“..my firend’s dad wrote that the biggest problem to be overcome in the Philippines was the systmatic corruption at every level ff government and society. It still is.”
Same problem as Chicago.
“Same problem as Chicago.”
Yes. But Chicago is not a nation and the Philippines is. The scale and universality of such a systemic corruption is larger and more imbedded when it is witnessed across the whole nation.
Some Philippine writers think that the biggest mistake the U.S. made in Asia was not granting the Philippines independence when the Spanish were thrown out. Instead of a true democratic system, the same elites created by the Spanisg become the new best firends - and corrupt friens - of their new bosses, the Americans. During the period the Philippines was an Ameerican Commenwealth territoory, the familes of the former elites under the Spanish continued to dominate business and politics, right up to the Marcos era of Martial law.
Such writers who think that not granting the Philippines was a mistake, presume, maybe in error, that left to fight for their political connvictions on their own, that the Philippine people would have overwhelmed their “Tory” elites (loyal to Spain and then loyal to the Americans). Things actually may have not turned out much different. Their ideals may not have been practical in the whole existing context.