I have a cousin who is rather high up in an American multinational (I think he’s the first Filipino to hold such responsibilities in the organization) and I asked him, once, why it seemed so few Filipinos reached really high positions in firms overseas. While the American bureaucracy, for one, has more than its fair share of Filipinos, and there are multinationals the world over, filled to the gills with mid-level Filipino managers, why are there so few Filipino top bosses? Hardly any, actually.
His answer came quickly, as befits an executive: “a lack of ambition.”
I asked him to elaborate on his opinion.
“We are easily contented,” he explained. “Once many Filipinos reach a certain level of comfort, they’re not inclined to go any higher.”
This was the genesis of my view that most Filipinos possess a bureaucrat’s mentality: and why the civil service seems so (cozily) ideal for many. I myself noticed I am inclined to be this way: I crave security, I want to minimize risks, I want to, most of all, work to live and not live to work. Employment makes this possible: the company health plan, the company union that fights for it, the predictable paycheck and annual bonuses.
Which is not to pass judgment on this mentality as unhealthy or inferior, per se. It can even be argued that it’s a healthier one than Darwinian capitalism taken to extremes. Yet, taken to extremes, too, there’s the danger that the bureaucratic mentality is not a mental framework that values innovation, or which, when you come to think of it, puts a premium on excellence.
The reality is that the mentality is so pervasive as to have nothing to do with education or social status. Some months ago I had a chat with a banker from Hong Kong who’s fond of the Philippines and Filipinos (with the kind of exasperated affection you might hear an ordnung-obsessed German talking about Italians and their dolce vita). His line is wealth management and so he’s intimately aware of the mental framework of the country’s economic movers and shakers.
“You’re an archipelago,” he began, “with this giant moat comprised of the sea, and so your Ayalas and Sys are, ultimately, safe. They have a captive audience and a natural barrier to anyone challenging them from overseas. Why innovate? Why compete? Once you figure out how to make money, it ends up reproducing itself. You don’t have to be particularly good, just well positioned, and so your energies are better used to preserving your preeminent position rather than embarking on taking risks or competing globally. It’s all very tidy, effortless, and really, quite lucrative. They are the envy of other businessmen in other countries who wish they had it so good.”
But I have gotten increasingly convinced that this mentality, while it has its charms, and may actually make for a better quality of life for most of us, is only made possible by a flawed understanding of business. I have been looking for an appropriate analogy, a useful comparison, and I think I’ve found it.
For some time now, I’ve been of the opinion -or perhaps, it’s more accurate to say, I have a sneaking suspicion- that we live in a Cargo Cult society. As this article, The Cargo Cults, explains,
When soldiers and airmen from the United States and other allied countries arrived in the islands with huge war cargoes, it was for the worshipers proof that those who followed the beliefs of a cargo cult were to be rewarded for their faith. Though the natives did not benefit directly from the appearance on their islands of those types of cargo, the cultists believed that their predictions were confirmed and that the cargo-millennium was at hand. A time of plenty had arrived. There was no longer a need to work. Money was unnecessary. Crops could be, and were, neglected. Pigs were randomly slaughtered for feasts. It was a time to celebrate, and the cultists lived it up.
Things didn’t turn out as the cultists expected, but few lost the faith. When goods fail to appear, as in the postwar period, the followers usually assume it is because they have not yet performed the correct ritual, because foreigners have schemed against them, or because the cultists have neglected the gods.
The complexities of the modern world: it is like Darwinian evolution versus Man being made in God’s image. The ferocious debate between science and faith is like the ferocious debate between those approaching society and its problems from an economic perspective, with its focus on increasing value and promoting efficiency, an essentially remorseless and amoral attitude, to those who possess an essentially philosophical perspective, which has, at its heart, moral questions whether based on religious faith or a more secular approach. But just as the seemingly hopeless divide between faith and science can be bridged, perhaps the great divide between those who put a premium on business and those who hold things like democracy and freedom as what should be, properly, the main considerations of human society, can be closed, as well.
