Open letter to Filipinos

I want to share a little bit about the devastation in the Philippines that has been really upsetting me lately. I am married to a Filipina and have been to the Philippines several times.

I want to share a little bit about the devastation in the Philippines that has been really upsetting me lately. I am married to a Filipina and have been to the Philippines several times.

News reporters from all around the globe are doing the best they can to make sure the world knows of the devastation in the Philippines and how strong and resilient they are. What they are not doing is pushing blame around for the lack of relief effort in the areas that were affected by this travesty.

Before I go into why I feel they should, I want to share with you my personal experiences with the people of the Philippines. They are some of the strongest, kindest people that I have ever had the opportunity to know. Each trip that I make to the Philippines, I canโ€™t help but be amazed at the kindness that I am shown no matter where I am at there. The people have belief in family that goes far beyond anything that we do here in the states. When you speak of family in the Philippines, they speak of relatives that are 8th, 9th, and 10th cousins as though they were brother and sisters. Family to the Filipino people comes before just about everything else. Family to them is more than just a sharing of DNA, it is a way of life.

When it comes to respect, matters and knowing how to treat others, there is no other race on the planet that I can think of that embraces these practices more than the people of the Philippines.

So why am I writing this. Recently Anderson Cooper was called out by Korina Sanchez (wife of minister of department of interior, this is the man supposedly responsible leading the recovery effort in the Philippines) for supposedly stating that the Philippines Government and Military where not on the ground helping. You may have seen this on the news recently. While Anderson Cooper, the rest of CNN, and the rest of the media there in the Philippines from around the world have -not- called out the Government of the Philippines I am going to.

The Government of the Philippines has corruption from the bottom to the top. They (government officials) currently are more worried about their image than the people of their country. I have had several incidents where I got to see this corruption at many different levels. I have had bags held by customs because they wanted money before they would release them (this is because they had opened my bags and knew what was in them). I have also had items missing from bags that have gone through customs (rather than being asked for my money, they just took it), when asked about it they said they had never seen it and they did not open our packages. I will not drive in the country of the Philippines for fear of being pulled over every few miles and being asked for money for some made up violation that I had committed. I have actually been pulled over being only a passenger in a vehicle because they saw me and wanted money; it wasnโ€™t until we threatened to go public on the news with the story that they let us go.

I know this is all small change, but this behavior goes all the way up the chain of command in the Philippines. The people of the world need to understand that while CNN and others are doing a great job, they are themselves playing it safe and not saying, I am sure, what is truly running through their minds. What is that you ask? That is โ€œWhere is the Philippines Government and Military involvement in this crisis. One would expect that they would be the leaders on the ground in trying to get relief to all the people of the Philippines, but instead they are all back in their offices making sure the image you see of them and the image that gets reported makes them look like superstars. There are some officials there who are actually taking donations from around the world, repackaging them in little bags which stickers on them saying that the package of relief was thanks to some official and his name listed on the bag. This is all being done in an effort to make themselves look good for the upcoming elections in 2016. To hell with the fact that their people are dying; they are more concerned with their image.

So this letter is really for the Philippine people. I ask that you all do yourself a favor and donโ€™t vote back into office a single person that is currently in office. Instead, vote for the people that helped find your brothers, mended your sisterโ€™s leg, or provided you a shoulder to cry on for the news of a lost family member.

Original post: http://newsjunkiepost.com/2013/11/15/typhoon-haiyan-yolanda-exposes-philippine-governments-failure-and-corruption/#sthash.ubJWFqMa.dpuf

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