My column for today is Happiness is a ham .
On a more serious note, Newsstand first brought it up: its been two decades since James Fallows wrote A Damaged Culture: A New Philippines?
I was supposed to speak at the Asian Institute of Management on the subject but the symposium took place at the time I got sick.
My Arab News column, How Fallows’ Essay Gutted Morale of the Filipinos, contains my initial thoughts, originally for the paper I was going to deliver. This is a work in progress, but I thought I’d put the ideas forward, now.
N.B. James Fallows blogs at The Atlantic.com.
And Conrado de Quiros on the endurance of feudalism.
Technorati Tags: ideas, philippines, society
(emphasis mine)
this is a very interesting statement. Spain or no Spain, would we have been any better than we are now?
pressed submit to soon. i meant to emphasize the word fortunate. that carries the connotation that the rich and the powerful became that way through no special talent, or industry, or quality of their own.
Great analogy there by deQuiros.
tonio, I think the powerful became that way because they have the ruthlessness of a Don Corleone, taking off from de Quiros. I have read Puzo’s book and I think there’s a big difference between our feudal masters over the years till now and Corleone. Corleone adhered to a rigid moral code, even though he was a criminal.
Another seminal event, this time In Africa? Jacob Zuma a well known far left leader of the ANC just became the successor in waiting for the Presidency of South
Africa. S. Africa being the most advanced country in Africa and a member of the prestigious G-20 group of nations with China, India, Brazil, Argentina, and Russia amongst others who sometimes separately and collectively together stand as a force vs. empire.
It remains to be seen. He is well known for his rendition of the ANC revolutionary song “Bring me my machinegun” Can revolutionaries become great leaders? His first big problem – asset reform in their agricultural sector.
mlq3, i think you’re right. filipinos didn’t need anyone to “damage” their culture. our cultural flaws seem to be innate, if not self-inflicted. fallows might have been a “parachute” journalist but he didn’t need too much time to assess what was wrong and make the right call, whether or not we like it. it was not the fault of any single class. it was a matter of collective blameworthiness of the whole society.
in hindsight, i would say the marcos dictatorship was a natural product of our defective culture. one who has lived through the pre-martial law days would have a clear understanding of why and how it came to be. as a nation, we never had the strength and the will to control our own destiny, always pining for that messiah to lead us to the promised land without ourselves having to do what was necessary to reach it on our own.
btw, is it “populism” the worst that you can say about estrada, while calling gma’s presidency a regime of “monkey business” – whatever you mean by that? c’mon.
isn’t a warped sense of value a big part of our “damaged” culture?
Tribes/clans with a friar led Spanish agricultural system superimposed on top and later a superficial (ersatz) liberal American system on top. Still we see the value system of the cacique masked by the weak and weakened institutional system of supposed democratic processes all made opaque by the power of instant media and instant news.
This weeks news is history. The Sumilao farmers grabbed the headlines for a few days and the government spun it already and it will be forgotten by next week.
Not to worry we will get out ham from Sumilao very soon.
Willy:
Such is my point. It doesn’t take any special talent to be a bully. And the fictional Don Corleone has loads more class than any of these “feudal masters” every will.
ouch!
I would take James Fallows’ singular description of the Filipinos as a ‘damaged culture’ with a grain of salt. Without making light of our own dysfunctions, we should see that other cultures have their own baggage as well. The Germans have their Nazi past, the Japanese haven’t come to terms with their World War 2 brutality, the Israelis who were the victims of World War 2 are now tyrants of today etc. etc. Losing this perspective makes one easy fodder for the likes of Benign0.
Tonio, in the preceding threat you asked me:
What you quoted above, particularly what was said about the Philippines’ persistent inequality, speaks of our situation and provides the underlying context to my belief that the Sumilao farmers are on the right side of history.
Bencard,
I reread Fallows once again. And he’s wrong.
If he believes it’s damaged culture we suffer from then Filipinos would bring that culture with them wherever they go; they will become instant failures. But, as Fallows observed, Filipinos are instant successes once they leave the Philippines. So culture is not the problem.