Diosdado Macapagal, a lawyer turned economist, once paid tribute to himself by suggesting he held a competitive edge over his peers:
Leadership in the country today requires a knowledge of economics. The vital problems of the nation are economic in character, namely, unemployment, high prices, underproduction, imbalance of payments, currency controls, etc. Public men who have hazy notions of the fundamentals of economic science and whose minds, for lack of background or aptitude, cannot fathom the mysteries of the economic issues involved in important matters of state, are at a disadvantage. They are like men who treat the sick without the knowledge of medicine, who handle a trial without knowledge of law, who fashion a table or chair without knowledge of carpentry. They are like the Pharisees of old who were the “blind guides of blind men. But if a blind man guides a blind man, both fall into a pit.”
He conveniently forgot to point out that a leader imbued with a thorough understanding of “economic science,” but who lacked political gifts, would be at a disadvantage, too: not least because he’d be unable to muster support for his programs. Most of all, as befitted a person with a doctorate, he put a premium on expertise while forgetting that the bedrock of democracy is popular participation by the non-experts, too. To be sure, a non-lawyer involved in legislation is handicapped compared to a lawyer, but not permanently so: among other things, the non-lawyer can bring fresh eyes and common sense to the legislative process; and economists, too, must realize that their science began as “political economy,” which suggests that what once was, must ever be: you cannot divorce the two. Everything is political and in essence, much of what is political predates the sciences and isn’t subject to the scientific method. But Cong Dadong was on to something, and it was something his daughter took to heart.
Though again, the two approaches are not irreconcilable; they are complimentary. Scientific methods and principles, the handling of statistics, are used in gauging public opinion; but it requires a certain dexterity, an instinctive feel and skill, to marshal that opinion, mold it, hold it, wield it. Politics will always have a mystical attribute attached to it, which is why I pointed out that even a pragmatist like the President consults prophesying nuns, her one time ally turned nemesis Jose de Venecia, Jr. pays attention to letters dictated by his dead daughter, and Romulo Neri, Jr. begins his day by consulting the I Ching and a high percentage of officialdom consults geomancers and fortune-tellers.
The difference between officialdom and their constituents is greater familiarity with the formal structures of government, the regulations the officials themselves make -and break- and perhaps, of the true sources of wealth in our country. Yet all belong to the Cargo Cult.
From the four corners of the world, transported in the holds of ships traveling the seven seas, or in the bellies of aircraft, our cargo comes: rich or poor, the balikbayan box is expected, because demanded; how it gets from door to door, is no one’s concern, really.
And this brings us to what makes possible the door to door service: gaming the system.
It may be more accurate to say that Gaming the System, and not really politics, is our national pastime. We’re very good at it and, indeed, we can game practically any system; and engaged in this collective gaming, what, then, is the real advantage or even logic, in reforming the system and making it invulnerable to being gamed? None. No one will admit it, everyone’s secretly content with it. Which is another reason nothing really happens.
In Wikitruth, there’s an entry on Gaming the system:
Gaming the System means, simply, using the rules, policies and procedures of a system against itself for purposes outside what these rules were intended for. Most of the time, a set of rules will be put in place towards a simple goal. The goal might be to prevent innocents from being harassed to preventing wasted time covering well-tread (and decided-upon) ground. Unfortunately, when a system puts too many rules in place, makes them too vague, or otherwise fails to know the consequences of these rules, people who study the rules closely can then use this massive (often contradictory) ruleset to play the “game” their own, unexpected way.
Think, for example, about the dizzying regulations concerning official corruption in our country, which actually fosters the very thing the laws are meant to prevent.
And it concludes with this solution:
Believe it or not, a stronger central authority fixes more of this problem than anything else. This may sound like something against the goals of Wikipedia, but currently Jimbo Wales or Danny will step in and apply rules against the system as they need to: hard, fast rules with no appeal that are permanent. These are called Wikipedia Office Decisions. They make total sense: the people who are running the system get to make choices. But because Wikipedia falsely makes it sound like everyone has a say, these moves look like dictators running roughshod on the People.
Hence, the not-so-secret yearnings of so many Filipinos for a Man on Horseback who will “Hoy, Puñeta!” a fractious and undisciplined population into line. Which, besides being only a temporary solution at best, also causes more problems than it solves.
Which makes this tart piece of advice with which the Wikitruth article ends, apropos to our discussion:
Over time, Wikipedia’s central authority will make rules more hard and fast. But until then, we remind you that the only way to win against a gamed system is not to play.
