羅(Ross Perot)等政界人物，以及佩羅在1992年競選總統時那有如磁鐵般的吸引力。當然佩羅失敗了，但布坎南稱川普的機會可能比佩羅再大一些。

“With the largest Republican turnout ever, Trump eliminated 16 rivals and is on track to winning more votes than any Republican nominee in history,” he said. “That gives him a mandate to lead the Republican Party and move ahead with his plans to secure the border, pull back from foreign interventions and wars, and end these terrible trade deals.”
「在共和黨投票人數達到有史以來的最高點的情況下，川普淘汰了16名競爭對手，並且有望成為史上獲得選票最多的共和黨提名人，」他說。「這會給他授權來領導共和黨，並推進保護邊境、從境外干預和戰爭中抽身，以及結束這些糟糕的貿易協定的計畫。」

In Mr. Trump’s view, the rallies and the Twitter wars — even when he is punching down against a little-known evangelical leader (Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention) and a cable talk show host (Joe Scarborough of MSNBC), as he did recently — are crowd-pleasers, creating buzz that is critical to dominating the political landscape and overshadowing Mrs. Clinton’s message and attacks. Last week, he kept his commitments for rallies in Nebraska, Oregon and Washington State, even though he already had a lock on the nomination.
在川普看來，集會和Twitter上的戰火—即便是在他像前不久所做的那樣，攻擊一名鮮為人知的基督教福音派領袖（美南浸信會[Southern Baptist Convention]的羅素•摩爾[Russell Moore]）和一個有線頻道脫口秀節目主持人（MSNBC的喬•斯卡伯 [Joe Scarborough]）時—都是取悅民眾的行為，能夠製造轟動，而這種轟動，對主導政治形勢和讓希拉蕊‧柯林頓的言論及攻擊黯然失色是至關重要的。上個星期，他履行了在內布拉斯加、俄勒岡和華盛頓州舉行集會的諾言，儘管他在獲得提名一事上已勢不可擋。

“In a Broadway theater, the best, the best, absolute best sale is called ‘word of mouth,’ ” said Mr. Trump, who once dabbled in theater producing. “If people love a Broadway show, it’s better than if you write a good review. Word of mouth is the No. 1 thing. And the word of mouth at my rallies is like, ‘You’ve got to go see it.’ And, you know, one person goes and they talk about it to 20 people.”
「在百老匯劇場裡，最好的，最棒的，且鐵定是最強的銷售技巧叫『口耳相傳』，」曾涉足戲劇製作的特朗普說。「要是人們喜歡百老匯的一齣戲，這比寫一篇優秀的戲劇評論還有用。口耳相傳是最有效的。而我的集會上的口耳相傳就是，『你一定得親自去看看。』而且我想你也知道，要是有一個人去了，他們就會告訴另外的20個人。」

#高雄人 #學習英文 請找 #多益達人林立英文

A GOOD READ from one of the greatest leader that lived, #SINGAPORE's founding man, #LeeKuanYew

THIS MUST BE SHARED AND THOROUGHLY READ BY EVERY FILIPINO... Its quite long but it will surely strengthen our minds but then at the end, I was like "SAYANG!!!"
It came from the SINGAPORE'S FOUNDING MAN ITSELF, former Prime Minister LEE KUAN YEW on how the Philippines should have become, IF ONLY...

I've just read it and, its point blank!
Its a good read
____________

(The following excerpt is taken from pages 299 – 305 from Lee Kuan Yew’s book “From Third World to First”, Chapter 18 “Building Ties with Thailand, the Philippines, and Brunei”)

*

The Philippines was a world apart from us, running a different style of politics and government under an American military umbrella. It was not until January 1974 that I visited President Marcos in Manila. When my Singapore Airlines plane flew into Philippine airspace, a small squadron of Philippine Air Force jet fighters escorted it to Manila Airport. There Marcos received me in great style – the Filipino way. I was put up at the guest wing of Malacañang Palace in lavishly furnished rooms, valuable objects of art bought in Europe strewn all over. Our hosts were gracious, extravagant in hospitality, flamboyant. Over a thousand miles of water separated us. There was no friction and little trade. We played golf, talked about the future of ASEAN, and promised to keep in touch.

His foreign minister, Carlos P. Romulo, was a small man of about five feet some 20 years my senior, with a ready wit and a self-deprecating manner about his size and other limitations. Romulo had a good sense of humor, an eloquent tongue, and a sharp pen, and was an excellent dinner companion because he was a wonderful raconteur, with a vast repertoire of anecdotes and witticisms. He did not hide his great admiration for the Americans. One of his favourite stories was about his return to the Philippines with General MacArthur. As MacArthur waded ashore at Leyte, the water reached his knees but came up to Romulo’s chest and he had to swim ashore. His good standing with ASEAN leaders and with Americans increased the prestige of the Marcos administration. Marcos had in Romulo a man of honor and integrity who helped give a gloss of respectability to his regime as it fell into disrepute in the 1980s.

