The conversation sometimes bogs down in apparent language difficulties, but on the whole a helpful counterpoint to President Marcos's exposition. SPL: "I don't agree with that assessment at all of our democracy ... It's not mandatory that we should be judged by American standards. Philippine democracy should be judged according to the condition and the circumstances of our society, not by the demands that we should be like the American society ... The Philippines was one of the only two or three functioning democratic countries in Asia before 1972. We had sixty to seventy years of experience in democracy. All right. There were problems. What country doesn't have problems? ... The job that remained to be done was to correct the evils. You don't cure a patient by killing him, do you?"