When closely examining the issue of why the Philippines has turned
out to become Asia’s Basketcase of Wasted Democrazy, a Tagalog
expression actually seems to perfectly capture the essence of our
society’s collective failure to progress, improve ourselves, and fix the
very problems that turned us into a Basketcase:
“Kung talagang gusto, maraming paraan;
Kung talagang ayaw, maraming dahilan…”
(“If you really want it, there are many ways;
If you don’t really want it, there are many excuses.”)
The unfortunate Truth about the general collective failure of
Filipinos as a society and the dismal performance of the Philippines on
the world stage reveals that Filipinos simply don’t really seem to want
to be successful to begin with.
I mean let’s face it: It’s already the year 2011 and here we are
still sticking to a lot of old, outdated, and discarded paradigms that
have impoverished other countries – many of whom have since decided to
get their acts together by adopting new ways of thinking that are making
them move forward. Worse, our problems just continue to get worse.
Instead of simply working in the most menial jobs abroad, we
increasingly have more and more of our people going into risky criminal
“contract jobs” such as acting as drug mules or even getting into prostitution just to make ends meet for their families back home.
And yet, the problem is just right there staring at Filipinos in the face: Poverty and the lack of economic opportunities.
For some reason, many Filipinos still just don’t get it. The slogan “It’s the Economy, Stupid”
isn’t strong enough to jolt many of us into lobbying for the right
policies to be adopted. Until today, we still often come across outdated
dinosaur types who would much rather emphasize romantic but
idealistically-naïve rhetoric over and above the much needed practical
realities of Filipinos needing jobs and food on the table.
To this day, there still exist a number of so-called “Nationalistic”
Filipinos who would rather have Filipinos suffering at home from hunger
or forced to work abroad in demeaning, dangerous, or even illegal types
of work due to chronic unemployment back home as long as the so-called
Philippine Patrimony is maintained and the so-called “avaricious” and
exploitative “imperialist” foreign investors are kept away.
Most of them come from Left-leaning Marxist or Maoist ideological
backgrounds who simply refused to be in sync with the rest of the world
as even Leftists and Socialists from Europe, and Latin America have
shifted over to embrace economic liberalization, globalization, and
foreign direct investment as allies in the fight against poverty. Case
in point: During one Ibero-American summit, Spanish Prime Minister José
Luís Zapatero y Rodríguez, an avowed leftist Socialist with a thoroughly
leftist pedigree (one ancestor was a Communist who fought against the
Right-wing Franco-led Phalangists during the Spanish Civil War) told
fellow leftist, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez that in order to solve
unemployment, one fast and effective way was to invite foreign investors
in.
Not too long ago, even leftist/Socialist former Chilean President
Michelle Bachelet herself oversaw the pouring in of foreign direct
investments into Chile in her administration’s drive to improve Chile’s
economy and create more employment opportunities. The same thing went on
with Brazil’s leftist ex-President Fernando Lula da Silva, an ex-lathe
operator & machinist: Foreign investors were welcomed in as a means
to create greater employment opportunities in order to better serve the
masses.
Just recently, even staunchly Communist Cuba has relaxed its rules against private capitalism and has decided to legalize private entrepreneurship.
Quite unfortunately, the Philippines continues to have quite a large
number of so-called “intellectuals” still subscribing to all the wrong
ideas.
Worse, whenever a clamor for reforms is made by well-meaning
citizens, some of these so-called “intellectuals” come out in full force
to make excuses on why such reforms wouldn’t work. It’s almost as if
these people insist that the Philippines is doomed to failure. They
complain that the Philippines is poor because of wrong policies adopted
by government, but when corrective policies are advocated in order to
get rid of those wrong policies, they oppose those policy suggestions,
saying “it’s not going to work” without even offering any realistic insight as to what exactly will work.
Very often, it’s really just a simple exercise in common sense. Other
countries in the region have done certain things that worked and thus
the Philippines should take concrete steps to try to emulate the
successful policies adopted by those countries in order to emulate their
successes. But still, we continue to have naysayers coming out the
woodwork trying to dismiss any suggestion that the Philippines should
learn from the experiences of other countries.
Below is a list of excuses that so many Filipinos used to make which
seek to explain our failure as a society. Worse, some of these excuses
are often aimed primarily against considering possible solutions that
have caused other countries to succeed:
* * *
1. We are not successful because we have American bases. (This is no longer true, but for a long time, we used to have American bases and they left in 1991.)
Rebuttal:
Germany, Turkey, Japan, South Korea,
Taiwan, Italy, and Qatar, all have American bases. They’re all rich and
relatively successful countries. For a long time, Singapore and Malaysia
relied on British and much later, Australia-New Zealand air squadrons
to provide an ample security blanket to fend off any external aggression
especially during the Cold War.
Why then did these countries succeed?
Didn’t some of our ultranationalist activists keep saying that the
American bases were the reason for our sorry state?
Had the bases continued on, we could have
continued earning crucial revenues in rental payments as well as
maintained well-paying jobs for local contractors and service providers.
We also would have not had to deal with external aggression as the USA
would have provided a security blanket for us, and we could have
concentrated our efforts on simply building our economy.
Ok, so we kicked out the American bases… Did our society improve because we kicked them out?
2. We can’t learn from Singapore because Singapore is small
and the Philippines is big. Singapore is easier to manage because it is
small.
Rebuttal:
China learned from Singapore. China is
the world’s third largest country in area, and the world’s largest in
terms of population. Malaysia is almost the same size as the Philippines
in land area, and yet Malaysia also learned from Singapore.
One of the largest ex-Soviet Republics,
multi-ethnic but Muslim-majority Kazakhstan, decided to deviate from the
other ex-Soviet Republics which took inspiration from Western Europe,
and decided to “look East” for inspiration. Because of this realization
by Kazakh leaders that they had more in common with Asians than with
Europeans, they primarily chose similarly multi-ethnic but
Muslim-majority Malaysia on how to run their society and took part of
its economic cue from similarly multi-ethnic Singapore.
In fact, what many smart-aleck
Filipinos don’t understand is that oftentimes, the issue with size is
really just a matter of scale, but the underlying principles are often
still the same. After all, a big corporation and a small mom-and-pop
family business both have the same aims: to make money and not go belly
up.
