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?

I feel I owe you an entire post.

Many of my classmates and I from the one national medical school in the Philippines started training in the United States at the peak of the AIDS epidemic. US medical graduates at that time did not want to have anything to do with hundreds of patients with full-blown AIDS. This was our chance to work and learn from outstanding institutions where we trained with physicians who were paid to read, research and teach residents full time.

Those were great days and those were days before they began limiting work hours of residents. 120 hours a week was not uncommon and imagine King's County Hospital with 1000 medical beds (including a 40 bed prison ward). One memory from this period was the experience of not seeing daylight for weeks on end as we would report for work early in the morning and return home late at night. I don't know how we thrived in these circumstances but having my wife with me as a co-resident surely helped a lot.

Maybe this is also why I am confident Chris will appreciate our working environment today.

Because a Brigadier General was planning to march alongside people who were going to attend the twentieth anniversary of the fall of Marcos, Gloria Arroyo declared a "State of Emergency". This was splashed in the headlines of the New York Times, Washington Post and most other important newspapers. Just as when things were beginning to look brighter, the government screws everything up and managed to show the world that they did not really know what they were doing.

By over-reacting, they only showed to all that they are so insecure about their legitimacy. They must have really cheated in the last elections. This conclusion does not come as a surprise but I guess everyone who has had the best hopes for the Philippines had this attitude all along. So they cheated like everyone else, give them a chance so long as they do good to the country.

Now that they have set the Philippines back, I am convinced that they will do everything in their power to stay in power whatever the consequences. This tells me that they are willing to see the nation destroyed just as long as they retain control.

They have been in power for five years now. The economy grows only because of the ten million Filipinos abroad sending remittances to keep the sputtering economy going. The very negative effects of this type of income will be expounded upon in another segment.

Perhaps it is time for Gloria to go.

Twenty years ago, the Filipino people invented People Power. Suddenly, oppressed people got together and peacefully emerged from 14 years of dark dictatorship. Because I distinctly remember those days when we were not free is the reason I rejoice when I look back at all the gains we achieved as a nation.

There was no press to speak of. Marcos was not accountable to anybody. We still have no idea how many people disappeared. Travel was restricted. Guns were confiscated. I can only wonder how this one man was able to keep all of us enslaved.

The reason I became a physician was that at that time it had been the most benign option. I would be able to help others and make enough money without having to compromise with the dictatorship. People Power ended all this and enabled my three younger siblings to become lawyers like our father and grandfather before us.

Whatever others say, the Philippines is still better off free. We must not take for granted the liberties we recovered. But we are still poor and the middle class continues its exodus to other countries "for the sake of the family". This is why I need to go home because we need to reclaim our country.

Why does a better life require a sacrifice of being separated from our parents and brothers and sisters? Why cannot we come together again and achieve a modicum of security, prosperity and cleanliness that will permit us to live and contribute to our communities?

I am amazed that I am able to look back twenty years, a generation. Almost all of this time that transformed me into a middle-aged person was spent in the United States. Wasn't Thomas Jefferson 32 when he wrote the Declaration? Martin Luther King was 21 when he began leading those marches. I really must get going.