Where is true democracy?

Our government leaders go to war or invade another country and we all just watch as they do it without being accountable to the American people? How can they can wiretap innocent civilians, and we don't do anything about it? I feel like my freedom as an American has been robbed like a thief steals someone’s most valuable possessions. It feels like I am in the Philippines during the Marcos’ regime for the second time... like deja vu. Then, why did I leave the Philippines for if true democracy is nowhere to be found? I thought that the United States is that one place in the world where people have true freedom and have rights... where the people can be heard and the government leaders would genuinely listen. I served in the U S Navy and worked for five years at the Department of Defense because I believe in the American way of life -- the democratic way of life. The thing that they call true democracy. This tapping business cannot be happening here in the States! Perhaps somewhere else in the Global South but not in America, the bastion of true democracy where people can speak freely.

After having served in the military, I embarked on a quiet civilian life -- no clamors, no protests. I still can’t help compare my life in the Philippines, a third world nation-state with corrupt political leaders whose graft and corruption are up to their eyeballs. These sentiments are still with me because of what they did to my father, an intellectual member of the society whose only crime was to open people’s eyes and enlighten them to the evils of the government. The Philippines with its so-called “freedom” that was never there; freedom only existed in government document for terminology use; whereas, in real life, there was no such thing. The so-called democratic institutions that were supposed to be there for the people reflected a country that lacks governance. They were hypocritical because how can the government leaders tell us that we have the freedom of expression when, in fact, they censored almost every writing the journalists wrote?

To me free speech is cherished, because it is an intrinsic part of us as human beings. We should be able to express ourselves in an appropriate manner as long as we remain responsible and do not cause speech of hatred or what has been called “hate speech.” Free speech is my basic liberty as a human being like it is my right to breathe the same air that everybody else breathes and as long as I don’t pollute the air that others breathe then it is okay to do so. The governance under twenty five years of Marcos' reign of the Filipino people was the worst of all time, and it must have been like what the other countries experienced during the regimes of Stalin, Hitler, and other dictators.

When the Filipino journalists were restrained from writing their discontent and were so apprehensive of being ambushed at some roads on their way home because of what they have published, democracy and free speech disappeared from our democratic way of life, the way we once knew. The killings of the journalists were domestically alarming, and the US simply looked at it and turned away. They allowed the Filipino government to deal with it. But the Philippine government was corrupt. Not until President Fidel Ramos took governance that the Philippines saw some relief from graft and corruption. At sixteen and being the editor of a high school's English newspaper, I had to be careful that I was not violating one of the Marcos’ self-imposed rules on journalism nor publishing lest be jailed. At sixteen, at felt that we lost our grip on our future. It was then that I decided that the Philippines was no longer the place for me to breathe air. The air was poisonous, and I couldn’t be myself. It wasn't fair! I have always considered myself a responsible, clean young writer with no filthy language in my journalistic attempts, no profanity at all, whose only crime was expressing my opinions about how the Philippine government was messed up. They were treating us as if we were idiots and we didn't know what was really going on amidst the rampant graft and corruption in the Philippine government. Everywhere it was indescribably inhumane.

The "Kabataang Makabayan" (The Patriotic Youth) totally lost its voice. Our power was in our voice to express the wrongdoings to the Filipino people. And even that was suppressed! One should dare not say anything against the government or they will confiscate your properties and savings and lock you up in jail or just plain kill you. That’s what I meant when I said that the air on the other side was really suffocating and poisonous that I couldn’t bear it anymore. When the United States approved my visa to come here, I considered the air was fresher here “where the grass is greener” and where democracy still works.