The same goes when comparing small model
airplanes against humungous jumbo jets like the Airbus A380. Regardless
of size, model airplanes and jumbo jets all work within the same
principles of aerodynamics. Their wing cross-sections have the same
shape, and all of them move based on roll, pitch, yaw, are governed by
the counter-forces of drag and gravity, and must create both sufficient
thrust and lift in order to both move forward and stay aloft.
All that really differs is scale: small
model planes need very short runways while humungous jumbo-jets need
extremely long ones.
Besides, the Chinese, thanks to their
more than five thousand years of continuous civilization know his
big-small concept pretty well. When Deng Xiaoping announced to his
colleagues in the Communist Party of China that they needed to learn
from tiny little Singapore, the colleagues protested that Singapore was
too small. But Deng was armed with a proverb:
“麻雀雖小，五臟俱全”
(mă qüè sui xiăo, wŭ zàng jù qüán)
“The sparrow though small, has all 5 vital organs complete.”
In other words, the tiny sparrow and the large majestic eagle both can fly and both have the same concerns.
Besides, all we really need to do is to
decentralize the Philippines so that we end up with easy-to-adminster
regional entities and turn each of them into mini-Singapores.
That’s precisely what China did in order
to make it easier for them to emulate Singapore’s economic success: They
decentralized the economic administration of China into more
easily-manageable provinces and autonomous regions.
Who says gigantic Mainland China cannot learn from teeny-weeny Singapore?
Now… If China can learn from Singapore, why can’t we?
3. We’re not progressive because we’re still a young country, we only gained independence in 1946.
Rebuttal:
The Modern State of Israel was declared
in 1948, Singapore became totally independent in 1965. These countries
are all younger than the Philippines. In fact Israel owes its existence
to the Philippines because we broke the tie at the UN resolution in 1947
that partitioned/carved out territory from British-Mandate Palestine to
create an independent Jewish State.
Kazakhstan became independent from the
USSR only in 1991 and today it has emerged as one of the most
economically progressive countries not among the former Soviet
republics, but also among the fast-rising economies of East Asia. Why is
it that despite having been under the economically debilitating
Communist system of the USSR until as late as 1991 and being a young
independent country, they are able to do the right things and become
extremely progressive?
4. We’re not economically-successful because we’re not as huge as the USA, Canada, or Australia
Rebuttal:
So what was that bit about Singapore being progressive because it is small?
5. We’re not progressive because we’re not a solid country with one language and a single national identity
Rebuttal:
So what about Switzerland which has
German, French, Italian, and Romansch all as official languages? How
about Singapore which has English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil and so many
more languages? Why are they rich? How about Spain which has Castilian,
Catalán (and Aranese), Basque, and Gallego?
Were the Singaporeans (or the Malaysians)
a “solid” group with a single identity when they decided upon
independence to embark on a focused economic development program? They
weren’t. They were divided by race/ethnicity, by language, by communal
loyalties, by dialect (even the Chinese used to be divided and were
oftentimes antagonistic towards one another), by religion, and by class
background among others.
6. We cannot succeed because we are a Catholic country.
Rebuttal:
A large number of the countries in the
top tier of the GDP per capita listing come from predominantly Catholic
cultural backgrounds. In the 2010 listing, at the top of the IMF list
was Luxembourg whose population predominantly comes from a Catholic
cultural background. In fact, among the English-speaking countries of
the world, the top country in 2009’s IMF and World Bank listing was
Ireland, itself a Catholic country with a large number of practicing
Catholic believers.
Besides, both Catholic Spain and Italy are still among the world’s developed countries.
There is no reason why the Philippines
should not be able to enact modern policies that seek to solve practical
and secular concerns. All that holds Filipinos back is the backwardness
mentality and the refusal to want to progress.
7. We cannot succeed because we used to be a Spanish colony.
Rebuttal:
The Netherlands was once a Spanish Colony. Why then are they a relatively successful and prosperous country?
Moreover, we’ve all noticed how Chile, a
former Spanish colony just like the Philippines, had actually succeeded
in proving itself to be a developed country able to set high standards
of planning and implementation during the rescue of the Copiapo Miners.
Likewise, Spain at the beginning of the
twentieth century had actually ended up poorer than some of its former
colonies who possessed the gold and silver mines which Spain did not
have, and as such, the loss of the last few remaining colonies due to
their defeat in the Spanish American war had actually taken its toll on
Mother Spain’s coffers.
However, during the latter part of
Generalissimo Franco’s reign in Spain, the Spanish Miracle occurred.
Through the adoption of correct and progressive economic policies that
promoted the entry of foreign investors and bringing in capital and
technological know-how, Spain prospered, developed, and enjoyed the
second highest economic growth rate in the world (second only to Japan’s
post- WWII Reconstruction).
To a certain extent, Chile also went
through a similar stage of rapid economic growth at some point during
the late Gen. Pinochet’s rule.
It is simply not true that having been a previous Spanish colony should condemn the Philippines to permanent failure.
8. We cannot succeed because we are an archipelago.
Rebuttal:
Japan is also an archipelago. Why are they still one of the world’s top economies?
Moreover, Indonesia is also an archipelago, and yet its GDP per capita is higher than that of the Philippines.
9. We cannot succeed because we don’t have our own culture.
Rebuttal:
Many other great cultures and civilizations did not have their own “all-original” culture.
(a) The Ancient Greeks copied a lot of aspects of their culture (like the Alphabet) from the Phoenicians/Lebanese.
(b) The Romans copied their culture wholesale from the Ancient Greeks.
(c) The Japanese Yamato Dynasty first copied their culture wholesale from the Tang Dynasty Chinese culture.
(d) The Siamese/Thais copied their culture wholesale from the culture of the Khmers/Cambodians.
The Khmers/Cambodians first took
inspiration for their culture from the common Hindu-Buddhist culture
that had been developing in the same area around Java and Sumatra, who
took their inspiration heavily from both Indian as well as Chinese
influence. (Influences of Chinese culture common to Khmer-Siamese,
Javanese/Sumatran/Balinese/pre-Islamic Malay culture: Architecture &
Roofing, Recognition of the color yellow as the color reserved only for
Royalty, Recognition of the color white as the color for Funereal
Mourning)
(e) The Turks under Kemal Mustafa Atatürk
Westernized Turkey by taking inspiration from the Swiss (Turkey
borrowed its Constitution from the Swiss Civil Code), the Germans, and
the French (their strong sense of Laïcistic-Secularism is taken from the
French, aside from a lot of their modern vocabulary). Previously, the
late era of the Ottoman Turks were already heavily borrowing from Modern
French culture and even heavily used French for diplomatic, legal
documentation purposes, as well as the medium for higher education and
technical learning.
