FRANCISCO S. TATAD
FRANCISCO S. TATAD

STUCK between Equatorial Guinea and Laos in the latest listing of fragile states by the US think tank Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine, the Philippines may yet have a long way to go before joining the ranks of Somalia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Chad, Congo, Afghanistan and Haiti, etc. as a failed state. But a resumption and escalation of the drug killings could speed up our descent. On my Sunday evening cable TV program with broadcaster Ariel Ayala, former President Fidel V. Ramos was pained to observe that the Philippines had slipped down to No. 115 (out of 190 states) in the latest UN Human Development Index, and risen to one of the top five state violators of human rights.

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