How fortunate for the United States to have such an extraordinary bunch of geniuses for a first team 230 years ago--Washington, John Adams, Jefferson and Franklin. "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...."

Jefferson was 11 years younger than I when he wrote the majority of those words "not to find new principles, or new arguments...but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent...".

"We hold these truths to be self-evident....".

Is there still any question that revolutionary change will need to come from outside the Philippines? There are so many heroic Filipinos that will join without hesitation the cause that will make our country rise from these desperate depths. Enough of these superficial sound bites and pathetic displays of patronizing leadership. We need real and constructive debate; a serious discussion of the major problems that keep the Philippines stunted. A strong political resolve to finally end the generations-old problems of land reform, population control, environmental stewardship, relevant education and most important, CHARACTER CHANGE. We need to get rid of our bad habits as a nation. We must all strive to become more productive towards common goals. We need to bring God back into politics. Justice, truth, love for neighbor have never been proprietary concepts of any single religion. These are universal human attributes we need to continually strive for.

"THE Philippines was able to reduce the incidence of child malnutrition by 0.9 percent every year from 1990 to 2004, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) reported.

This rate however, the report said, is insufficient to meet targets set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The report card is the fourth of a Unicef series that monitors progress for children toward the MDGs, a set of time-bound strategies listed in 2000 by the international community to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.

Among the benchmarks outlined by the MDGs for the year 2015 is to halve the proportion of underweight children under 5 years old.

In the Philippines, the prevalence of underweight children under 5 stands at 28 percent."

I will admit that I did not realize how bad it continues to be in the Philippines. When I left the country 17 years ago, people here in the US could not understand why I disliked Ronald Reagan. That was the reason then. Because by supporting a dictator like Marcos, children were dying and nobody cared so long as corporate profits were sustained and American interests were protected.

Well, Marcos has been gone 20 years now and it looks like we are only sliding further down. We have run out of excuses. It is truly not out of any Messianic mission that I am returning home. I simply find it unconscionable to remain here in the US while children continue to die in droves from parasitic infections and upper respiratory diseases. And all these hotshots can think of is charter change.

Maybe it is because I have become more conscious but I have been learning of more and more established professionals preparing to move out of the Philippines. I refer to grounded and gifted heads of families, some of whom already have grandchildren who are committed to uprooting 25-year careers in search of safer, cleaner and more prosperous surroundings. Without exception, all these who are part of this exodus are bitter towards the succession of governments and politicians who have miserably failed them.

I can't blame any of these people. Family comes first. Personal sacrifice arises from a personal choice. When these sacrifices begin encroaching upon the welfare of your children you need to pause and reflect.

Meanwhile back home, charter change is the political gimmick of the day. As if it would prevent or even delay the departure of a single disillusioned Filipino. Why can't the people ever feel that these politicians care for the general good? Sacrifice, patience and hard work have always been demanded from us while the situation seems to become only more desperate. Do these clowns really think that they can get away with this degree of criminal neglect forever?

The Filipino hero Jose Rizal said "there are no tyrants where there are no slaves". More than ever I am returning home because I remember that phrase from Julius Caesar, "the fault dear Brutus lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings". We, the Filipino people can only take so much. We need to take our nation back.

This week, we witnessed an angry Chinese woman who heckled President Hu Jintao as he spoke at the White House. If that incident had occurred in China, that woman would have been shot immediately. In the Philippines, a similar episode happened while Mrs. Arroyo spoke before a graduating class. There also was a heckler who unfurled a banner urging her to resign.

Mrs. Arroyo ended up awarding this young woman her diploma while both looked separate ways.

In my middle age, I am still awed by this exhibition of raw courage. I want so strongly to believe that I have not lost any of the idealism that I once had and given the same circumstances, I would have unfurled an exact banner that would have politely asked the President to step down.

I am reminded of an episode in the Godfather when Sonny Corleone made sure that his brother Michael did not just have his *ic* in his hands and instead had a loaded weapon that had been planted beforehand in the watercloset to shoot Sollozo and the corrupt cop.

I want all these idealistic youth to know that like the Count of Monte Cristo, you need to prepare for this one chance. I would truly hate for this idealistic young woman to be picked-up in the middle of the night and never be heard from again. That had happened many times in our recent past. I remember taking part in my first mass action at the University of the Philippines in 1980 and talking to a fellow skinny youth named Leandro Alejandro who was all raw courage and shining idealism. He was mercilessly assassinated years later. In a sense, it is to the memory of heroes like Leandro that I am making my way home posthaste. Ellie Wiesel said: "What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we shall not be forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled, we shall lend them ours."

Hang in there because I am on my way to provide you cover.

My lawyer-friend stopped me this afternoon and asked when a man was unmistakably getting older. I did not know the answer and he said "when his oldest daughter turned 13".

I remember that day so clearly, shortly after one in the afternoon at the Our Lady of Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn when I carried Kathryn in my arms for the first time and I was dancing in the delivery room, part of the perks of being a physician I guess. There have been many sad moments in my life since but I don't think that there has ever been a time when the happiness of that day ever faded enough to make life seem hopelessly sad. My priorities and my perspective permanently changed that day and I continue to live primarily for my four daughters.

Yeats wrote in "Prayer for my Daughter":

"In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful"