as a filipino (by birth) myself, i have to apologize for some of the negative comments you read here... they are still "in denial" stage.

like you, i did a few years of work (US-AID) in manila & many provinces & i'm not particularly happy about what i saw... not because i despise what i saw but because, hope erodes...

the cleanliness & orderliness of a city or town only tells you what kind of people live there... it's all about discipline & i painfully admit that we filipinos do not have much of it. but there's hope... if & when my fellow filipinos jump out of the denial stage & start teaching their children about discipline, instead of making excuses while riding on their emotional souls, then perhaps the next generaton of filipinos will at least some hope for improvement.