Oh Dear, My Dear Dan Brown

May 25, 2013 Dan Brown, author, INFERNO Dear Dan Brown, Around 30 per cent or 26 million Filipinos still have no access to sanitary toilets in the Philippines, data from two United Nations agencies show. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization said 7.4 million of these Filipinos still poo and pee behind bushes, fields, plastic bags, ditches, canals, rivers, lakes, bridges, or along highway tracks. Indeed, it is more fun in the Philippines. Specially for its 6.3 million Senior citizens existing on an average of P6,000 pesos or $150 dollars monthly SSS pension. It's a hand to mouth struggle to go on living in this world. Sir, I am one of those Senior Citizens of the Philippines. Dan, I greatly enjoyed reading the way you described Metro Manila as the "Gates of Hell" in your latest book - INFERNO. With all due respect, may I remind you that there is only one bully character for souls to deal with in hell - the weird devil. So it is not really that dreadful compared to the many corrupt bullies we all have to deal with in our poor and backward and God-forsaken county. Indeed, in the Philippines, millions of us poor Filipinos have no recourse but to live with many corrupt characters comprising our sick society - in the church, in the government, in the media; and indeed, weird teachers and professors in schools, colleges, and universities owned and operated by the Catholic church. They still teach Filipino children not HOW to think, but only WHAT to believe - a disease more known as the Sick Man of Asia! Sir, aside from reading INFERNO to learn about the ills of our sick society - we have only to read what is reported and published daily in the Philippine Star, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila Bulletin, and in other major newspapers in our country. We believe, however, that such horrors are not really horrors, because, for the most part, they are due to, if not because of our Free Will - God's greatest gift to Filipinos - the Sick Man of Asia. The Philippines is, indeed, a country famous for its poverty, suffocating pollution, political corruption, economic perversion, traffic jams, garbage here, filth there, horrifying sex trade, ill-health and shameless sanitation together with the jobless, the homeless, and the hopeless; not to mention the shantytowns that sprawl across trash dumps and cemeteries. millions of us poor Filipinos have also to accept the wealth, the power, and glory of the real owners of the Philippines - the Catholic church and its greedy partners in the world of trade and commerce. Sex trade in the Philippines is minor evil. What, however, is the major evil is the way we are inspired to produce 3 babies every minute the day and night; or, 4,320 babies daily; or 129,600 babies monthly; or 1.5 million babies yearly. Most of these children are neither loved nor wanted. They struggle to survive in the streets of our major cities. Their parents have been told to believe that God will provide for them anyway. If not in this life, in the next. Just pray and never lose faith. After all, God said in the bible that we must always multiply and replenish the earth. Also, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matt. 6:34 We Filipinos are not only religious. We are also superstitious. We carry false beliefs daily on our backs and we are crippled by its weigh. Sadly, instead of facing reconstruction with science and technology, what we seek is only self-deception, if not obliteration via more prayers under more of the same theology. As one high official in our government wrote to you saying: "Our faith in God binds us as a nation and we believe that Manila citizens are more than capable of exemplifying good character and compassion towards each other...Truly, our place is an entry to heaven." Let's now take a closer look at how exactly we Filipinos are loving and compassionate towards each other in our own country: God-fearing security guards are needed to assist God-fearing policemen to guard the entrance of hospitals, banks, schools, colleges, universities, shopping malls, residential buildings, hotels, motels, bars, night clubs, bookstores, drug stores, residential villages, movie theaters, restaurants, churches, cathedrals, public parks, museums, airports, harbors, MRT-LRT stations, bus stations, halls of justice, courts of law, barangay's office, mayor's office, governor's office; not to mention the entrance of the NBI building also guarded, defended, and protected by licensed security guards. I have asked it before, I ask it again: how blessed are we really by God for being the only Catholic country in Asia since 400 years ago? Sir, do you know that in blind faith we Filipinos continue to be the victims of the Holy Bible messages. It teaches us Filipinos to "love not this world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of God is not in Him." 1 John 2:15 It is, in this way, that we Filipinos believe the only holy thing of lasting value are those found in the heavenly world of God up there. Our country down here should be treated as something temporary, unworthy, low, if not depraved. After all, we are told, this life is merely a stopover on our journey to the next better life. Therefore the less love, less attention, and less affection placed on our country; and, at the same time, more love, more attention, and more affection are placed on God's kingdom - the better for all of us; especially as we are the only Catholic country in Asia since the 16th century. In the meantime, the Catholic Vatican bank is far richer, far more powerful than the Federal bank of the USA. Dan Brown, my dear sir, for being honest and truthful about the horrors of freedom and democracy in the Philippines, I salute you. Power is the ability to produce intended effects. I wish you more power! With all good wishes, Poch Suzara Makati city, Philippines May 13, 2013