WHY is a province like Maguindanao, if placed in the proverbial market, worth less than the handful of gated villages named for dead governor generals and conquistadores located east of Makati's central business district? The reason is geography. The villages are the enclaves of the superrich (considered as the high-value people regardless of the source of their wealth). With land values at their historic high, Maguindanao, as I wrote in a previous column, is in a region that wallows in intractable poverty and illiteracy, a generational, unchanging tragedy and a dynastic politics that is unwelcoming of fresh blood and fresh pool of leaders.

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