Which is exactly what hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Filipinos have done. Incidentally, they are among our best and brightest or at least those with a more enterprising bent. It has ever been so: what brought the Malays to what’s now the Philippines in the first place, and led those from one island to move to another, and another, if not dissatisfaction with the status quo, so that there’s one theory that Tagalog is derived from Cebuano? An island peoples are, essentially, a nomadic people, we have wanderlust genetically programmed into us.
Anyway, let me finally get to this photo, which I took some weeks back to illustrate a point I wanted to make.
Typhoons and bad weather are inevitable: and we’ve become used to thinking that power outtages and electrical fires are a predictable consequence of typhoons. But mitigating the reasons typhoons lead to power failures doesn’t occur to anyone: what happens is, energy is devoted to clearing up the mess in the wake of a typhoon and, as soon as that’s done, everything goes back to normal -until the next time a typhoon strikes. The power failures are blamed on trees whose branches are unpruned, mainly, but hardly ever on the truly abominable state of the electric lines, which are a chaotic mass of dangling or tangled wires on leaning posts, with buildings hooked up to them willy-nilly.
Now I’m sure if you ordered Meralco to take responsibility for the chaotic condition of the electrical wires, they’d plead that the effort would bankrupt them. Oddly enough, no order has been made, which might force the creation of some sort of plan: things being less tangled in places like Alabang, you could start with Tatalon. You could even insist, if you were the government, that any new development has to have underground wiring, which would be more typhoon-proof (though there’s the question of flooding!), and where old buildings are razed and new ones erected, underground connections should replace the old-fashioned posts. One reason no order’s been given is that it would bring up the inconvenient reality that local and national governments don’t take zoning particularly seriously, and that the population has swamped the existing infrastructure.
But the individual citizen thinks, do something, anything! But instead, nothing: the problems are so vast, no solution can be contemplated, much less attempted. And so, when the inevitable occurs -the system breaks down- everyone just has to appear busy long enough to patch things back together until the next time it all breaks down. And yet, with the tangled wires in plain sight, people end up shocked by transmission losses! It’s really a failure to even comprehend how electricity gets from point A to point B, what’s involved, how things work, and that electricity isn’t some sort of magical ether.
Never mind how the system’s supposed to work: everyone’s gamed it, anyway. Which is why, as a balikbayan recently told me, “everytime I come home, everything’s slightly more decayed, the people are poorer, life is a little worse, but everyone’s seems so accustomed to it.”
We have abandoned our ambitions, viewing coping as a kind of triumph; and because we have turned to worshipping the little-understood abstractions of the economy, raising it above the political, we fail to see how until and unless we master politics, everything, including progress, will truly be beyond our grasp.
smoke, who has put forward gaming the system quite often as a way to understand what’s going on, though, since hope springs eternal, we still have to strive for the reality she sees-
…far too many Filipinos are still lazy, unimaginative, and mediocre; far too many of our youth are pathologically enamored with consumerism; and we are still a nation run by morons, who are ‘fiscalized’ by idiots, with running commentary from mercenary retards.
Not being a permanent reality in our country (and change is taking place, on a smaller scale, with people groping their way towards trying to build up the momentum to achieve it on a bigger scale). But in the meantime, I have to wholeheartedly agree with the grimness of things, as The Warrior Lawyer sees it, and as {caffeine_sparks} experiences it.
FWIW, i don’t think lack of ambition is our problem. The fact that you have millions uprooting themselves either from their home provinces to seek a better life in the city, coupled with the millions who have left the country to work elsewhere is proof that we, as a people, possess ambition.
Our statistics on entrepreneurship also show the same drive. The Philippines has among the highest rates of entrepreneurship, almost five times higher than Singapore. Most of the entrepreneurial activity also comes from the low income Class D and E sectors so you also cannot blame the poor for lack of initiative.
Blaming lack of ambition for our present poverty and inequality is like blaming the victims of the recent Sulpicio ferry disaster for not wanting to swim to shore…
cjv, i think you misunderstand the observation on lack of ambition. it doesn’t mean there isn’t a drive to be better -as you point out, the drive to be better is tremendous. and to be a mid-level manager requires a certain amount of ambition. but, the point of the comment was, there isn’t, perhaps, a corresponding drive to be best. there is a difference between wanting to be better and wanting to be best.