I think the root cause of our problems can be found in the water we drink. That would make a better and much simpler explanation of why we are failures at home and success stories abroad,
We should henceforth drink only bottled water from economically successful countries.
We could learn a lot from Jose and I’ve been promoting this man’s writing the best way I can (which isn’t saying much) but the English whores in UP and Ateneo keeps putting the guy down for his simplistic usage of the English language. It’s probably worse than pigheadedness. It could an acute shallowness, a pettiness that makes the adjective “infantile” sound like flattery.
Now why is my comment under moderation
oops sorry tonio, i meant ‘in the preceding thread‘. 😛
I was merely suggesting, Jose had a better idea on why we are poor.
Now this is my idea: Agrarian reform, democracy in school curriculum.
Teach the masses how to fish (democratic education).
This is why I keep repeating agrarian reform to Manolo. You DO NOT HAVE to be very clinical about agrarian reform. Agrarianize them all, then think of the practicalities later. Ban former land owners from repurchase. Ban their companies, the corporation where they are majority owner. Ban dummy corporations.
Read Randy David’s essay people.
I have expressed the same sentiments in this blog over and over.
Not by rules… but by charity, by supplication. Wonder why I hate rich people? Especially hacienderos? My countrymen, let me tell you, I hate them with all my heart. I joke a lot here and I act like a troll but darned it I am serious about my belief that it’s the hacienderos who are keeping this country’s population backward. They and their families in politics have been preventing progress, real progress for decades. Heck, if India could take away inherited land fro the Muslim landowners, who must have been lords of their lands for many centuries we could very easily do that in the Philippines.
It is not simple pigheadedness. My belief is that the rich landowners (being mestizo and Chinese) have been at the state of economic war with the natives of this country and have been winning. This is their dirty little secret.
sorry, let me clarify:
It is not simple pigheadedness. My belief is that the rich landowners (being mestizo and Chinese) have been at a state of economic war with the natives of this country and have been winning. Other Filipinos have not been warned about this and go their merry way trusting these people to uphold our laws and maintain our civilization. This is their dirty little secret.
Brianb, apart from your racial distinctions which i believe are extraneous anyway, i agree with your analysis and [most of] your prescriptions.
It’s useful to ask first of all: how did the so-called old rich get rich? Through sheer entrepreneural genius? Or through means best described as “gulangan”? Now, you ought to ask if it is not through this “gulangan” that led to the dispossession of many Filipinos of their lands and properties in the old times? Even now, if we are to describe this continuing contest between these elite families for dominance, wouldn’t it be 10% hard work and 90% “gulangan” of old? And pray where now are the descendants of the victims of dispossession who probably now are weeping over their ancestors’ not having the same smarts?
Who sets the examples in a society? The lowly fish vendor who is a paragon of hard work, the honest teacher who can’t pay his loan, the bus-riding doctor who chose to work in a far-flung barrio? Or the BIR official with a fleet of cars, the judge who has a mansion, or the mayor who parties like an emperor? Between values that consign you to penury and a little corruption here and there to get by, plus a religion that offers an easy way out of hell, what could be one’s choice?
Go to the streets of Manila if you do not see alikeness of the game of “gulangan” in drivers in busy intersections fighting for space. In queues for food and drinks. In exits and entrances. In division of spoils. In distributing choice cuts. Matira ang matibay, mananaig ang magulang!
We have a culture of “gulangan”. Try driving in a busy intersection in Cubao or Quiapo, drive like a good, disciplined driver and see if you could get through. That is the same in a society. You could get by only if you play the game somehow.
In such a culture excellence is rarely rewarded. So you choose between remaining and learning to play as the rest play– or leave, as millions of us did.
ricelander,
Yes, exactly, morality trickles down. This is what the church doesn’t get or worse. They could be playing the emperor’s new clothes when they preach not social change but changing ourselves on a personal level.
