You are welcome Jacques.

The country's situation improved with Marcos' fall in the sense that there was democratic space once agan. There is freedom of speech, of assembly, of the press, to organize, etc. etc.

On the other hand, power remains at the hands of an oligarchic class of big compradors-landed owners-corrupt bureaucrats. Political instability and the disparity between the rich and the poor remains wide as ever.

Sadly, whatever democratic gains that was won by ousting Marcos is now being squandered by the present administration under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The country seems to be moving back to the dark era that was martial law.

Extrajudicial killings, summary executions, massacres, enforced disappearances, and political harassments are now mounting against trade unionists, human rights activists, student leaders, peasant organizers, church social workers, dissidents, and other ordinary civilians working for social transformation (but who unfortunately found the GMA admin and its corrupt ways a hinderance to development.)

Since 2001, more than 800 has been killed and 200 are missing. Locally, the Commission on Human Rights, the Melo Commission, and the human rights group Karapatan has tagged the military in these human rights abuses. Internationally, the Amnesty International, the United Nations, the Human Rights Watch, etc. has also come up with the same conclusions.

Until now, not one of the culprits has been prosecuted or even brought to trial.