Manolo, i agree that there is a difference between wanting to be better and wanting to be the best. (Jim Collins did write, in the context of business enterprises that ‘Good is the enemy of Great’.) Achieving greatness requires a certain single-mindedness that most Filipinos don’t possess since we’re more multidimensional and aim for balance. (Trillanes and Faeldon are exceptions in this regard.) However, even if true, i fail to see why that would be a big deal since our problem at this stage of our development is that the even the efforts of people to become better is being blocked by an elitist minority. We haven’t yet reached the stage where we have to worry about the difference between trying to be better and trying to be the best.
Actually on that note, there IS something to be said about the way the market continued to patronise the services of a company with such a deadly track record of operation…
This is the kind of thinking that infests Pinoy society — that one’s prospects for prosperity are dependent on whether an elite sector of society opens or closes doors to opportunities for all.
If Henry Sy thought the way you do, cvj, then he’d still be the Third Class citizen that him and his peers started out as in the Philippines.
hvrds, too bad you are a “hit n run” commenter, so i’ll not engage you re dm or gma. go on with your ideological soliloquy.
mlq3, what’s wrong with having a doctorate in economics? no other among his peers had/has one except, i think, his own daughter. and what politician doesn’t shout to the whole world his qualifications for the position he is holding or aspiring for? a simple analogy would be myself displaying my law school diploma and bar admission certificates in my office to assure clients that i am what i purport to be.
but its neither here nor there. what i was protesting “too much” is your apparent fetish against the macapagals.
brianB, you are quite right. i don’t take just any kind of risk but most of the time i take “calculated” risk. in law practice, in particular, the stakes are usually high (which could include your license or prestige).
Ah Benigno, I adopted the habit of not feeding the squirrel and the troll in the internet but sometimes I have to throw them some morsel.
You criticized MLQ3 for linking blogs, articles and websites. In your old website(honest, I’ve not been to your website for years now), you published articles of columnists. (did you ask for permission)? I believe not because you wanted them to believe that you are one of the writers. When pexers asked you if you’re Teddy Benigno, you ignored the query.
For years now, you remain faceless. No profile. No background. For the former pexers, you are still the OFW who has a lot of baggage. One who has a lot of alternicks to defend himself in the forum or comment boxes. Sheesh.
Tsk tsk, Cat. I’m quite flattered that you continue to speculate on my personal circumstances after all these years.
Keep on guessing! 😀
Jeg, i hope you’ll not consider it an absurd misinterpretion if i ascribe to Benign0 what
i mistakenly ascribed to you in the previous thread (re: blaming the victims).
Using the Sulpicio analogy, Henry Sy is one of those who managed to swim to shore. But what is the point of glorifying the few who are able to do so and condeming those who remain trapped in the ship’s hull?
because those who, this Christmas, will board the ferry that leaves, Manila to Cebu, may want to take drownproof lessons now, and also maybe think of paying the extra pesos to be above-deck… or to buy their own mini-life-vest.
And now, the Information Asymmetry issue kicks in… how do we share some of the paragraphs from Q3-blogsite blog discussions of Princess Stars to ferry passengers for this Christmas and for next-year typhoon season.
Will the following advertising program work?
Take swimming lessons!!! Only P500.00. Meet friends (flash a picture of gorgeous babes and hunks 😛 )
Learn a skill (flash a picture of a woman who looks like a principal)
And the final “hook” — the life you save may be your own. 😐
[Show either the Superferry14 image or the PrincessStars image… both sank within 3 kilometers of shore if I remember right. ]
PSI,
‘I looked at page 17 as you said, and the education part of Hu’s observation is quite true with Filipinos trailing Indians (South Asian), Chinese, and Koreans in terms of attainment of bachelor’s degree.’
The Chinese and Koreans are only slightly ahead in education compared to the Filipinos. You should also consider that Filipinos are way ahead in the ‘High School or more’ category which means that some Filipinos go to trade schools instead of the university. Did you know that mechanics here usually charge $75 an hour?
You also failed to mention that Japanese and Vietnamese trail Filipinos in the bachelors degree category. Should they also be natural candidates for affirmative action?