CVJ,
what other motive do they have for this “gulangan” as ricelander calls it. Where does this disrespect for their fellow Filipinos come from? I still think this is racial. Most cultures, in fact all cultures, suffer from racism. What makes the Philippines unique is that “racism” is not an intellectual topic here. It’s a topic among the masses but our intellectuals avoid the issue.
in the philippines there has always been an “us vs. them” mentality. because we believe that we all are (in one way or another) part of a group, and our group is (in one way or another) in opposition to some other group, we live in a state of perpetual antagonism.
palaging may tayo, at may sila.
the cab driver is justified in his “gulangan” because his community of fellow drivers will understand his need to get through the traffic. same with the vendor in the market, the employee who takes the extra long lunch, and yes, the politician.
there has never been just an “us” in this country. we have never been brought together in a bond strong enough to overcome our pathological social myopia–the tendency to be blind to anything other than our own little concerns.
even benign0, for all his self-proclaimed enlightenment, is part of the “us” that is the self-righteous members of the diaspora. we are his “them”. and thus the target for all his derision.
sheesh.
manuel:
i don’t know though… in the Filipino communities abroad I’ve had the (mis)fortune of being a part of, you find that the less Filipinos interact with each other, the better it is, the more objective they are.
but if you have a situation where you get a bunch of filipinos to try to work together for any amount of time, the result is a degeneration to that “culture” Fallows has pointed out.
all one has to do is to try to organize a Filipino sportsfest or a summer basketball league to know what i’m talking about. ahahahah!
“in the philippines there has always been an “us vs. them†mentality. because we believe that we all are (in one way or another) part of a group, and our group is (in one way or another) in opposition to some other group, we live in a state of perpetual antagonism.”
Tonio, you are ignoring the degree of inhumanity that hacienda tenants suffer. Yes, we are a tribal people. Most people are tribal. Americans are tribal. Europeans are tribals. Everybody needs a group. Yet, this doesn’t explain why Filipinos working in haciendas are treated like slaves.
brian:
far from it. i’m saying this state of antagonism is what gives the hacenderos some delusional right to treat their workers like slaves. precisely because they can’t identify with them. it’s wrong, it’s deplorable, and they should be taken to task for it.
Gees it’s a one-sided war, as I’ve said. There is no “state of antagonism” Nagmamakaawa na nga ang kanila eh (I’m assuming you know tagalog).
I’ve got my boned-in Majestic Ham all ready for noche buena. Loved your column. Thanks again for twittering about “Happiness is a majestic Ham”.
boned-in ham sound porny.
Fruitcake does boned-in majestic ham…
“Yes, exactly, morality trickles down. This is what the church doesn’t get or worse. They could be playing the emperor’s new clothes when they preach not social change but changing ourselves on a personal level.” – Brian.
Social concerns are never removed with the personal level as far as the church’s official teaching is concerned, and this is embodied in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Preaching this ineffectively is another matter, to which I agree to some extent.
Pope Benedict XVI in his recent encyclical “Spe Salvi” criticizes over reliance on political structures and science, at the same time he does have strong criticisms likewise for “modern Christianity”‘s too much focus on the personal level as it largely ignores the social dimension:
“On the other hand, we must also acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering.”
willy, if you pursue the moral code comparison, then delicadeza was to the ruling class what the traditional code of the mafiosi were to corleone: with both facing the same problems today, in reality as well as fiction, when the informal codes are no longer respected, and in fact become viewed as obstacles to continued success, they can never be brought back, something else has to be found.
brian and tonio -what if you compared societies where the spanish had little if no influence, like the muslim areas, and places like negros where the upper class are heavily hispanicized? would you really find a difference? the muslims practiced slavery until very recently, it was technically abolished by the spanish but brian points out the enduring slave-owner’s mentality. what if the origins and the enduring ability of that mentality is because, prior to western colonization, asian colonization here brought slavery and it endured, because the slaveholders have endured, too?
ricelander:
True, yet “gulangan” is a coping mechanism on the roads which rewards such behavior. I’ve heard it said that our road conditions mirror our society, or vice-versa. You see small scale gulangan in the streets, people feel it is normal, and now we see the same gulangan on a much larger and massive scale in society. The moment we see discipline on our roads as a general rule, we got it.
a note on driving behavior. i asked my dad why chaos reigned on our roads, and he had an interesting observation. he said that after the war, the roads were wrecked -people had to drive in a zigzag manner, because it was the only way to get from point a to point b; and combined with the general lawlessness that resulted during the war, it became ingrained. two generations after the war, it’s now second nature.
but what remains to be fully explained is how law and order broke down so thoroughly and practically instantly, with the war. for example, alfonso aluit’s essay raises more questions than it answers:
http://philippinesfreepress.wordpress.com/2006/04/09/world-war-ii-in-the-philippines/
belonging to a group is not a monopoly of any race. It’s a universal desire to belong to a group because human beings are social creatures. We desire to live, love and work with others whom we know and who know us.
