I can relate with a comment that political blogger sparks made recently:
I’ve long accepted I’m a cultural minority in this country. My values are so out of sync from everyone else’s.
[benign0] doesn’t believe in the limits placed by structures and social forces.
I’ll cite you one example – born of a family of 10, subsisting on the father’s minimum wage. You get a star ou[t] of that bunch, s/he’s an anomalous exception not the rule.
For that matter, everyone who dares to think fit within this “cultural minority” sparks speaks of. As a reader of mine once observed (I quoted him in my book):
I enjoyed the company of Filipinos for their humor and the reminiscent qualities I’ve lost touch of. I realized I don’t want the other qualities I associate with my people. I view Filipinos as [de]void of any intellectual enjoyment. I like reading philosophical books that are stimulating, but the people I know and see lack any commitment to any intellectual pursuits. This is not to be patronizing, but there seems to be a limit [to] which some Filipinos apply themselves intellectually.
Sometimes we forget that only a very tiny tiny minority of Filipinos are able to articulate the kinds of ideas exchanged within the circles of people who think. One can find lots of brainwaves splashing about in value crushing volumes in jolog blogs like Ellenville (which is just one of many others that DOMINATE the Pinoy blogosphere) where so much could be discussed about people and events and so many issues muddled into amorphous blobs of utter incoherence. Unfortunately, very little, if any, true insight on ideas that underpin the very nature of what the FUTURE holds for us can be found.
We see so many pretty pictures, symbols, and gestures being flashed all over the place — specially in times of short-lived bursts of patriotic fervour. But very little follow through — the kind that builds upon stuff, whether it is a fleeting instance of national unity or a rare Eureka! moment — ever makes it past the tickertape parade.
Given the glacial rate at which “structures” and “social forces” change — specially in the Philippines — actually believing that these serve as limits not only to one’s own individual prosperity but to the prosperity of every Filipino already makes one a prisoner of Da Pinoy Condition.
So what will it be?
Do we…
- aspire to overstep the boundaries of these “structures” and “social forces” that imprison our minds so that we can;
- imagine a Philippines so fundamentally different as to re-shape the landscape of challenges that face us in a way that helps us focus on stuff that are truly important; and,
- undertake efforts underpinned by more insightful notions of what the real issues are?
… or do we continue to lie under the proverbial guava tree waiting for …
the solutions that gods reveal;
the livelihood that Governments create,
the capital that foreigners provide; and,
the passions that “heroes” inspire.
The choice is quite simple, really™.
Right now we whine about $20,000 spent on a president’s dinner in New York City — money that, as the “thinking” goes, could have been better spent on things more relevant to the average Filipino.
But then in the course of dwelling on that “thinking” we conveniently forget how we are renowned for splurging on multi-lechon fiestas even while deep in debt or spending hard-earned OFW dollars on karaoke machines and celphones instead of saving these funds for a rainy day or investing them in appreciating assets.
It is so obvious how no amount of money thrown into solving The Pinoy Condition has yielded any real results. Despite the the International Rice Research Institute being based in the Philippines, we have become among the world’s biggest rice importers. Despite being among the biggest foreign aid recipients from the United States and Japan, we remain the least-promising of American allies in the region. Despite having hosted one of the biggest American military facilities this side of the globe, we are today the most militarily flaccid. The ADB once issued a report back in the early 90’s showing how the Philippines registers among the lowest realisation rates for development funds disbursed among its debtors.
In general, despite being among the most naturally-endowed countries, we are among the world’s most impoverished societies. There is irony in how the citizens of a land that abounds in so much natural wealth and social mobility earns a significant bulk of their living from lands where nothing but sand and warfare can be found and where liberties taken for granted at home are all but missing.
But then that is why such ironies so routinely escape us. Because those that rule in Philippine society (mandated by the popular vote) always trump the exceptional.
———
Epilogue:
Craig Nelson introduces his book Rocketmen, with the story of a 1969 Senate briefing (shortly after Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon) where Fermilab physicist Robert Wilson is asked how a $250 million atom smasher (particle accelerator for research purposes) he proposes be built will contribute to the security of the United States. Wilson responded by saying that it will contribute nothing, but that the American people’s capacity to undertake endeavours like those is what makes the United States of America worth defending.
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I have imagined the Philippines as a queer version of Oz! (I’m using queer in its original sense!) That must be Benigno’s vision too!
“I enjoyed the company of Filipinos for their humor and the reminiscent qualities I’ve lost touch of. I realized I don’t want the other qualities I associate with my people. I view Filipinos as [de]void of any intellectual enjoyment. I like reading philosophical books that are stimulating, but the people I know and see lack any commitment to any intellectual pursuits. This is not to be patronizing, but there seems to be a limit [to] which some Filipinos apply themselves intellectually.”
The twit who said this is a FilAm! Now he/she never has met DJB, MLQ3 and me or any other Pinoy Jesuit! :-) Seriously this twit seems to have never read Rizal! Maybe he/she is referring to FilAms in general.
But having lived in Oz and the Great Imperial Republic , there is also a limit to which some Australians and Americans can apply themselves intellectually unless you do into the intellectual circuit. . The only thing that differentiates these citizens from us is that they know their rights.
Americans, Ozzies and us have to earn a crust you know!
This FilAm kind of patronizing will merit a devastating retort with philosophy on the side!
blackshama: Again, you fall into denigrating FilAms and shifting into your version of Oz lingo as benign0 gets your goat.