The Ultimate Lesson is Not to Sail when typhoon is coming regardless of strength.
Up N.. you have to remove the principal picture. She will ruin the advertising. LOL. the ad must be on TV paid by Sulpicio.
CVJ. I like the vertical farming idea. Very innovative in your part. Manila residences need that. The provinces are self sufficient.
Leytenian, thanks but that was Karl’s (KG’s) idea.
For business executives and professionals who wish to grow food but don’t have the time to travel to the mini- or rent-a-farms in Batangas and Laguna, a good alternative is hydroponics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics
it’s a tough choice whom to dislike the most.. Cat or Benigs.
but i guess if you ignore their faults, they both have a point
so- what the heck?
re lack of ambition, there’s enough proof that Filipino’s are devoid of that. even Manolo’s distinction between simple ambition to be “good” and to be the “best,” doesn’t hold.
Filipinos do have the ambition to be the best. it isn’t so much as a lack of ambition but more of having a low threshold of contentment and happiness.
we also cannot attribute the lack of top Filipino CEOs and managers in multinational companies as gauge that we lack the drive for excellence. as cvj has said, it may have something to do with Filipino’s definition of excellence.
cvj mentioned a balanced life as his definition of excellence. i, on the other hand, define excellence as having a life worth living, being happy and contented.
9 out of 10, i’m sure that those top CEOs in multinational companies are unhappy, overworked, and have lousy family life. sure, they’re top dogs, oozing with money. but wtf is money compared with a happier life.
i’d be more willing to bet that those Filipino mid-level managers in multinationals are the ones who have achieved my definition of excellence.
you see, there’s a certain point when we have to choose between more money and higher rank against spending more time with your family, or getting enough rest. my bet is, those who stuck being mid-level managers have found that balance.
i can’t say the same for those who chose to stay in the rat race.
Along the honest response of CVJs (i value more is work-life balance), there is strong resonance of the question, what is the relevance of gaining the world if you lost your family in the process. We glamorize success and rank the ladder in terms of dollar amount. There is however price to pay.
In my previous company, our CEO was 3 times divorced. The bright side he claimed you are getting a younger aggressive wife (his last one wrote a book to include their sexual journey) every time. The downside, your bonus pays the lawyer, alimony and child support.
A slight miscalculation can be fatal too. The board removed him (not of his tryst in the empty boardroom) because of his costly expansion during weak earnings. A month after, he died of heart attack.
While MLQ3 articulated on Filipinos lack of ambitions, the driving point is really our own personal ambition.
the vertical gardening thing beat me to a point i wanted to raise at some future date. but i was thinking along the lines of victory gardens.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden
“let us, for the meantime, suffice ourselves with the ready explanations that religion provides..”
What a load of utter BS.
mlq3,
Well, waddyounow, you could be a first blogger-farmer .
Seriously, the middle class is concerned about the rising inflation (almost 12 percent) in the country. Anything to economize. Hope this results to effective measures like car-pooling, etc.
But our bigger problem are the poor people. IMF warned today of upheavals if the rise in prices of food, fuel, and other basic necessities remain unabated.
Mlq3 (at 12:45 am), the Victory Garden concept resembles the household/backyard plots allocated by the Vietnamese government that helped the Vietnamese peasants to survive the quarter century of failed experiments with Collective farming. Yields in these family cultivated plots were on the average three times higher than on Collective farms.
mlq3 on, “i was thinking along the lines of victory gardens.”
This should be encourage in every household. I have noticed that most first generation Filipinos in the US have backyard plots despite the abundance of crops and vegetables on the market. My mother in law planted in her backyard corn, squash, tomatoes, guava, peach, lemoncito, etc.
Recently when tomatoes were dumped from the market shelves due to salamonella scare in the US, we still enjoy homegrown tomatoes sprinkled with lemon pared to fried tilapia.
Self-sufficiency begins at home.
cjv, yeah it’s an elementary response to hard times. roxas plowed up part of the malacanan gardens and planted vegetables himself to set an example, and the experiment lasted throughout his presidency -discovered he had a green thumb.
d0d0ng, yes i’ve met many filipinos in the states who had amazing agricultural experiments going (constantly amazed what tropic veggies and fruits can be coazed into growing even in temperate climates!).
then of course the next, necessary experiment, on the chinese model, is turning “night soil” into compost -or even into the means to produce biogas. considering metro manila lacks what, something like 5-8 million toilets, the potential is vast.