(f) The Assyrians borrowed wholesale from the culture of the Sumerians.
(g) The Indonesians and Malays have a
culture that developed as result of directly borrowing from a
combination of the Indians and Chinese. Their pre-Islamic culture which
was steeped in a combination of Hinduism and Buddhism as well as Indian
and Chinese culture was essentially shared with the culture of the
Khmers which was later borrowed wholesale by the Siamese.
If we were to compare the culture and
aesthetics of the Philippines during the late Spanish period against
Siamese culture, Filipino culture is actually much more unique, because
while Siamese/Thai culture is the result of an exact wholesale copying
of Khmer culture and aesthetic sense, the Filipino culture that resulted
as a blend of Spanish, Chinese, and Indigenous Filipino elements such
as the bahay-na-bato and its use of capiz-shell windows is totally
unique. Spain or Latin America do not have architecture or aesthetics
that is exactly identical to what we have. Vietnam’s art and aesthetics,
however, are a copy of China’s, and Thailand’s are a copy of
Cambodia’s.
10. We cannot progress because our people are uneducated
Rebuttal:
Many countries that are today considered
to be First World developed countries started off in the late 1800’s and
early 1900’s with a vast majority of citizens who were equally
uneducated.
Singapore and Malaysia, which are today
considered many times more successful than the Philippines, used to have
a much higher percentage of uneducated people back in the 60’s. Even
until today, there are many people in Malaysia, among the majority
Bumiputras/Malays who exhibit cultural traits that are identical to the
cultural traits of most ordinary Filipinos, and worse, the older ones
among them are actually much less educated than their Filipino
counterparts
India until today has many more people
(who form the majority) who continue to be extremely ignorant or
uneducated and similarly also exhibit the same cultural traits present
in Filipinos.
However, India and Malaysia have both
been able to prevent the emergence of airhead incompetent-politicians at
the top of India’s and Malaysia’s government hierarchy. All this is
because of India’s and Malaysia’s use of the Parliamentary System.
In other words, despite similar cultural
traits and even similar low levels of education, the system in place in
both India and Malaysia prevents them from ending up with the same
disastrous results in leadership quality that the Philippines is so
often prone to experience.
And yet, far too many Filipinos continue
to make excuses on why the Philippines cannot or should not shift its
system from the present-day faulty and totally dysfunctional Philippine
Presidential System to the more superior Parliamentary System. Such
naysayers don’t even have any facts or data to back their knee-jerk
opposition up. They simply just happen to be resistant to change.
In fact, what actually determines the
success of a society is primarily the quality of a society’s elite. A
truly enlightened elite that properly leads a majority of uneducated
masses towards real progress has higher chances of being able to make
the society successful than a half-enlightened or pseudo-enlightened
elite that leads a majority of half-educated or marginally-educated
masses. It is the quality of elites that matters.
Singapore’s masses were much less
educated than the Philippines’ masses back in the 1960’s. However,
Singapore seems to have been lucky enough to have had extremely
enlightened elites leading it when compared to the Philippines whose
quality of elites is totally wanting. It thus does not matter at all
that the Philippine masses were much more educated and literate back in
the 1950’s and 60’s when compared to the thousands of poor, uneducated,
and illiterate Singaporean coolies and menial laborers.
Our inability to progress is not a result of our masses’ level of education.
Our inability to progress is a direct
result of our elites’ extremely low quality of enlightenment, exposing
them as mostly being pseudo-enlightened or simply unenlightened.
11. We cannot change our form of government from the
currently dysfunctional Philippine Presidential System to the superior
Parliamentary System because we have never had a tradition of
parliamentary rule in the past from which to draw experiences and best
practices.
Rebuttal:
Really? Then what exactly was Spain towards the end of the Nineteenth Century?
Apparently forgotten in history was the
fact that the Philippines did in fact experience parliamentary-based
governance under Spain. Far from being an Absolute Monarchy, Spain, just
like the United Kingdom of Great Britain had evolved into a
constitutional monarchy and had a form of government that made use of a
parliamentary structure.
In fact, a Creole-Filipino himself – born
and bred in the Philippines, and with a maternal lineage hailing from
the Bicol Region, Marcelo de Azcárraga eventually emerged to briefly
become interim Prime Minister of Spain and later on returned to become
Prime Minister twice again.
Moreover, during one particular point in the history of Spain was the creation of the Spanish Constitution of 1812,
dubbed “La Pepa” – the nickname coming from the Feast of St. Joseph
(Fiesta de San José), which stipulated for active Philippine
representation in the Cortes Generales.
It is thus no wonder that when the First
Philippine Republic was formed, the form of government that was
envisioned to be put in use by the framers of the Malolos Constitution
was one based on political system present in Spain at the time. One in
which a Head of State would devolve most of his powers over to a more
powerful Head of Government in the position of Prime Minister, who was
to be answerable to the assembly.
It is also quite sad that such excuses
continue to be made, considering that numerous countries previously
under Presidential forms of government have shifted over to the
Parliamentary System, despite themselves not having had any recent
history of having previously been under parliamentary government such as
Lebanon, Moldova, Kirghizstan, Georgia, and many others.
The common cop-out excuse made is that
countries that are currently under a Parliamentary form of government
inherited their systems from their previous colonizers so that the only
reason why Singapore and Malaysia are parliamentary is that they were
under the British. No attempt is made to do research on how numerous
countries – regardless of their historical backgrounds – have sought to
forge their own destinies by choosing for themselves what form of
government they see fit for themselves.
Then again, our current Presidential
System is a totally failed system. Such naysayers themselves would agree
that the current system is a failure and yet they refuse to accept that
we need to change the system. So are they saying they’d rather continue
using the same system, doing the same thing over and over again, and
expect different results? Isn’t that called “Insanity?”