In Bali in 1976, at the first ASEAN summit held after the fall of Saigon, I found Marcos keen to push for greater economic cooperation in ASEAN. But we could not go faster than the others. To set the pace, Marcos and I agreed to implement a bilateral Philippines-Singapore across-the-board 10 percent reduction of existing tariffs on all products and to promote intra-ASEAN trade. We also agreed to lay a Philippines-Singapore submarine cable. I was to discover that for him, the communiqué was the accomplishment itself; its implementation was secondary, an extra to be discussed at another conference.

We met every two to three years. He once took me on a tour of his library at Malacañang, its shelves filled with bound volumes of newspapers reporting his activities over the years since he first stood for elections. There were encyclopedia-size volumes on the history and culture of the Philippines with his name as the author. His campaign medals as an anti-Japanese guerrilla leader were displayed in glass cupboards. He was the undisputed boss of all Filipinos. Imelda, his wife, had a penchant for luxury and opulence. When they visited Singapore before the Bali summit they came in stye in two DC8’s, his and hers.

Marcos did not consider China a threat for the immediate future, unlike Japan. He did not rule out the possibility of an aggressive Japan, if circumstances changed. He had memories of the horrors the Imperial Army had inflicted on Manila. We had strongly divergent views on the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia. While he, pro forma, condemned the Vietnamese occupation, he did not consider it a danger to the Philippines. There was the South China Sea separating them and the American navy guaranteed their security. As a result, Marcos was not active on the Cambodian question. Moreover, he was to become preoccupied with the deteriorating security in his country.

Marcos, ruling under martial law, had detained opposition leader Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino, reputed to be as charismatic and powerful a campaigner as he was. He freed Aquino and allowed him to go to the United States. As the economic situation in the Philippines deteriorated, Aquino announced his decision to return. Mrs. Marcos issued several veiled warnings. When the plane arrived at Manila Airport from Taipei in August 1983, he was shot as he descended from the aircraft. A whole posse of foreign correspondents with television camera crews accompanying him on the aircraft was not enough protection.

International outrage over the killing resulted in foreign banks stopping all loans to the Philippines, which owed over US$25 billion and could not pay the interest due. This brought Marcos to the crunch. He sent his minister for trade and industry, Bobby Ongpin, to ask me for a loan of US$300-500 million to meet the interest payments. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “We will never see that money back.” Moreover, I added, everyone knew that Marcos was seriously ill and under constant medication for a wasting disease. What was needed was a strong, healthy leader, not more loans.

Shortly afterward, in February 1984, Marcos met me in Brunei at the sultanate’s independence celebrations. He had undergone a dramatic physical change. Although less puffy than he had appeared on television, his complexion was dark as if he had been out in the sun. He was breathing hard as he spoke, his voice was soft, eyes bleary, and hair thinning. He looked most unhealthy. An ambulance with all the necessary equipment and a team of Filipino doctors were on standby outside his guest bungalow. Marcos spent much of the time giving me a most improbable story of how Aquino had been shot.

As soon as all our aides left, I went straight to the point, that no bank was going to lend him any money. They wanted to know who was going to succeed him if anything were to happen to him; all the bankers could see that he no longer looked healthy. Singapore banks had lent US$8 billion of the US$25 billion owing. The hard fact was they were not likely to get repayment for some 20 years. He countered that it would be only eight years. I said the bankers wanted to see a strong leader in the Philippines who could restore stability, and the Americans hoped the election in May would throw up someone who could be such a leader. I asked whom he would nominate for the election. He said Prime Minister Cesar Virata. I was blunt. Virata was a nonstarter, a first-class administrator but no political leader; further, his most politically astute colleague, defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile, was out of favour. Marcos was silent, then he admitted that succession was the nub of the problem. If he could find a successor, there would be a solution. As I left, he said, “You are a true friend.” I did not understand him. It was a strange meeting.

With medical care, Marcos dragged on. Cesar Virata met me in Singapore in January the following year. He was completely guileless, a political innocent. He said that Mrs. Imelda Marcos was likely to be nominated as the presidential candidate. I asked how that could be when there were other weighty candidates, including Juan Ponce Enrile and Blas Ople, the labor minister. Virata replied it had to do with “flow of money; she would have more money than other candidates to pay for the votes needed for nomination by the party and to win the election. He added that if she were the candidate, the opposition would put up Mrs. Cory Aquino and work up the people’s feelings. He said the economy was going down with no political stability.

The denouement came in February 1986 when Marcos held presidential elections which he claimed he won. Cory Aquino, the opposition candidate, disputed this and launched a civil disobedience campaign. Defense Minister Juan Enrile defected and admitted election fraud had taken place, and the head of the Philippine constabulary, Lieutenant General Fidel Ramos, joined him. A massive show of “people power” in the streets of Manila led to a spectacular overthrow of a dictatorship. The final indignity was on 25 February 1986, when Marcos and his wife fled in U.S. Air Force helicopters from Malacañang Palace to Clark Air Base and were flown to Hawaii. This Hollywood-style melodrama could only have happened in the Philippines.