‘i’ve met many filipinos in the states who had amazing agricultural experiments’
‘first generation Filipinos in the US have backyard plots despite the abundance of crops and vegetables on the market.’
I did not have a vegetable garden until my parents came over 2 years ago. Now it’s a yearly ritual.
mlq3, that’s a lot of shit, if i may say so myself. mbuencamino would be delighted, i’m sure. (lol).
just highlighting a sentence from mlq3: …..until and unless we master politics, everything, including progress, will truly be beyond our grasp.
Above dramatic sentence has a lot of truth. The filipinos-in-America will not attain the maximum that America can provide to a population-sharing-a-heritage unless the Filipinos-in-America master politicking. [Translation: above the baranggay-community level.]
This is true on the individual level, too. Even cvj alluded to what one may lose when one does only part of the rough-and-tumble of politicking. cvj’s words: i personally don’t see striving for Top Management as being worth it. Above a certain level, it becomes a matter of politics.
Politicking is a skill. As a skill, it can be learned. But others by the time they are 30 are functioning-A’s because of osmosis — living in a household where politicking is practiced every day.
The politicking skill among oligarchs [handed from parent to chld] is similar to wealth-generation [‘watching the pennies’ skill and deal-making skills : handed from parent to child] is similar to dentistry or database adminisration[the “skill”l, handed from teacher to student].
UPNS
knowing how to swim may be nice;but……have you ever been capsized in a banka?
have you ever been to the beach on a stormy day?
I experienced both, and knowing how to swim will almost disappear on panic mode.If not for a certain fisherman wala na ako at mga kasama ko.
on stormy weather ang lakas pumalo ng alon,you heard news that those who did not hold tight simply disappeared and now one of those recovered.
kaya naka survive yung mga nasa raft me mga kasama silang seaman.
akala mo ba yung mga surfer di takot mag surf pag malakas ang bagyo,sure pag medyo ambon lang at malakas ang alon they would dare but pag bumabagyo?
madamai na ang nagkamali mag beach kahit malakas ang alon.Our (mine,cvj’s)former school president and djb’s principal bro rafe donato knew how to swim but failed to survive because malakas ang alon.
Higher positions have higher responsibility and gets fired quicker.
when you are ceo,bihira na yung three strikes,matinding politics na yan pag di pa natanggal yan after three strikes. pwera na lang pag lahat ng board members mo nasa senior management at yung mga independent directors ceo nagpasok at wala naman talagang pakialam sa kumpanya.
On household farming
dito sa tinitirhan ko nung bata pa si erpat at nung medyo sinisipag pa ako at madami pang tutulong gianagawa namin yan pero ang liit ng lupa na natira sa property namin puro bahay sa bakanteng lote namin ginawa, dumating yung me ari ng lupa wala pang isang taon, ayos.
sa mga nakikita ko karmihan bakanteng lote din ang ginanagamit and if i may speculate di rin sa kanila yung lote na yun ;dahil di naman tayo back yard front yard types.
KG: Good point and I am sorry to hear about DLSU school president who perished a drowning victim. Being a swimmer is like knowing how to count cards. Your odds have improved, but guarantee to win on a specific draw of cards? Not there at all. [And yes, I’ve been caught in an undertow off Ocean City, New Jersey. As you said, the first order of business is to control the panic to get to the objective — not to drown.]
In Hawaii (Kauai) I got to ask a 1/4-Pinoy-surfer what they do when pushed all the way to the ocean floor as the waves crash. He said “fight the panic”, “don’t drink the salt water”, and work hard to get the odds in your favor. The objective is to get to the surface where there is air to breathe, the waters probably calmer and theere will be others looking for him. Survive long enough to when the waters get calm again and search/rescue discovers you.
Different folks, different strokes. Folks disagree on “… is it really worth persevering and politicking to be a three-hundred-thousand a-year CEO or division-chief” or whatever. I just wanted to point to, but I am not surprised by the disagreement on the worth of drownproof lessons.
