Local newspaper publishers and columnists have not given up suggesting to readers that the Philippines can be a great nation again. This is fine and dandy if, in fact, the Philippines was once, in the past, a great nation. The Philippines is still a land of missed opportunties, if not the land of lesser evils. Its democracy is still under a theocracy. The government is mostly composed of cheap officials always ready the sell to the foreigners what's left of the Pearl of the Orient. Poch Suzara