The Phillipines is now at a turning point. Young people are protesting the rampant corruption in government potentially spurred on by flood control projects that cost billions of Pesos without any meaningful work ever being done. The result is many lives lost because of floods because the money for flood control was lost to government corruption.
Corruption in government has been a fixture in many nations around the world and was part of the political process. Recent efforts by young people in Mexico and Philippines are shaking those foundations and may usher in a new era of more honest governments in these nations.
The current Philippine president is a product of a corrupt political system that has existed for generations. It may well be that presidents such as Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos Jr., grew up in and was groomed by a corrupt political environment and knows no other way as the head of government.
I am not an expert on Phillipines but my brother lives there and I have visited there and have learned a lot about the Philippines from him and his wife who was born there. I also lived in South America in a very similar political system where the bureaucracy seemed to require that everyone who had to stamp a document must be bribed to do so. Corruption was part of the fiber of the government and despite otherwise good intentions, the underlying corruption was just part of the culture.
The Philippines operates much the same way and it will take years to change the political system to one that is fair and honest. The protests have started the process that hopefully will see change move forward.
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