Hard working Filipinos remain poor, watching the people of other nations in the region get rich. Revolutions come and go in Philippines, but the old villains -- corruption and political oppression -- remain intact, preventing Filipinos from making the great leap forwards from poverty to riches.

This happens for a familiar reason: every new regime uses the old mechanisms, which they had challenged before assuming office, to advance its own interests rather than the interests of the people at large.

The Philippines is a country rich both in natural resources (e.g., nickel, copper, gold, silver, and chromium), and human resources (close to 104 million people). But it remains poor. The Gross Domestic Product per capita in Philippines was last recorded at 2639.90 US dollars in 2015,
That’s just 21 percent of the world's average, and well below the per capita GDP of such neighboring countries as Indonesia and especially Singapore, which has become a rich country.