Check out this visual statement that encapsulates the state of affairs in Philippine Shipping:
http://www.getrealphilippines.com/images/shipping_skulls.gif
– 😀
education on technique to prevent and avoid panic attack during an emergency situation remains to be effective and helpful. It’s cheap and the odds of survival is higher. always believe in prevention thru awareness and education. It allows one’s mind to be ready in any situation. There are lots of technique out . Sulpicio line should hand out brochure to every passenger. The government must implement this program as a requirement. Liabilities can be minimize if education and prior notice are given. This is an example of social responsibility.
Just like the airlines, the flight stewardess are required to do their pre flight demo. the shipping lines must do the same but with an additional Panic prevention and technique brochure.
cvj: Jeg, i hope you’ll not consider it an absurd misinterpretion if i ascribe to Benign0 what i mistakenly ascribed to you in the previous thread (re: blaming the victims
By all means, seeing that my hypothesis about our pal benny has been soundly refuted by empirical evidence…
Thanks Jeg.
@Karl, Mlq3 and Leytenian, I believe that the logic of Vertical Farming (suggested by Karl and endorsed by Leytenian), Victory Gardens (introduced by Manolo) and Household Farming (as implemented in Vietnam and discussed by Manolo and Supremo in the context of the United States Fil-Ams) is the same logic on why we need Land Reform. Grant the rural folk a few hundred (or thousand) square meters of land to produce food for their family and pocket the income from selling their surplus to the market, to help them escape the long emergency of rural poverty.
In the future, when technology finally makes household power generation technologies efficient and cost effective, the same logic can be implemented to allow households to sell their surplus electric power back to the grid.
devilsadvc8 and dodong’s post on 11.42 and 12.44, respectively, is a precise example of what manolo is trying to point out with respect of the trait “lack of ambition”, although i am a bit hesitant to apply that phrase to the trait portrayed.
to echo other posters, it is, i think, the filipino concept of security, for both himself/herself and his/her family. majority of high school graduates still have their parents choose their college education, and most of those who graduate in college, choose jobs for the welfare of the family and only after consulting or hearing the advice of the family.
those who have the opportunity to become ofws or entertainers(do they still exist?) have this pressing burden thrust in them in an even higher extent.
case 1:
i for one am in that situation several months ago, when i quit my seemingly unprogressing job as a SEO/web content writer in davao, i was given the opportunity to work for a national government office along a river in manila, but as government bureaucracy works(which takes a really really long time, by the way), my application lost steam and i decided to apply elswewhere and found a company willing to hire me as a SEO/web content writer for a considerably higher salary than what i could earn if i were to work for the government. i was about to start the job, when guess who calls, and i was into a dilemma; though my chance of succeeding in a career working for the private company was probably higher than the chance i have in a coterminus government position, it was the notion of security that a government job offered that was always played against me both by my family and my peers. so here i am now.. a government employee..
case 2:
my tito is working as an assistant to the chief cook in a foreign oceangoing cargo vessel, his company fleet expands, and he was given the opportunity to be the chief cook in another ship. although trained and experienced in terms of cooking for a multinational crew for the past two years, he rejects the job and opts to remain assistant instead, arguing that he lacks the capacity and training, AND saying its too risky and might endanger the security he now enjoys with his current job.
this chronic lack of confidence brought about by a preference to comfort and security, is what is keeping us from realizing our true potentials.
Liam, i think you have it the other way around. The presence of security is what allows proportionally more people to take more risks. The preference for security is a consequence of a Society which lacks safety and where failure means going hungry.
When i was in high school, i used to take the School Bus going home. One time, the bus driver announced that the brakes were failing so that he would have to drive more slowly than usual. That shows that Safety Nets are like brakes, you normally wouldn’t dare to drive faster if they don’t work properly.
there is some truth into it cvj..
but our willingness to take risks only goes up to a certain extent..
if it is anything peculiar, i believe our average threshold for risk is lower than what other people have..
to Liam Tinio: Our approach nowadays is NOT to offer a promotion to an employee (who is extremely qualified for a position that has more responsibility/more pay) but to wait for the employees to apply for it. If they do not apply, then they do not get the promotion.