Our ancestors needed to belong in small groups to protect them from harsh weather and predators, men and animals alike. Belonging to a group gave them- and gives us- a chance to thrive.
While Westerners find the need to belong, they prefer loose and broad types of belonging in contrast to collectivists culture of Asian people to which Filipinos belong.
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the need to belong is lower than the esteem needs which means to say that individual would seek first the approval of a group to gain its esteem.
The presence of the many movements and groups against GMA
can be best explained by this hierarchy of belonging which the people use when there is a conflict of interests between the various groups to which they belong.
First, they are a group of GMA-step-down movement. Then they are further divided by the means by which they like the Philippines to be ruled during the transition period e.g. military junta, snap election…blah blah.
Another division is the hidden agenda that motivate them for the oust-GMA-before 2010 advocacy.
Together with the need to belong is the desire to punish those who do not conform.
Who said that if you are not with us, you’re against us?
tonio,
I lived abroad for many years, in several countries, but I didn’t experience what you’re talking about.
Cat,
I believe you misunderstood Maslow’s theory
The C at:
Interesting. In the early 90’s I heard a talk by a Filipino sociologist, Dr. Tomas Andres, who said there was even a higher level in the Filipino hierarchy of needs – heroism, even higher than self-actualization. I heard that Maslow recently revised his theory to include heroism as well, much much later than our own Dr. Andres. When I think of this, I think of kamikaze pilots, suicide bombers and the like. Its much too extreme, and so I believe there must be a personal moral code of conviction behind those. Probably too much to expect of the ordinary Pinoy who is so much stuck in a parochial “sense of belonging”. And then I think of Ninoy.
I see what you mean. I don’t belong to the Upper Class so, apart from the Tsinoys, i wouldn’t know whether they do separate themselves from the rest of Philippine society via race. If so, that distinction would be stupid as it is without biological basis. That being the case, i don’t agree to framing our opposition to the elite in racial terms since that would just amplify their error.
Tonio, just like MB, i also haven’t had that experience here in Singapore. Could it be something that’s more peculiar to Fil-Ams or the older generation diaspora?
Mlq3, in keeping with Luhman’s framework, i consider delicadeza among the ruling classes more as a code of ethics rather than a moral code. The distinction is that the former is home grown and therefore friendly to the system while the latter originates from the outside and, just like bacteria, may or may not be harmful. Niklas Luhman wrote that the purpose of ethics within a system is to protect against morality since the latter is alien to the system and therefore, more often than not, harmful to it. Once the code of ethics breaks down, the system is vulnerable to an invasion of this alien morality. The emergence of various calls for ‘moral recovery’ or ‘moral renewal’ is a symptom of this ethical breakdown.
“We should henceforth drink only bottled water from economically successful countries.”
MB, I suggest the water of the Great Lakes, it’s great tasting, mixed with all our treated sewage though, but our only source and the sorrounding u.s. states..
That aside, I think and I believe there should be emphasis on the Equality and programs towards the goal.
First discrimination of all kind and pretentions should be eliminated through legislations to specific targets and full enforcement, preferably punitive fines especially for employers.
Secondly, hate law should also be enacted under the criminal code and clearly define which are considered hate crimes, even use for religious purposes and discussions, parang walang palusot…
there are many steps, but one step at a time…try going up the CN tower using the ladder, one step at the time, you’ll get at the top…
Vic,
“MB, I suggest the water of the Great Lakes, it’s great tasting, mixed with all our treated sewage though, but our only source and the sorrounding u.s. states..”
