You know times are tough when you can’t sing in the shower so you can conserve what’s left of your voice. Finding yourself at midnight in a squalid urban alley, speaking to a group of children (who are there for the movie to be shown after the speeches) and a few adults about why we need to change the way we conduct ourselves as citizens will certainly make you think hard and deep whether this is all worth it. When you find religious groups exhorting their followers to ignore a platform that seeks to return God and the good that He represents like truth, justice, love for the poor over likely winners who may return the favor in the future. When you constantly need to drive away hungry street urchins because you have no change left to give.

There is no way that you will complete this journey unless it completely becomes a faith-journey that is a work of grace, meaning God will do for us what we cannot do alone. But we must do our part.

It has been an extraordinary privilege, these last 3 months. Can’t say I could have spent this time in a better way. The educational experience is humbling. And there is so much hope out there. There are so many kindred spirits out there. It is only a matter of time before citizens of goodwill will join one another in peaceful reform. We cannot continue to tolerate all these human rights abuses without permanently diminishing our humanity.

Kaya’t huwag niyong aakalain na dahil ako ay napapagod at nanghihina paminsan-minsan ay handa na akong sumuko. Ngayong na-umpisahan ko na ito ay nananawagan ako sa lahat kayong mga Pilipinong nagmamahal sa ating Bayan na huwag mawalan ng pag-asa. Katungkulan nating lahat na pabutihin ang kalagayan ng ating Bayan. Wala nang atrasan ito.

Some opinion writers decry the absence of meaningful debate in this election. I agree, but let’s see who’s at fault. Which part of society has an obligation to promote public discourse?

We have a very bleak future staring at us if we continue down this course. We are not investing for the future. So far, the radio and television ads are chock full of accomplishments, laws enacted, promises and plans but there is no mention anywhere in these expensive promotional monologues about the crushing debt problem that we cannot afford to ignore any longer. Generations of politicians have come and gone and nobody it seems has any courage to confront this giant problem that is preventing us from providing meaningful educational, health and social services to our poor brethren.

Our leaders have thought of ways to cut services, raise taxes, improve collections, reduce graft but there appears to be profound fear whenever the issue of debt comes up. No serious questions are raised, no thoughtful accounting is demanded. Are our leaders afraid or simply lazy to confront this crisis? We just go on happily borrowing and paying off interest with whatever fresh loans that are strewn our way.

I am convinced that the debt issue is the single most important issue of our time. Because of this mindset, we have become an underproductive nation. We have lost national pride. We have become corrupt. The solution to this riddle is a political one. We will need a leader with a mandate to personally renegotiate the terms of our many loans in order that we may be allowed breathing space with which we can really grow our economy and begin substantially investing in preparing our youth so that they may stand a chance to compete in a bitterly contentious world.

Seems like the harder we try, the less we get noticed. When you are after 43.8 million voters, there is just no way you can make serious inroads without mass media. And these guys know it. 2 staff reporters from 2 different major newspapers admitted to me that their stories about Ang Kapatiran, written after lengthy interviews were killed by their editors. Explains why during the last 3 months, front page fodder would consist of the most inane thoughts and activities of the well-funded candidates. Big media will not give us idealistic greenhorns even a small opening. They are squarely on the side of business as usual.

Voters are hungry for issues and platforms and yet, look at the top 10 candidates considered shoo-ins: 4 refuse to debate at all. They cynically stick to the proven “gold-standard” of collecting votes. We have to scrounge for those precious minutes of free airtime and we have been allowed only a few seconds every week. In this game, you don’t pay, you don’t play.

I take all these obstacles as character-building exercises. Nobody can ever accuse us of getting a free pass.

I am an example of what brain gain is all about. Learn, earn, return. I chose to return on my own terms when I felt I was sufficiently prepared to contribute to my country. That I chose to return after training and working hard to establish a successful practice when I could have simply taken it easy and begin enjoying all the fruits of my labor should be proof enough of the seriousness of my intentions.

To those detractors who view my exile in the US as a selfish period in my life, consider those thousands of nights that I was on call, drawing blood from patients with full-blown AIDS, inserting gastroscopes on patients with bleeding ulcers, intubating unconscious patients, removing foreign bodies from stomachs and other orifices. Consider the many racial slights I received, the verbal abuse I had to tolerate. To those who have never left our country, I want you to understand that the billions in remittances we receive from the millions of Filipinos in other countries is blood money. Since sweat and tears are condensates of blood, remember always that while you sit and whine that there are those of us who simply could not accept the reality that we could not maximize our potential here in our country and we were prepared to pay that price with our own blood.

Next time you appreciate that what is paying off all those debt payments come from overseas workers, make sure you have at least a plan or an idea on how to let our country continue to exist when these remittances dry up because it is only a matter of time. We are foolishly not investing on education and health care and nutrition and we have already begun to witness the emergence of a less-competitive generation. One day soon, our services will no longer be necessary.

I will admit that my first reaction to those who tell me to go back to the US is a mean one. But that would only mean that I actually care about your opinion couched in anonymous cowardice.

Itong pagpupunyaging ito ay mahaba at mahirap. Inumpisahan ko na at hindi ako hihinto hanggang mabawi natin ang ating Bayan. Kung sa Estados Unidos hindi nila ako mapa-alis (at mayroong mga nagsabi sa akin nito), dito pa sa aking Bayan.

I must leave for the Prayer rally at the Quezon Circle. Hope to see many of you out there. We leave for Davao and Cebu tomorrow. I am now campaigning 20 hours each day!

Walter Isaacson wrote a book about Albert Einstein. He said this in an interview: “The whole theme of the last century, and of Einstein’s life, is about people who fled oppression in order to go places to think and express themselves. Einstein runs away from the rote learning and authoritarianism of Germany as a teenager in the 1890s and goes to Italy and Switzerland. And then he flees Hitler to come to America, where he resists both McCarthyism and Stalinism because he believes that the only way to have creativity and imagination is to nurture free thought — rebellious free thought.”

For a political party to remain relevant, we need to continuously think of new ideas. Take for example the untouchability of the debt problem. Most of our political-economic leaders immediately recoil at the mere suggestion of reform as if whatever we have been doing and following for the last 25 years has helped keep our country both productive and competitive. Free thinking must not be stifled just because of the near-unanimity of an “expert community” that is so fearful of the consequences of a pathway diverse from what has been tried and tested and known to fail.

This campaign has taught me that the successful candidates can expertly mouth the same platitudes better than everyone else. Everyone is for God, against poverty, corruption and violence. The voters are simply not nuanced enough to see who among these candidates practice whatsoever they proclaim as manifested by their personal lives and public performance. Voters need to look deeper into whatever ideas these politicians promote and determine if they are able to think critically whenever they are presented with problems.

Survey after survey has shown that the people want to return the same re-electionists and incumbent politicians. Does this mean that people are generally happy with the way things are? I really think we need peaceful revolutionary reform, or am I mistaken? Because unless the people expect metanoia to occur, the coming vote may be summarized in 3 words: Business as Usual.