Fair trade is breaking the chains of exploitation

SEOUL, South Korea: When I visit the poor in the Manila slums and smell the putrid, revolting stink of the black slime of the waterways that carry the excrement of a million families through the sprawling metropolis of Metro Manila and look upon the towering condominiums of the rich and the wealthy, I am smelling not the dirt of the poor but the corrupt rottenness of the system where the millions of poor survive in conditions not fit of pigs.

South Korea was much the same in the 1960’s but despite its own brand of monopolies, family dynasties, its share of dictators, it has risen from such abject inequality and squalor to a first world, modern, prosperous economy and better living conditions. It’s not without social problems but is far ahead of the Philippines, which was a more advanced economy in the 1960’s. It is then no wonder that thousands of Filipinos flock here to find better paying jobs and good working conditions.