That proves my point about drinking water! America is the most powerful country in the world because of the water it Drinks! What doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger! America is now so strong it will survive even Bush and Cheney.
As to hate crimes, I’m not sure I understand the basis for creating that category. What makes hate crimes worse than those that are motivated by politics, religion, or those that are just plain random violence?
After 20 years, things have gone from bad to worse:
1)The Filipino diaspora: Some eight million Filipinos, out of a population of 80 million, have left the country to seek work abroad, attracted by jobs with salaries that far exceed those of jobs available in the Philippines. These jobs often include nursing, technology, fishing, and teaching, although a third are composed of unskilled workers.
2) The Economic Laggard: The Philippines has been left behind economically and technologically by almost all its neighbors in the East Asian and South-East Asian regions
3) “Pagpag†(Recycled garbage food for the poor):The new household hunger score is almost ten points above the 11.8% average in 38 quarterly SWS surveys from mid-1998 to the present .The measure refers to involuntary suffering because the respondents answer a survey question that specifies hunger due to lack of anything to eat. “Social Weather Station,September 2007
4) Human Rights: “The Armed Forces of the Philippines remains in a state of almost total denial (as its official response to the Melo Report amply demonstrates) of its need to respond effectively and authentically to the significant number of killings which have been convincingly attributed to them. The President needs to persuade the military that its reputation and effectiveness will be considerably enhanced, rather than undermined, by acknowledging the facts and taking genuine steps to investigate. “(United Nations Rapporteur on human rights report)
5)The odd man out of Asia: The lack of commonality between the Philippines and the rest of Asia makes it’s the odd man out of Asia.
Equalizer,
I think greater contact with the rest of Asia, via OFWs, will correct our oddness in the very near future. In addition, millions of Filipino OFWs have learned that America is not the center of the world so we won’t be the amboys of asia anymore.
Manuel:I hope you are 100% right! We are not a Latin American country nor America’s 51st state in Asia.
MANILA , Philippines — Philippine Ambassador to Spain Joseph Delano Bernardo has to resign from his post once he is granted Spanish citizenship, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Thursday.INQUIRER.net
Que Barbaridad!Asustados estamos todos…Embajador Bernardo,no tienes Verguenza?(walang hiya!)
Hatred, not nip at the bud could blossom worse than racism, discrimination and all other prejudices combine. Hitler, didn’t hate the Jews because of their religion,or their successeses in whatever businesses and ventures they take, but just to use that hatred to solidified his Party. Hatred is one “slogan” that a leader or a zealot can use to motivate a group of desperate group to prod into unreasonable action for his own end and religion and race can be use as just an excuse to justify the end, power and wealth. take a look at howsomeleaders of the Muslim faith use hatred and so does someleaders of all others do the same, and their followers just take them just like part of religious teachings…and we had realized it, and limit that freedom of speech and expressions if it cross the line and fall under the Crime of Hate..
manuel:
weird! but then again, my memories were back of when i was back in high school in mississauga. i remembered it was a few summers when, because, of factionalism between groups of parents, we weren’t allowed to participate in the summer Filipino basketball leagues of different cities (sauga couldn’t go to brampton, brampton couldn’t go to T.O., etc., etc.) so my friends and i decided to play baseball (where the leagues were run by the city or by schools) instead. but those parents were vicious…
vic:
how is the Filipino community in the Greater Toronto area these days?
Of all the unethical things Butch Dalisay has done to me, this must be the worst. If for some reason I get a virus or a death threat in my email, I’m going to sue him immediately. This person underestimates me based on my rather flagrant lack of grace (my own description). His snobbish nature has convinced him that I am some helpless shmuck because I spend too much time writing on blogs. Heh. A little Googling would tell him my entire family is full of lawyers. He thinks he’s some sort of literary dragon. The same person who admits he isn’t any better than Sionil Jose but criticize Jose as ab awful writer. The same person whose first novel is a shameless plug on the American point of view of the Philippines.
vic,
Is there a definition of gate crimes? Has America identified what acts fall under hate crimes? Please bear with my ignorance on the subject.
vic,
hate not gate. sorry for the typo