Even here in the Philippines you just cannot disdain the feelings and sentiment of the people forever. It has been going on for a long time this disdainful treatment, and Filipinos being Filipinos just put up with it. What is different now is that on the one hand those whose job it is to represent the people are seen to be stealing money which should have been used to improve the lives of everybody, and on the other the oligarchs who have a license to make unconstrained profit are lining their own pockets without any real social consciousness whatsoever. A middle class does not exist in sufficient size to be a truly stabilizing force but they are trying hard and they will probably eventually take the masa with them to protest inequality against the politicians and oligarchs, those without versus those with.