An open job-post never remains open that long, so obviously soon enough we get the post filled. Since we need to be sure that the functions of the position get done, we provide training and even mentoring if appropriate to get the newly-hired up to speed.
Thw top two reasons we have seen why folks do not want to apply for more challenging jobs are (1) family (e.g. the employee’s kids are settling into high school and do not want to relocate, or the employee’s spouse not able to relocate for career reasons); (2) retirement — the employee does not want risk of getting laid off and is fearful that being only a few months in a new post makes him/her more vulnerable should there be a re-organization. I suppose #2 also relates to a sense of stability. Some folks want to remain resident-experts so they do not leave their current post-assignments where they have obtained the ‘expert’ status.
Then, there are those who take advantage of “the Peter Principle”.
@ cvj, liam tinio
The risk return tradeoff is a fundamental aspect of life. Now having security/safety net is not actually risk taking, yes?
Risk with security is called insurance.
Even casinos offer this to hedge your bets.
PSI, how then do you explain Insurance? Isn’t that a safety net as well? Having a security/safety net is what turns a foolish risk into a calculated one.
One of the main reasons of people coming together to form civilized Society is to insulate ourselves from the risk of found outside civilization (e.g. getting eaten by wild animals, getting murdered or raped by bandits) so that we can focus on more productive activities (which also entails risks but hopefully with less tragic consequences.)
PSI, doesn’t your comment at 12:32 pm (which i only saw after submitting my comment above) answer your own question at 12:20 pm?
Off-topic but related to success, if its alright with mlq3
This year is the 100th anniversary of the University of the Philippines. To all whose higher education was subsidized by the people, please renew or double your pledges. Especially those doing well in the United States and abroad.
Somehow you owe your success to U.P. Whether you like this government or not, its payback time.
So UP n , ante up.
Liam Tinio on, “devilsadvc8 and dodong’s post on 11.42 and 12.44, respectively, is a precise example of what manolo is trying to point out with respect of the trait “lack of ambitionâ€Â.”
Patawa….
Unlike you, I am certified calculated risk taker and definitely earned my position fighting my own corporate war game. Todate, I survive 3 white VPs (gone for good) who understimated (and thought they can bullshit) a deftly skilled Filipino polished in acquired experiences in various MNCs in Philippines and abroad. Corporate game is a battlefield and I chose my team and alliances well. You should watch Donald Trump as starter. This is my 3rd US company doing business globally. I am in the top management, my division (is the envy of other US and European divisions in the company due to high profitability) is overseeing operation in 3 major countries or business units. The position is not for the faint of heart or you will be out before you can blink. I am far ambitious than you can probably think. It comes with territory and it becomes second in nature.
And to think I grew up in Mindanao, planted rice at 5 and walked 2 kilometers to school, almost unrecognizable to where I am now.
we filpinos in general are family oriented but I don’t think it will stop one from being ambitious. Knowing our personality type is crucial. Corporation nowadays build their team according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
“Thinkers, the Upside: Business and organizations are populated by Thinkers. They base their decisions on logic, fairness, and business outcomes. They can make the tough decisions that are often critical in organizations.
Thinkers, the Downside: Thinkers can be quite unaware of the feelings of staff and customers. When they are aware of feelings, they can consider them irrelevant–too messy and time-consuming. They can miss subtleties in social situations and alienate people who are critical to their own success. They may be indifferent in some situations to the impact of their own behaviors.”
http://www.mbticlub.com/mbti_execs.asp
dodong…
are you an ENTJ? or ENTP .sounds like you are… i was very ambitious since grade one.. from riding the carabao of my grandfather to getting the ride i want…
@dodong
i find your enmity towards me odd as i was nowhere near ridiculing you..
i was only citing your post as an example of the trait in subject..
and you did not even read the entirety of my post..
you’re too eager to flame..
if you would look closely i was not referring to you, per se, but the subject on both your posts..
and i was not even downgrading/belittling it..
here’s the entirety of my post.. pls care to read..
devilsadvc8 and dodong’s post on 11.42 and 12.44, respectively, is a precise example of what manolo is trying to point out with respect of the trait “lack of ambitionâ€Â, although i am a bit hesitant to apply that phrase to the trait portrayed.
oh and btw..
donald trump < niccolo machiavelli