12. We can’t shift from Basketball to Football because
Basketball is ingrained in our consciousness and well-entrenched in the
Philippines.
Rebuttal:
Before the 1960’s, the Philippines had a
thriving Football scene as well as a more-or-less vibrant Baseball scene
as well. Basketball was essentially the result of an extremely
addictive fad of having American Peace Corps volunteers go to the remote
barrios armed with basketballs and installable hoops playing with the
barrio kids that got perpetuated and entrenched due to inertia, much
like the adoption of Jeepneys as an originally temporary stop-gap
measure that would meet the interim dearth of public transport after
WWII. It was simply Filipino Inertia that turned what was supposed to
have simply been a passing fad into a semi-permanent fixture.
Moreover, as can be attested by the
prevalence of certain sports in certain enclaves, such as Football in
the predominantly Ilonggo-speaking areas of the Western Visayas region
and Baseball in both Cavite and Zamboanga, it is simply not true that
Basketball has a definite hold on Filipinos.
Thanks to the success of the Azkals, Football is now getting its rightful prominence as the Team Sport fit for Filipinos.
13. If we opened up our economy to foreign investors by
reforming the Constitution to remove corporate ownership restrictions
for foreign investors, our local businessmen would not be able to
compete and Filipinos will end up impoverished.
Rebuttal:
Singapore’s economy has always been
generally open to foreign investors, allowing 100% ownership of
companies, and in fact, aggressively attracting massive foreign direct
investment (FDI) was Lee Kuan Yew’s strategy that was geared firstly
towards:
(1) the reduction of unemployment through the creation of numerous job opportunities,
(2) poverty alleviation,
(3) generating tax revenue for the
government as corporations and individuals paid taxes that would be used
for infrastructure development and education-spending,
(4) causing local Singaporeans to acquire
useful technical skills and useful technical experience that only
multinational companies set up by foreign investors could provide (which
were later tapped by Singapore’s own local hi-tech companies when they
hired skilled Singaporeans trained by multinations to become managers
and lead technicians at local Singaporean companies,
(5) allowing local Singaporeans to gain
contact with Western managers and skilled engineers in order to give
them an internationalist exposure that would make them more competitive,
cosmopolitan, and “exposed” to a more globalized environment,
(6) creating a solid base of
gainfully-employed local Singaporeans who would have money to buy local
goods and services and thus fuel the growth of the local economy,
spreading out economic opportunities to other local Singaporeans who
opened up anciliary industries such as food catering and other services
that would be patronized by Singaporean employees of multinational
corporations.
Eventually, not only Singapore followed
this model, but even bigger neighboring Malaysia as well. Moreover,
gigantic China did the same, and not surprisingly, India copied China’s
model as well as looked to Singapore for direction.
The allegation that Filipino businessmen
would not be able to compete is totally unfounded. Even John Gokongwei
himself is extremely supportive of Constitutional Reform because he
agrees that there is a need to create jobs for people and that
eventually, it increases the overall economic pie. Competitive
businessmen like Mr. Gokongwei or the Chan family who own Liwayway and
Oishi do not fear competition. In fact, right now, they currently
compete against foreign competitors outside of the Philippines as Jack
and Jill is present outside of the Philippines such as in Singapore,
while Oishi is one of the top snack brands in Mainland China. It simply
is not true that Filipino businessmen cannot compete. That being said,
who should the government really be protecting anyway? The rich Filipino
businessmen with millions in cash or the poor ordinary Filipino workers
who depend on employment opportunities which the very few local
businessmen are unfortunately unable to create all by themselves?
The evidence is overwhelmingly in favor
of liberalizing the economy in order to create employment opportunities
for Filipinos. Sadly, far too many Filipinos continue to be imprisoned
by old, disproven, and outdated protectionist economic paradigms.
Shockingly, of all the Constitutions the
Philippines has had, it is the 1987 Constitution that is the worst and
the most anti-foreign investor of all past constitutions ever. Whereas
the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions placed 60-40 restrictions solely on
natural resources and public-utility firms, the 1987 Constitution sought
to create a blanket restriction on all economic sectors – unless
otherwise explicitly circumvented by law. Worse, the 1987 Constitution
placed a total ban on foreign ownership of media firms and even placed
an explicit limit of 30% foreign-ownership on advertising firms.
14. If we changed our form of government to a Parliamentary
System but the same lousy politicians are in place, then we will still
end up with the same results. So it is better not to make any changes in
the system.
Rebuttal:
This is yet another self-defeating wrong argument
that far too many Pinoy-Pessimists use in order to justify keeping the
status quo and doing nothing. In effect, even if the current situation
is already lousy, let’s just keep it lousy anyway because trying to
change it won’t yield such a big difference.
What these people don’t understand is
that by changing the system from one which favors “winnability” –
celebrity-status, popularity, and name-recall – to a system which favors
solid team-work based on a common policy-platform, and better
competence and track-record, the overall trajectory or
direction is changed so that moving forward, the Philippines will
eventuall be able to shift away from the extremely dysfunctional
status-quo system and its dismal results towards a system that will
continue to improve its results as it is the trajectory that has
changed.
Certainly, one cannot necessarily expect
instantaneous overnight changes to occur. Perhaps immediately after, the
overall roster of politicians will probably be 70% similar in
composition to the previous situation. However, that 30% change may
represent major changes in the leadership structure, for instance, so
that while previously, the overall Head of Government was previously
taken from the winner of the Philippines’ biggest popularity contest:
the Presidential Elections, and his cabinet of Secretaries to assist him
would all come from among a cabal of cronies or campaign supporters, in
a post-parliamentary shift scenario, the overall Head of Government
will come directly from the top leadership of the party that wins a
majority of seats. Moreover, instead of drawing the cabinet members from
a pool of outside supporters and “cronies”, this time, the cabinet
Ministers will have to come straight from within the roster of the
winning party or bloc in parliament.
Cabinet Ministers, unlike Cabinet
Secretaries, will not be beholden to the Prime Minister the way most
modern Secretaries in US-style Presidential Systems are directly
beholden to the President, and instead will be answerable to their own
party or bloc which won a majority of seats.
Moreover, the threat of removal by
Parliament due to incompetence and the constant auditing by the watchful
eyes of the Opposition’s Shadow Cabinet keeps all Ministers – including
the Prime Minister – on their toes.
