MANILA, Philippines - There?s been some pretty exciting news from abroad.

It wasn?t just fireworks that lit the sky as Barack Obama accepted his presidential nomination, it was his words too. The same night 45 years before, Martin Luther King had delivered his ?I Have a Dream? speech, a speech that went on to achieve iconic status in the world and became a virtual war cry of the oppressed. Obama made no reference to his race in his own speech, the one group of people King dreamt would one day find the Promised Land. A dream that had just come true in Obama, resplendent on an outdoor stage, the glare of the spotlight trained on him, the star of the show. Maybe not even in King?s wildest dreams.

Obama made no reference to his race, but he spoke of delivering a country from another epic oppression into the Promised Land. He spoke of a country?no, of a world?that had been laid low by the Burning Bush, the burning being literal in Iraq and elsewhere. He spoke of a country?no, of a world?that had been gripped by the hand of tyranny, where dissent had been silenced, where freedom had been replaced by paranoia, where dreams had turned to nightmares. He spoke of ending that rule, of turning a country?no, a world?around. He spoke of lowering taxes, of ending the war in Iraq, of stopping American dependence on Middle East oil. But more than that, he spoke of the will to change and the courage to hope. He too had a dream, a dream of what America could be, a dream of what America would be.

Will it come true as well?

Well, I figure the only thing that stands in the way of Obama and the White House right now is an assassination. That is the scary part, the whole scene reminiscent of what happened to King not long after he delivered his speech proposing to deliver a people from slavery. Hillary Clinton, despite her own brilliant outing the day before, gathering her horde to throw their weight behind her former rival, did not do the world a favor by reminding it some months ago of what happened to Robert Kennedy before he got to the finish line.

I myself believe that the American elections won?t be close at all and will be a repeat of 1960, which pitted John F. Kennedy against Richard Nixon. Everybody thought that would be close too, but JFK just ran Nixon down. The same themes are there: new vs. ancient, young vs. old, change vs. status quo, peace vs. war, tolerance vs. bigotry, understanding vs. fear, hope vs. despair, freedom vs. oppression, a kinder and gentler America vs. a needful and war-mongering one. The coming election is wrought along the same mythical, larger-than life, lines. It will have the same result.

A little closer to home, Anwar Ibrahim looks headed to topple the ruling National Front which has ruled Malaysia since its independence from Britain in 1957. Nothing short of a political miracle since he was given up for dead some years back. Anwar, a vocal critic of Mahathir, was forced to resign from Parliament in 1999 after he was charged with sodomy and was jailed for six years upon conviction. His wife, Wan Azizah Wan, ran in his place and won a couple of terms. Special elections were held after she vacated her place last Tuesday and Anwar won it back with a landslide.

Anwar?s victory takes on a special significance coming on the heels of the opposition?s resounding victory in the polls last March. He now leads a coalition of opposition parties and needs only 30 more defections from the ruling party to lead a government to bring down the one currently held by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmed Badawi. He vows to get it by next month.

He vows to liberalize Malaysia and turn it into a full-blown democracy. I met Anwar?s wife and daughter when they came here many years ago, seeking support for him after he was jailed. If I recall right, Azizah met with Cory, a symbolic meeting that cast Anwar as the Malaysian Ninoy to Mahathir?s Marcos. The sodomy charge was clearly meant not just to neutralize Anwar but to humiliate him, to bring him down before the public. Better to kill the myth than the man. It didn?t work. Malaysia?s highest court reversed the verdict in 2004, finding him innocent of the charge. His comeback has been fairly meteoric since then. ?There is a mounting sense of inevitability about his impending succession [as prime minister],? said The Star.

And of course only last month, Pervez Musharraf resigned as Pakistan?s prime minister after he met with a debacle at the polls and was threatened with impeachment.

Elsewhere in the world, the winds of change are blowing. Well, they?re blowing here too, except that they?re blowing in the opposite direction. They?re not blowing us forward, they?re blowing us backward. Or these are not stout winds that billow sails and send the ship of state surely on its way, these are fretful winds that dash the ship of state, like the pride of Sulpicio Lines, against the rocks. You look at the way other countries today are waking up from their nightmares and facing a future replete with possibility, and you have to wonder what in God?s name has happened to us.

Up until a few years ago, we could always comfort ourselves with the thought that though impoverished and benighted, all the other Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, having left us biting their dust, we were still rich in freedom. We could still boast of having invented Edsa. We could still believe we were the most democratic nation in this part of the world. That is no longer so. Today, other countries can at least look forward to public opinion counting, to votes being counted and to peaceful transitions being assured. We can?t.

We don?t watch out, the winds of change will blow us in the direction of Burma. Maybe all the way to Zimbabwe.