But all important development indicators are far from impressive: Staggering rates of underemployment, poverty, and inequality haven't changed at all, if not deteriorated in recent years, while the Philippine political system is still dominated by a dynastic-celebrity-media complex.
Famous movie lines are often a hair's breadth away from staggering banality.
Forward momentum will keep you from staggering.
It's called For Ellen, and is about a stumbling, slurring rock'n'roller, complete with chipped black nail varnish, on the skids and far from home, who staggers into a nameless, snow-covered small town.
The jurors' guilty verdict in the Arthur Andersen criminal trial was far from muscular, instead barely staggering across the government's finish line.
The famed Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko once wrote that Hack Wilson (class of 1979) should have been moved to first base from the outfield, where he usually played, "because he wouldn't have as far to stagger to the dugout".
Chess engines are still far from perfection, but their advances have been staggering.
Though Apple may be far from that number at the moment, it's growth in just the past four months is staggering.
Far from the quick recovery the chancellor has been praying for, the economy is only just staggering back into growth.
Mr. Toback ("Black and White") isn't far from those wilder guys, but the director Abel Ferrara, who even sounds as if he staggered, wounded, from one of his bloodiest scenes, may even be closer.