Whatever all the naysaying cynics say
about the “members of parliament” being essentially the same as the
roster of congressmen, the fact remains that the dynamics of the
Parliamentary System’s inner workings are drastically different so as to
cause the results to differ.
Previously grandstanding-only types of
politicians will suddenly be forced to show true leadership skills and
managerial ability when assigned cabinet portfolios or else move aside
and give the job to better-qualified colleagues. Not surprisingly, some
politicians will later decide to quit the game altogether and retire,
sensing that the old fun they used to have in a purely legislative
environment is no longer there, what with all the added executive
responsibilities now added to their workload.
It is thus this fact that shows how it is
that a shift in system will actually cause the composition of
parliament to eventually improve and shed off all the unfit members with
each electoral iteration. Those who simply can’t hack it will stop
standing for re-election and give way to more dynamic people to take
their place. And those districts that continue to re-elect
non-performers will obviously continue to suffer lousy constituency
service, while other districts with far better MP’s representing them
will visibly prosper and improve.
Eventually, after three to five electoral
exercises, Parliament’s members will be almost totally different from
the old system where non-performing congressmen continued to be
re-elected.
In short, the trajectory changes so that
while the immediate post-shift scenario may appear to yield only a small
change in results, over a span of a few years or more, the results will
have become much more obvious.
(A parallel exists in the story of
Lorenzo’s Oil. A young boy who suddenly developed a rare
generally-inherited nerve condition continues to deteriorate until his
situation tapers off to a point where he appears to be a vegetable. But
the boy’s parents, after doggedly conducting their own intensive
research for a cure, find a type of oil which when fed to their son,
does not instantaneously cure him all in one go, but progressively
improves his condition so that as days go by of continually feeding him
with the cure, the boy eventually begins to regain some motor skills and
become more able to do things he lost. Obviously, the results are not
instantaneous, but if progress is to be plotted in a graph, there is an
obvious positive trajectory which shows that had the gradual progress
been started much earlier, the cure may have allowed the boy to return
to living a normal life. As with anything, most fixes are not
instantaneous. They are gradual. Just because a fix is not
instantaneous, however, does not mean that we should refuse to do it.)
To summarize, there are two main things that need to be noted as regards a shift in system:
(a) A shift in system includes a shift in
determining what types of people emerge at the top of the country’s
decision-making bodies. In other words, the selection-process changes
drastically, altering the requirements for who succeeds and thrives in
the new system. A parliamentary system adds special demands on members
of parliament, so that those who cannot hack it will not shine. If they
don’t shine, they won’t survive in the new system. Those unfit for
service in the new parliamentary system will fall by the wayside while
those most fit for this superior system will emerge.
(b) A shift in system includes a shift in
rules of behavior, thus molding those members who do remain to change
their behavior in order to match the requirements set by the new rules.
If in the past, the legislature was limited to coming up with laws or
“grandstanding”, a shift to the parliamentary system requires the top
members to become actively involved in running the executive branch
through Cabinet Ministries, where Question Time subjects them to public
scrutiny by the Opposition Shadow Cabinet. Members of Parliament are
forced by the new game-play dynamics to improve their behavior lest they
fail. The behavior of members of parliament changes and a new political
culture develops.
15. We are poor because the Philippines does not have the
kinds of resources that oil-rich countries have, we could live better
lives.
Rebuttal:
As a matter of fact we do have resources.
Perhaps we do not have an abundance of oil that Brunei, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Venezuela, or other Gulf countries have, but we certainly have mineral resources in extreme abundance.
Unfortunately, we are a society that
loves to shoot ourselves in the foot. We have abundant mineral
resources, but instead of properly investing in mining so that our
society could properly profit from it, we either ban it, or we prevent
cash-rich companies with the resources to invest in safe-and-responsible
mining operations and on the other hand, permit small-scale mom-and-pop
mining operations which unfortunately have a very poor environmental
record as these small-scale mining companies do not invest in safety
equipment, safety procedures, safety audits, and have no inclination to
support the use of high-tech modern methods of mining which could better
minimize environmental impact and ensure better safety for surrounding
communities, environmental protection, and safety for the miners
themselves.
The Philippines should rightfully be
among the countries whose prosperity is in large part fueled partly by
an abundance of mineral resources such as Canada, Australia, and even
Chile, whose amazing miners’ rescue puts them on the list of countries
with a track record of safety and precision-operations.
Whether we like it or not, mining is
big-ticket economic provider in that it has the ability to create a
large number of jobs, benefit numerous little communities near
mine-sites, provide enormous royalties for the local and national
governments to be able to fund a large number of infrastructure and
social-development programs (such as education and other skills
development), and ultimately greatly uplift the Philippine economy.
All we need is the realization that
Mining is not exactly the evil industry as some misguided people paint
it to be. Lest these people forget, there would be no Western
Civilization without mining. After all, it was the Silver Mines of
Laureion, in Greece’s Attic Region, which provided Athens with its
economic base to become not just economically and militarily powerful,
the silver-based wealth of Athenian society funded such intellectual
pursuits as philosophy, mathematics, and science. There would be no
Socrates without an economically wealthy Athens. And without an
economically wealthy Athens and Socrates, there would be no Plato.
Without an economically wealthy Athens and Plato, there would be no
Aristotle and there would be no Plato’s Republic and his other
philosophical discourses.
Without Aristotle, there would be no
Alexander the Great, and without Alexander the Great, there would be no
Seleucid (Hellenic influence in the Near East Levant – Modern Syria,
Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, and Southern Turkey) nor Ptolemaic (Hellenic
influence in Egypt) dynasties which, like it or not, were critical
ingredients in the development of the Hellenized Judaic traditions which
spawned Christianity. This clearly became the basis of Christendom (All
lands under Christianity), which later split into West and East during
the Great Schism of 1054 (West – Roman Catholic; East – Eastern
Orthodox), the Western half of Christendom having become the basis of
what we now call “The West.”
We also need to be reminded of the fact that without Mining, we wouldn’t be able to do many things:
(1) No computers, no internet, no e-mail, no World Wide Web surfing
(2) No well-cut or well-prepared food, no cutlery, no pots and pans
(3) No cars, buses, airplanes, no vehicles
(4) No tools with which to do other things like chop wood, build houses, etc
(5) No steel structures for buildings
(6) There’s a lot that we can’t do without mining or the products of mining
16. We are poor because we are rich in natural-resources.
Look at successful countries like Japan or Singapore, they work hard
because they don’t have natural resources.