Mrs. Aquino was sworn in as president amid jubilation. I had hopes that this honest, God-fearing woman would help regain confidence for the Philippines and get the country back on track. I visited her that June, three months after the event. She was a sincere, devout Catholic who wanted to do her best for her country by carrying out what she believed her husband would have done had he been alive, namely, restore democracy to the Philippines. Democracy would then solve their economic and social problems. At dinner, Mrs. Aquino seated the chairman of the constitutional commission, Chief Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, next to me. I asked the learned lady what lessons her commission had learned from the experience of the last 40 years since independence in 1946 would guide her in drafting the constitution. She answered without hesitation, “We will not have any reservations or limitations on our democracy. We must make sure that no dictator can ever emerge to subvert the constitution.” Was there no incompatibility of the American-type separation of powers with the culture and habits of the Filipino people that had caused problems for the presidents before Marcos? Apparently none.

Endless attempted coups added to Mrs. Aquino’s problems. The army and the constabulary had been politicized. Before the ASEAN summit in December 1987, a coup was threatened. Without President Suharto’s firm support the summit would have been postponed and confidence in Aquino’s government undermined. The Philippine government agreed that the responsibility for security should be shared between them and the other ASEAN governments, in particular the Indonesian government. General Benny Moerdani, President Suharto’s trusted aide, took charge. He positioned an Indonesian warship in the middle of Manila Bay with helicopters and a commando team ready to rescue the ASEAN heads of government if there should be a coup attempt during the summit. I was included in their rescue plans. I wondered if such a rescue could work but decided to go along with the arrangements, hoping that the show of force would scare off the coup leaders. We were all confined to the Philippine Plaza Hotel by the seafront facing Manila Bay where we could see the Indonesian warship at anchor. The hotel was completely sealed off and guarded. The summit went off without any mishap. We all hoped that this show of united support for Mrs. Aquino’s government at a time when there were many attempts to destabilize it would calm the situation.

It made no difference. There were more coup attempts, discouraging investments badly needed to create jobs. This was a pity because they had so many able people, educated in the Philippines and the United States. Their workers were English-speaking, at least in Manila. There was no reason why the Philippines should not have been one of the more successful of the ASEAN countries. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the most developed, because America had been generous in rehabilitating the country after the war. Something was missing, a gel to hold society together. The people at the top, the elite mestizos, had the same detached attitude to the native peasants as the mestizos in their haciendas in Latin America had toward their peons. They were two different societies: Those at the top lived a life of extreme luxury and comfort while the peasants scraped a living, and in the Philippines it was a hard living. They had no land but worked on sugar and coconut plantations.They had many children because the church discouraged birth control. The result was increasing poverty.

It was obvious that the Philippines would never take off unless there was substantial aid from the United States. George Shultz, the secretary of state, was sympathetic and wanted to help but made clear to me that the United States would be better able to do something if ASEAN showed support by making its contribution. The United States was reluctant to go it alone and adopt the Philippines as its special problem. Shultz wanted ASEAN to play a more prominent role to make it easier for the president to get the necessary votes in Congress. I persuaded Shultz to get the aid project off the ground in 1988, before President Reagan’s second term of office ended. He did. There were two meetings for a Multilateral Assistance Initiative (Philippines Assistance Programme): The first in Tokyo in 1989 brought US$3.5 billion in pledges, and the second in Hong Kong in 1991, under the Bush administration, yielded US$14 billion in pledges. But instability in the Philippines did not abate. This made donors hesitant and delayed the implementation of projects.

Mrs. Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, whom she had backed, was more practical and established greater stability. In November 1992, I visited him. In a speech to the 18th Philippine Business Conference, I said, “I do not believe democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy.” In private, President Ramos said he agreed with me that British parliamentary-type constitutions worked better because the majority party in the legislature was also the government. Publicly, Ramos had to differ.

He knew well the difficulties of trying to govern with strict American-style separation of powers. The senate had already defeated Mrs. Aquino’s proposal to retain the American bases. The Philippines had a rambunctious press but it did not check corruption. Individual press reporters could be bought, as could many judges. Something had gone seriously wrong. Millions of Filipino men and women had to leave their country for jobs abroad beneath their level of education. Filipino professionals whom we recruited to work in Singapore are as good as our own. Indeed, their architects, artists, and musicians are more artistic and creative than ours. Hundreds of thousands of them have left for Hawaii and for the American mainland. It is a problem the solution to which has not been made easier by the workings of a Philippine version of the American constitution.

The difference lies in the culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics. They supported the winning presidential and congressional candidates with their considerable resources and reappeared in the political and social limelight after the 1998 election that returned President Joseph Estrada. General Fabian Ver, Marcos’s commander-in-chief who had been in charge of security when Aquino was assassinated, had fled the Philippines together with Marcos in 1986. When he died in Bangkok, the Estrada government gave the general military honors at his burial. One Filipino newspaper, Today, wrote on 22 November 1998, “Ver, Marcos and the rest of the official family plunged the country into two decades of lies, torture, and plunder. Over the next decade, Marcos’s cronies and immediate family would tiptoe back into the country, one by one – always to the public’s revulsion and disgust, though they showed that there was nothing that hidden money and thick hides could not withstand.” Some Filipinos write and speak with passion. If they could get their elite to share their sentiments and act, what could they not have achieved?

-----

SAYANG! kindly share.