Beer and wine are the most consumed products in the market aside from basic staples. Establishments engaged in the manufacture and sale of these intoxicants post everyyearone of the biggest margins of profits among corporations. Most crimes in the county are committed by people who are underthe influence of liquor ordrugs. Nightspots whichserveall kindsof intoxicants dotthestreets of ourcities and towns in abundant number. They hold indecent shows with bare or scantily clad womenand men. In theatres and on televisions, pornographic films and advertisements are exhibited and passedoff by authorities in governmentasartistic expressions. On the heaps of this moral decay streamed forth a culture of sexual permissiveness that nurtured, and encouraged to flourish, trade in flesh and trafficking in women andchildren. Unequal distribution of government resources and concentration of infrastructures in already developed areasresulted to the rise of megacities, and the marginalization of neighboring areas. With the glittering come-onsofcities, people from the rustic side of the country were enticed and they left their simple life in agricultural or fishing economy to the squalor of the slum districts and oppressive employmentconditionsincapitalist factories and sweatshops. Manyoftheir sons and daughters would growas sexualtoys and ganglandbullies. Thus, as we survey the social landscape, we see two neighborhoods everywhere which are widely disparate in conditions-one a beautiful sight of big houses with manicured lawns anda garagefilled with cars and the otherpicture of shanties and squalor. And the residents of these communities claim the same Christian or Muslim affinity and pray to the same God who commandstherich to part their surplus wealth to the poor andlift up their social conditions. The Governmenthasadoptedthe social market economysince 1986 and upon the Presidency of Aquino to boost our leap to industrialization and the world of felicity. In the presidency of Ramos, under this system, foreign investments and infrastructures rose into unprecedentedheights in Philippine history. But we have yet to see its meaningful contribution to the uplifting of the social conditions of the massesof our people. Governmentclaimsthat only 33 percent of ourpeople are poor. But independentsources peg a higherstatistics. It is being raised that the social market economyis the “Third Way” between capitalism and communism. Wrote Dr. Parrefas: “It is a socio-political-economic order fundamentally liberal but at the same timesocially oriented. It serves both the goals of guaranteeing the freedomofenterprise and social justice and security. It is committed bothto the free market andto social progress.” In brief, this is capitalism with a programfor the poor. To quote Presidential Security Adviser Jose Almonte, it is free-market economy guided by a sense of community or social responsibility.°* However one looksatit, is the sametraditional economic system wheretheelite play their parts to score in termsofprofits while the governmentacts as tax collector requiring businessman to part some percentage of °"Julius Caesar Parennas,”A Social Market Economyofthe Philippines.” In Amado Luis Lagdameo, ed., “Christian-Muslim Democracy: Waveofthe Future.” 1996: Pasig City, pp.387-388 °S Statements before a gathering of Muslim-Christian Democrats at Metropolitan Club, Bel-Air Village, Makati City on February 22, 1997 28