Rebuttal:
So whatever happened to number 15?
This is just another one of those
extremely absurd and I dare say idiotic ideas spawned from the brains of
self-defeatist ultra-pessimist cynic-types who secretly wish that the
Philippines remained to be a hell-hole forever.
So previously there is the excuse that we
are poor because we don’t have the same abundance of resources that
oil-rich countries have, and now there’s this absurd remark that we’re
poor because we’re rich in natural resources.
So what exactly is it? Poor because we have or because we don’t have resources?
Seems more like “Poor because we don’t want to succeed.”
17. We are poor because we are a tropical country
Before I issue a rebuttal, let me say
that this excuse does indeed make sense. Yes, tropical countries are
overwhelmingly poor. Yes, there is a natural tendency towards
complacency and laziness among cultures spawned in tropical areas. Both
are true. However…
Rebuttal:
Why then is tropical Singapore a rich and successful country?
Why is tropical Malaysia fast-rising to become a developed country?
Why is tropical Vietnam the country in
ASEAN that has the highest amount of investments and one of the
fast-rising economies in the region?
Why is tropical Panama turning itself into one of Latin America’s most economically prosperous and dynamic societies?
Why is tropical Costa Rica able to have a relatively decent GDP per capita?
18. We are poor because we are using English which is not our
native language. Look at Japan, they use their native language that’s
why they are rich.
Rebuttal:
Yeah, right…
(1) Most Singaporeans do not natively
speak English as their first language and instead, have mother tongues
like Hokkien, Teochew, Hainanese, Henghwa, Hokchew, Cantonese, Hakka,
Malay, Javanese, Baweanese, Tamil, Malayalee, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, or
others.
Yet they are educated primarily in
English as that is the official medium of instruction. And lo and
behold: Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world, and in
2010’s IMF ranking for GDP per Capita has surpassed Japan as being the
richest East Asian country.
(2) Ireland’s native and national
language is Gaeilge, aka “Irish Gaelic.” But in fact, their educational
system uses English as the medium of instruction. And Ireland is number
12 in the IMF’s 2010 GDP per Capita top ranking.
(3) Luxembourg’s native language is
Letzeburgesch, classified as a dialect of Low German that is somewhat
similar to Flemish and Dutch, yet Luxembourg’s primary medium of
instruction is French with German acting as a second official language.
Both French and German are technically foreign to Luxembourg.
Nevertheless, Luxembourg has ranked as
number 1 in the IMF GDP per Capita ranking, and is therefore the country
with the highest per capita income in the world for both the 2009 and
2010 data sets. Moreover Luxembourg is also number one in the World
Bank’s 2009 GDP per Capita ranking.
(4) India has so many different native or
“mother” languages for its extremely diverse population. English,
however, serves as its primary official working language especially in
business and education. One of India’s biggest advantages has been its
reliance on its English-proficient white-collar sector in providing
outsourcing services to the developed world. This was its main ticket to
becoming one of the world’s emerging economies.
Quite obviously, the whole idea that
using one’s native language as a medium of instruction or official
language determines success and that not using one’s native language
impoverishes a country is clearly absurd.
In fact, despite Singapore’s use of the
English language as its major medium of instruction despite the multiple
ethnicities present in Singapore who have their own native languages,
Singaporean students’ test scores are among the highest in the world.
Speaking of Japan, most Filipinos who love to use Japan as that poster-boy of “native-language use”
are totally ignorant of the fact that during the Meiji Restoration, it
was extremely common for élite Japanese university students studying
some of the most technically-challenging courses in the Natural
Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, and even Music, International Diplomacy
and others to actually make use of textbooks in German, English, or
French, (for some music majors, Italian) and were instructed by foreign
professors from Germany, Austria, Britain, the USA, or France. This
tendency actually even continued until long after the Meiji Restoration.
19. We are poor, undisciplined, and lack a sense of
nationhood because we never went through a cataclysmic experience of
intense suffering and bloodshed
Rebuttal:
This is certainly another one of those
weird (but common) views espoused by many Filipinos out there. They
claim that we need a Great War where the bloodshed should be so terrible
so as to make the blood spilled flood the cities. Others insist that we
have a Civil War.
So these people want Pol Pot’s Killing Fields for us to get our act together, is that it?
But wait, didn’t we already go through
intense suffering World War II? (Sure, we didn’t get the A-bomb dropped
on us, but our grandparents still suffered.)
Didn’t we also go through massacres
during the Japanese occupation? Didn’t we have the Philippine-American
War where the Americans tried a campaign of “Pacification” and many of
our people actually suffered? Didn’t we already have
relative-versus-relative “feuds” during the Philippine Revolt against
Spain where Pro-Spain loyalists were pitted against Katipunero
revolutionaries?
Truth be told, we’ve already gone through
these types of tragedies and hardships. We should stop making the
excuse that we need to have major bloodshed before we can progress.
Independent and multi-ethnic Kazakhstan is progressing rapidly despite the absence of such a cataclysmic conflict or bloodbath.
20. We shouldn’t allow for Regional Decentralization because
it is going to strengthen local and regional Warlords and local
political dynasties.
Rebuttal:
Evolving Regional Decentralization, which others would call “evolving Federalism” is a two way process.
Devolving powers to the regions does not just mean granting them
autonomy and greater political control. It also means lessening their
subsidy from the national coffers. It means that regions will
increasingly have to fend for themselves.
Local kingpins and local oligarchs and
“warlords” are therefore going to receive less assistance, and in
exchange for that, they will have the ability to set policies for their
region. Since they will receive little or no subsidy, regional
governments will be forced to create policies that will make their
regions more attractive to businessmen and investors. They will be
forced to become more focused on the economic development of their
respective regions because they will no longer receive as much subsidies
from the national government.
If they were planning on enriching
themselves, they simply aren’t going to be able to do it unless they
increase regional tax revenues by attracting businesses and investors
in. But perhaps the most important point is that the CoRRECT™ Movement proposes not just evolving Regional Decentralization, but it also proposes Economic Liberalization in order to attract foreign investors as well as a shift to the parliamentary system.
