If life is such a breeze at home, why go elsewhere and risk being exploited abroad? Despite the wealth of evidence available, of course, there are still skeptics, people who prefer to look at the situation through rose-colored lenses. Also, don’t forget the OFWs According to Wikipedia, “ In 2010, the Commission on Overseas Filipinos estimated that approximately 9.5 million Filipinos worked or resided abroad.This is about ten percent of the population figure of 94.01 estimated by the National Statistics Office. “ ( read more ). You may also talk to the regular joe commuting to or from work. If this data is not enough to convince you, then I invite you to go over to the Philippines, walk the streets of Manila and observe. This depressing true-to-life situation has inspired Dan Brown to mention Manila in his most recent book, Inferno, where the heroine, Felicity Sienna Brooks, while soul-searching and contemplating on saving the world, decided to drop by the Philippines where she was eventually overwhelmed by the widespread poverty and almost had herself gang-raped by the locals.(Yes, I read it!)It may be a work of fiction, but “ Whichever way one looks at it, poverty cannot be overseen in Manila, a capital where roughly 43 per cent of the city’s 13 million residents live in informal settlements and shantytowns, according to the Asian Development Bank “ as Arno Maierbrugger posted. There are more saddening data in the NSO website here on poverty. While global poverty went down, Philippine poverty remains high despite economic growth. According to World Bank, the Poverty headcount ratio at national poverty line (% of population) is at 26.5% in 2009 and that Poverty headcount ratio at $2 a day (PPP) (% of population) is at 41.5%. While the rest of Asia seems to be booming, the Philippines has frequently been dubbed as the laggard. It seems like the glaring difference between the Philippines and her neighboring countries has never been more prominent, more glaring than now, at the onset of technological innovations, human mobility, and the skyward progress of our fellow Asian neighbors. Why is the Philippines poor and Japan rich?

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