My home in the southern Philippines, where my wife grew up and went to school and where our daughters are currently attending classes at St. Scholastica's Academy. Much smaller and less congested than Manila but with half a million people, would still qualify as a major city even in the US. Remember, we spent 10 years in a town with 12,000 people.

This is a town that was at its zenith the richest place in the country pound for pound, the result of the sugar quotas that drew hundreds of millions of dollars into the area. Unfortunately, all this money did was to produce the greatest disparity in wealth as well. The planters began buying Rolls Royces and villas in the Mediterranean; their children were spoiled and provided with unlimited expense accounts, sent to expensive but lax and ultimately third-rate colleges in the US... As with all good things, when the quotas disappeared and when all the corruption was uncovered, what was left was this mass of people that had migrated into this island when work had been plentiful.

Earlier, I spoke of poverty in Luzon. The poor people up north are in better shape compared to the poor people down here. What frightens me is that I am told that poor people in Mindanao are in even worse straits. I will find out for myself when I visit the region in the coming weeks.

Back to Bacolod, life couldn't be more idyllic. We rise early at 5:30 am, attend daily Mass, bring the daughters to school and then play 18 holes of golf. This city has managed to retain the friendliness and the feel of a small town while having available most of the amenities found in a city its size. Beautiful place.

Got a refresher course in Philippine style elections which essentially remains an exercise in massive vote-buying. Only the price of a vote has gone up and more "documentation" is required (meaning, each paid voter needs to produce a carbon copy of the handwritten ballot!). Politicians no longer attach much influence to the votes coming from the "educated classes". Virtually the entire campaign is focused on the desperate poor which compose the overwhelming majority of the electorate in the Philippines today. Who can blame these hungry masses for trading their vote for a few days worth of food? "Been there, been that," sighed a popular radio announcer of yore.

I am not deterred. I was aware of this reality when I made the decision to return. By now you should begin to appreciate why the most marginalized among us choose to go to the mountains and fight it out with the government because they have seen generation after generation remain powerless and they don't see any hope for their own children.

There must be a peaceful way out of this. We do not have to die for this country in order to change it. We need to live for this nation and we need to rouse the people into committing themselves towards longer-lasting changes that will set us free from this cycle of corruption.

Back in the Peens, everyone wants to know what I plan to do for the endless problems preventing our country from taking off and getting our national act together. I haven't developed a stump speech yet and I am always at a loss as to where to start. Quite an unfair question but it will always be the first question. Sell your ideas regarding national rebirth in 25 words or less.

A good place to start has been to emphasize the potential strength of 85 million united people working towards national goals. Gross national product depends on the number of pairs of hands engaged in production. Turn the heavy weight of a large population around and convert it to a potent force for change. It will not take many lifetimes if we can only catch that spark that will initiate the change cascade.

More than anything, we need committed citizens to rise from this hopeless morass. Committed citizens totally apart from these entrenched political dynasties that have gotten us nowhere. Committed citizens who realize that defaulting on their civic obligations is an overt response which will condemn our nation to the widespread corruption and apathy that has forever strangled our national dreams.

Or should I say ich bin more American than JFK claimed he was a Berliner. Without diminishing my love for my birth country I cannot erase the fact that half of my "conscious life" (ie whenever I started remembering things) has been spent in the US. My 16 year marriage occurred totally in the US. My four daughters were born in the US. I have paid and continue to pay my dues (mostly taxes but this should include the intolerance and prejudice that I have had to put up with). I have enough knowledge in American Civics and History I can teach an advanced course in College. I can speak fluently an "accentless variety of Oklahoma-English". I have never shied from contributing to the various communities I lived in. I have always been prepared to defend the country of my four daughter's birth.

So just because I wasn't born in the US and I can never renounce my beloved Philippines should not mean I am less of an American. For if being an American means being more generous and tolerant and civic-minded and patriotic then by all means I am proud to be an American. To those who don't agree, you can always exercise the option of trying to bite me.

No entries these last few days because time flies here in G-town. Today's topic is on ethanol not because I tend to consume greater quantities with my friends here but because the Philippines can save a lot of money by producing ethanol from the abundant amounts of sugar that can be grown in the now dormant fields (many books have been written outlining the disastrous policies that made our country so dependent on US quotas). We should follow Brazil and cease becoming dependent on fossil fuels. Poor nations need to have more initiative as well as imagination in looking for ways to conserve money and natural resources.