With Economic Liberalization as part of
the “package-deal” together with Regional Decentralization, the idea is
to get all the different regions competing against each other to come up
with the most attractive economic policies and incentives that would
get local Filipino and foreign investors scrambling to set up
operations, offices, and factories in their respective regions.
By getting in as many investors – both
local and foreign – to come in, more and more denizens of those regions
that can successfully attract investors would get employed, paying
income taxes and improving the local economy as more people hopefully
have more disposable income to spend in the regional economy. This in
turn eliminates whatever peace-and-order problems may have originally
existed as insurgencies are really nothing but reactions to the lack of
real economic opportunities.
As more and more people improve their
lives through employment, others who are more enterprising can get into
business and prosper as a result of the improved regional economy.
Numerous newly-rich people will emerge and inevitably challenge the
existing regional oligarchs, forcing them to be competent and
competitive, producing real results rather than simply relying on
patronage politics.
Like it or not, the Three Point CoRRECT™
Agenda of Economic Liberalization, Evolving Regional Decentralization,
and a Shift to the Parliamentary System will shake up the entire
socio-economic and economic-political landscape as economic fortunes
change.
The entry of numerous foreign and local
investors will induce a massive infusion of cash into the various
regional and local economies, creating numerous opportunities for the
old rich as well as the new rich. The old rich may decide to improve
their competitiveness by learning new ways and reinventing their
businesses to move away from a previously monopolistic set-up where
perhaps they may have been the only provider of a particular product or
service. The ordinary hardworking employees may decide to take advantage
of the new economic opportunities that a full implementation of the
Three Point CoRRECT™ Agenda will bring about. Some of these hardworking
people may in fact end up becoming a class of “nouveaux riches”
entrepreneurs, capable of challenging the existing old rich. Whatever
the case may be, the competition will be good for all as opportunities
for upward mobility will be created, while members of the old rich will
be forced to ensure that they keep themselves competent, competitive,
and relevant.
Monopolies will be dismantled and more
opportunities will be created both on the economic and the political
scene. Moreover, widespread economic opportunities and massive
employment created by the influx of investors (foreign and local) will
mean that ordinary people will be less susceptible to patronage politics
and largesse.
Overall, such a scenario will result in
the obvious diminution of the monopolistic chokehold that old local
oligarchs would have used to hold on their own respective regions or
locales. Such a scenario also means one thing: The full implementation
of the Three Point CoRRECT™ Agendawill not strengthen local or regional oligarchs, political dynasties, and local warlords.
Ultimately, economic monopoly is the basis of political monopoly.
By breaking economic monopoly by ensuring the massive entry of economic
opportunities for the masses – which will happen when regions are
forced to fend for themselves economically without receiving subsidies
in exchange for granting them greater autonomy, and the political
monopoly exercised by traditional politicians and warlords will also be
broken as upwardly mobile citizens will eventually challenge the old
existing order and keep everyone competent and competitive.
Pessimistic Cynicism is NOT Get Realism
It is extremely important to note that ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism is the exact opposite of the other extreme which is Triumphalism: That everything that Filipinos do is perfect, fine, and that there is no need to improve things.
(Note: The CoRRECT™ Movementi actually
started off as an initiative within Get Real Philippines — and the
principal co-founder was a key co-founding member of Get Real
Philippines and was its spokesperson until the spin-off occurred)
What is referred to as “Get Realism” is actually the Middle-Way between Filipino Triumphalism (“Everything that Filipinos do is perfect. Filipinos don’t need to improve”) and ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism (“Everything that Filipinos do is wrong. No amount of fixing things will work”).
As such, a true “Get Realist” holds that while a huge number of things
that Filipinos currently do are wrong and are precisely the reason for
Philippine society’s failure, by simply adopting the right policies,
attitudes, and making sure that the right results are achieved, Philippine society can in fact improve.
Unfortunately, the main problem of “ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism” which
to the untrained observer may sometimes seem to resemble “Get Realism”
is that it tends to paint the Philippines as a hopelessly irreparable Basketcase
that no amount of rectification can ever fix. It also paints the
Filipino as a hopelessly incorrigible fool, destined to continue to
wallow in mediocrity per omnia saecula saeculorum. Such a view
holds that Filipinos will always be beyond redemption and that proposed
solutions that are suggested in order to fix the problems of the
Philippines will always be perverted by Filipinos and no amount of
seeking solutions to address said flaws will ever work.
I totally reject such a view.
For me, I personally find that such “ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism”
is not only incompatible with true Get Realism, any Filipino who
unrepentantly adheres to such “ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism” should just
commit suicide.
Why? Because if there is absolutely no hope in finding solutions to
the problems that make the Philippines such a failed society and cause
the Filipino to be such a disappointment, then why bother living if one
is a Filipino? I mean, what’s the point?
If you’re Filipino and you feel that no amount of solutioneering is
ever going to succeed in bringing about positive change, then why even
bother commenting about the Philippines? Why even bother criticizing the
Philippines if you think we Filipinos are just never going to succeed
in fixing our problems?
What point is there in mentioning just how failed the Filipino is if
you honestly believe that no amount of finding solutions is ever going
to work?
Get Real Philippines does indeed criticize (quite harshly, in fact)
the failures of the Philippines and the flaws of the Filipino, but those
criticisms are in fact issued because of an inherent faith in the fact that the Filipino can improve if those flaws are removed and the problems solved.
The sad part is that many “ultra-Pessimistic Cynic”
Filipinos have decided that Filipinos are destined to fail, and they’ve
already made a bet that Filipinos are going to fail (even if they
themselves are Filipinos),and that any sign that Filipinos might just be
able to learn to succeed by learning from their mistakes and doing the
right things invalidates their thesis. They thus treat any sign that the
Filipino can succeed as a threat. They bet against the Filipino so they
feel that Filipino success means losing the bet.
Hence, these “ultra-Pessimistic Cynics” will do everything to prove
that nothing that Filipinos try in order to fix the Philippines, change
the way Filipinos do things, change the way Filipinos think, or even
improve Filipino Culture is ever going to work. In short, for them, no
solutions exist that can fix the Filipino or the Philippines and that
whatever Filipinos do – we’re all destined to fail. Sometimes, they even
go to such lengths to sabotage any solutions or dishonestly present
such solutions as being flawed, even if said solutions are actually
sound.
