Tagalog is the "national language" in the Philippines, spoken by over 80 million people. It remains my principal language and I am strongly tempted every so often to shift to writing in Tagalog if only to better express myself. Not too many in this venue will understand me however.

Thirty years ago, there was a well-meaning albeit misguided attempt to establish Tagalog as the medium of instruction in the Philippines. Instead of facilitating learning, it only made matters worse. Concepts like "atom" and "gravity" became translated into unwieldy 6-syllable German-type compound phrases. Especially in the sciences, there must be very little room for waste.

In order to become competitive in this increasingly shrinking world, the Philippines needs to regain its fluency in English. This was the principal advantage conferred upon us in our fifty years as an American colony. Why and how we lost this advantage is not important. We only have to look at our neighbors and see the great strides being made in China, Korea and Japan to increase fluency in English.

Language is experience. Words and ideas and feelings are slowly added into the national tongue proportional to time and the number of speakers. There is a lot of romance and gentle beauty in Tagalog, not to mention the other major dialects in the Philippines and this is the reason why it is important to preserve our rich literary heritage but we must stay off from Math and science and physics and chemistry.

Again a flashback from my formative years. We would always inscribe each test paper, each page of homework, each essay with the initials at the top of each page, A.M.D.G.--for the greater glory of God.

I am brimming with ideas and I can't wait to talk about the myriad problems that my country has. The Philippines has become a country of young people and at 43 I am certifiably middle-aged. I will not be returning as a dilletante but rather as the distilled product of 12 years at the Jesuit Ateneo de Manila, 9 years at the University of the Philippines for Zoology and Medicine and blended by 17 years of internship, residency and fellowship training as well as private practice in the United States.

Tony Orlando sang "I'm coming home, I've done my time". I hope that I will not regret in my old age that I did not give my dream my best shot. I admire those patients who are at peace with themselves at the end of a life they think they lived to the very best of their capabilities.

More on my dialogue with myself. I attended a Jesuit school for my elementary and high school years, twelve years in all. They repeatedly reminded us to become men for others. Every student was encouraged to build their lives around this mantra.

Now twenty-five years after graduating from High School, I find the majority of my class defaulting on what was once the central objective of our education. I am of course as guilty as anybody whenever the question of default crops up. I guess we all had to make a living first and provide for our families and keep the children secure and happy, and see the world and taste premium single malt Scotch.

But now I guess I have to make my move and get off this comfortable perch and offer my best efforts to my country. I want to help bad enough that I am willing to forsake everything material that I own and without engaging in anything unethical, illegal or immoral to achieve whatever political ends I will need to help change a nation. The road ahead is long and strewn with rocks but all the problems are of our own making and it is not impossible to solve these problems no matter how hopeless everything seems.

To the point when it becomes repetitious: I will go home and give this worthy cause my very best shot. I want the Filipino people to hear what this nobody, unknown, unheard-of, politically unconnected fellow Filipino has to say.

Spent the past weekend in Lubbock, TX with classmates from medical school whom I had not seen in 17 years. Everyone seems to be having a good time and everybody appears to be professionally fulfilled.

Burning question was why my wife and I were going home.

My answer was it was time. To the question what I had to offer, I replied that I was going home as a nobody, which had its advantages. All these years that I had toiled in the US made me totally self-sufficient and financially independent. We were going home on our own terms.

As stated previously, this quest is a long shot, worthy of a Don Quixote. Apart from a deep understanding of human nature and a dispassionate grasp of the many problems that is keeping the Philippines way below the rest of her neighbors, I mean to offer my best efforts. An indispensable quality of leadership is effective problem-solving. Complex problems cannot be solved however in the absence of true and reliable data. Unlike the US, ordinary citizens do not have access to pertinent information back home. Many transactions remain permanently unsolved mysteries. There is very little accountability. Positions of leadership will open many doors and will allow me to come up with enlightened decisions.

What makes me different from all the rest of the politicians is that I have stayed away from all the corruption and compromise in the Philippine political scene. I have studied endlessly all these years. Whatever material wealth that I have accumulated has been the result of hard and dedicated work. Knowing that I have the capacity to send my daughters to the Ivy-league schools of their choice and certain of my desire to continue to lead a simple and modest way of life, I aspire for no more riches.

In short, we have had a West Point-educated General, a wildly popular movie actor, a daughter of a previous President who was partly educated in Georgetown and we are mired as a nation in self-doubt and despair. Whatever lessons and experiences that we have learned are not working. The beginning of the solution will need to come from outside of the Philippines. I hope to set an example to the millions of overseas Filipinos who have gone through similar life-changing experiences in other countries, much better than a college education in many respects. Just think of what all these returning people can give back?