The Rotary Balita no. 728 (August 27, 1953)

The idealism of the Filipino is being insidiously replaced by a gross materialism, declared Dr. Encarnacion Alzona, leading educator and the first woman to address the Manila Rotarians, at their meeting of August 13 last. Dr. Alzona warned that when "spiritual values are interred, the degradation of man becomes inevitable." She pointed out that the spectacle of numerous foreign mechanical products in use here may convey a false impression of general prosperity, because it is well known that the purchasing power of the vast majority is pitifully small. She also bewailed the state of the country's libraries and museums, "the repository of the cultural property of the nation," which "are mere skeletons, hiding their nakedness in some dilapidated structures, subsisting on a mere pittance from the State, and praying for a windfall from Carnegis, Ford, Rockefeller foundations."