As can be seen, “ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism” is an extremist
point of view that everyone must avoid. It must be avoided in just the
same way that Triumphalism is to be avoided.
Of course, sometimes, even the most die-hard “Get Realists” themselves can fall into the “ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism”
trap – especially if they’re extremely exasperated with too much news
of everything that’s wrong with the Philippines and “da Pinoy.”
I have in fact previously clashed with a few Get Realist colleagues
in the not-so-distant past due to such differences. It has happened that
after a string of major mishaps in the news (such as the Bus Hostage
Tragedy and many others) colleagues may have sometimes gotten carried
away and have ended up expressing such “ultra-Pessimistically Cynical”
sentiments that essentially condemn the Philippines and “da Pinoy” to
the eternally-damned state of never being able to get out of failure or
disaster.
In fact, getting inundated by a constant barrage of the images of
Filipino failure coming out in the news had even caused some colleagues
to even suddenly go into a friendly-fire frenzy of attempting to shoot
down well-meaning solution-proposals that seek to fix the Philippine
situation churned out by their own fellow-Get Realists.
That is the danger of this “ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism”
tendency that lurks in everyone. It can affect even the staunchest of
Get Realists who should know better to stay in the “middle.”
My “hope” or my realistic view that the Philippines can be fixed or
that Filipino can improve is not some misplaced hope or misguided
optimism. It’s actually based on fact.
The Philippines was not always a hell-hole. Under the late Spanish
period and even during the American occupation, the Philippines was
relatively better off than most other countries and even enjoyed higher
standards of living, levels of education and literacy compared even to Mother Spain
(which was impoverished because of the Spanish-American War) or other
countries in Asia that are currently enjoying better standards of
living.
The main difference between then and now, however, was the overall
quality of leadership most exemplified by the combination of the quality
of the local élites in conjunction with the relative quality of the
colonial administrators back then when compared with the quality of
post-colonial Filipino leadership most evident today.
All we really need to do is to Enlighten the Filipino Elite
and ensure that instead of having low-quality pseudo-enlightened and
unenlightened elites, our elites are progressive-minded, forward
thinking, and at par with the elites in more advanced societies.
Last but not the least, the Middle-Way of Get Realism must be chosen as the default paradigm.
Triumphalism (“Filipinos are the Best and are Perfect“) is
downright wrong because it represents total complacency and
self-delusion, while “ultra-Pessimistic Cynicism” is also wrong because
it rejects the reality that if the Filipinos cultural and behavioral
flaws are corrected Filipinos can in fact improve and instead holds the
view that Filipinos are destined to be failures.
Get Realism is essentially the same paradigm from which Tun Dr.
Mahathir bin Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia operated. He
criticized his own fellow Malays for their backward attitudes,
tendencies towards laziness, lack of drive, lack of entrepreneurial
ability etc – essentially traits that are also present in many
Filipinos. But he did so in the belief that by getting them to get rid
of those cultural and character flaws, they could succeed. Moving
forward, major changes did occur. Many Malays, originally uneducated and
lagging behind their Chinese and Indian compatriots ended up excelling
in school.
To boost the country’s success, he rallied all Malaysians – his own
fellow Malays included – behind the slogan “Malaysia boleh”, which means
“Malaysia can.”
For Tun Dr. Mahathir, as long as Malaysians – and his own fellow Malays – did the right things, they could succeed.
And succeed Malaysia did!
Malaysia Boleh! – Malaysia’s F1 Circuit at Sepang & the Petronas Twin Towers
Do we really want to succeed?
I essentially want to make it clear to all Filipinos that our
inability progress is not a static, unchanging, and immutable given. We
are not progressing not because our Filipino-ness condemns us to eternal
mediocrity and failure. There’s nothing genetically inherent in our
inability to succeed. There is nothing fixed about our constant state of
failure.
Instead, we are not progressing simply because we continue to do
things that retard our own progress and we refuse to do the very things
necessary for us to progress and succeed. If these are things we do
because they result from our faulty attitudes, our faulty paradigms and
ways of thinking, or our faulty culture, the truth is:
- We can change our attitudes if we really wanted to
- We can change our ways of thinking if we really wanted to
- We can change our culture and improve it if we really wanted to
- We can do the right things that can make us successful if we really wanted to
The real problem is that we simply refuse to change our attitudes, we
refuse to change our paradigms, we refuse to make the appropriate
changes to our culture in order to make us more compatible with progress
and success, and we just simply refuse to do the right things that
would have made us successful. We refuse to make the necessary
sacrifices that would allow us to move up the ladder and instead, we
just want to have our cake and eat it too.
There is absolutely no reason in the world as to why we should
continue to be a “collective failure” as a society because we actually
do have the talent and the skills. We have a lot of the inherent
advantages which – despite our falling standards – continue to make us
the envy of many of our neighbors. We have a high literacy rate. We are
very much exposed to English. Our people can learn new things if we
wanted to. We are generally talented, and even people in Singapore and
Malaysia (two of ASEAN’s most dynamic economies today) as well as people
in China, Taiwan & Hong Kong thoroughly acknowledge this!
But we just need to have the focus and discipline in channeling our
talents and energies towards doing the right things, avoiding the wrong
things, and concentrating on prioritizing those things that make the
most sense, while relegating the less important ones to the bottom of
our to-do list.
If we’ve realized that we’ve been doing the wrong things, then we
simply have to stop doing all those wrong things. If we realize that
other countries are executing superior economic strategies and we’re not
doing those, well it’s high time we learned from them and asked
ourselves why we’re not doing what they’re doing in order to improve our
situation.
Like it or not, being able to discipline ourselves and focus our
energies and abilities towards progressing as a society is not a
question of whether we are capable of succeeding, but rather a question of whether we really do want to succeed.
Again, this should be worth looking into:
“Kung talagang gusto, maraming paraan;
Kung talagang ayaw, maraming dahilan…”
(“If you really want it, there are many ways;
If you don’t really want it, there are many excuses.”)
Ask yourselves, fellow Filipinos, as to whether you really want our society to succeed or you’re all just content to make excuses on why we have every reason NOT to succeed.
* * *
No comments:
Post a Comment