Blackshama,
How is it patronizing to present a view that is shaded by seeing how other cultures deal with things more constructively? The defensiveness of the term “patronizing” is what locks the Philippines into place, unable to change.
I think Benign0 hits the spike directly on its flat noggin. Profoundly.
Regarding your comment: “The only thing that differentiates these citizens from us is that they know their rights.”
I would say instead that it is that they know the difference between right and wrong, and the importance of aspiring toward that which is right.
Joe
it’s more like they usually know their RIGHTS as well as their RESPONSIBILITIES. one cannot be without the other.
LOL.
There are MANY MANY DUMB AMERICANS.
The only difference is that the intelligent Americans are enough to make the US awesome despite the fact.
There aren’t enough intelligent Filipinos who care. At all. They’d rather be Americans or Aussies.
Jon,
You make an excellent, excellent point, it is a core of principled thinkers that wrote the original constitution, and a core of hard-working, good-principled people who continually drive things in the right direction, even if things occasionally wander off course. The systems of checks and balances, including the private ones like the Civil Liberties Union and NAACP, over-ride the apathy and “dumbness” that is found everywhere.
Really important point, I think, as it pertains to the “good way forward” in the Philippines.’
Joe
Education (even self-education) is supposed to expand your mind, not make it narrower.
Yes.
And also, if we just keep accumulating and stocking it in our heads, it makes them grow bigger and bigger.
For the big head to not become a mere bulging receptacle of knowledge, intellect must disseminate good ideas down to the heart and out through the mouth.
Otherwise, “Out of the fullness of the big head the mouth bursts”, instead of, “In the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
“Right now we whine about $20,000 spent on a president’s dinner in New York City — money that, as the “thinking” goes, could have been better spent on things more relevant to the average Filipino.”
Opportunity cost and intrinsic values were not considered. It was a lack of regard and judgement between scarcity and choice. It’s not leadership anymore.
at the heart of it is a kind of horrifying dead end for masny people if you go down the proposed rabbit-holes:
1. if it’s the left paradise, it isn’t paradise for most people who are non-left
2. if it’s a genuine meritocracy and or open economy it also spells extinction for many not just in the upper but also middle classes who can’t/won’t compete -and this includes those who competed elsewhere but want to retire home to enjoy the feudal lifestyle in their old age.
another heretical though is the basic lack of ambition among many people. the reality that government is the largest employer is also a function of so many people having a civil servant’s ambition -which is to rise to your level of incompetence and sit it out until you can retire on a pension. this was an observation i mentioned elsewhere -about the relative absence of filipinos in top jobs in companies overseas; we fill the middle echelons but seem content with that.
add to this the permanent underclass the country has, because of crumbling everything -infrastructure, education, services- which consigns what, a third to permanent poverty and menial tasks, which makes life cheap and also keeps down the costs of what should be genuine alternatives as far as professions like plumber, electrician, waiter, etc.
add to this the escape route for so many overseas but which never brings them to actual positions of responsibility where they can learn best practices and bring them home and implement them -the service professions may lead to individual prowess and even excellence but aren’t translateable to knowledge transfer; those who show entrepreneurial skill or adeptness at management etc. will go -and rise up, but then settle abroad, contributing overseas but only financially at home, but not in a transformative way because for many, they will be subsidizing those who can’t/won’t pursue similar paths.
much of this will lead to some pretty unpolitically correct assumptions or conclusions concerning filipinos as individuals and as a country; to be sure there is no impetus for a search for excellence, or even for modernization beyond the superficial trappings of consumerism.
and again perhaps because everyone, regardless of class or culture, shares the same aspirations and any fundamental reform or change would make those aspirations obsolete.
If you had social safety nets, then a *genuine meritocracy* won’t spell *extinction*.
mlq3: good-steady workers play safe — don’t dare accept a promotion into a level of incompetency.
Pick me! Pick me! is another approach, which pays off as long as one knows to then put in extra hours for homework/catch-up to elevate to the new level.
“if it’s a genuine meritocracy and or open economy it also spells extinction for many not just in the upper but also middle classes who can’t/won’t compete -and this includes those who competed elsewhere but want to retire home to enjoy the feudal lifestyle in their old age.”
MLQ, the elite has come to a point were they engage in direct sabotage of the masses–to preserve their life to which they’ve grown accustomed.
Problem talaga is RACISM. This is the greatest power of the elite.
The U.S. by far is the largest foreign importer of finance capital in the world. Even though their total imports of goods and other ancillary services have been below 20% of their total GDP for most of their existence.
They can get away with it since they imposed their own political currency on the world. Hence their entire foreign obligations are in their own currency and they have the the exclusive political authority to “print up” what they need… They can splurge….
Japan is the least endowed resource country in the G-7. But if they so wish could match the technological prowess of the U.S.
America deliberately runs a trade deficit but most goods in whatever form are bought and distributed by their own companies for the most part. That way they expand their land area without having to invade countries just like in the old days.
They in effect control the supply of international currency for the most part. In essence their banks rule the exchange of mankind’s goods to steal a phrase from FDR. The Chinese are now learning that they have been had by the Americans since they have a lot of dollars in their bank accounts that since the year 2002 have lost almost half their value versus the Euro.
How is the Aussie dollar doing against the U.S. dollar?
You say all that like it’s a bad thing. One of the biggest problems with humanity in general, and Pinoys in particular, is that there is too much concern for principle and not enough for results.
More facts that counter my favorite delusional provocateur.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175101
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175029
“Equally striking, the military seems increasingly ill-adapted to the types of wars that Pentagon strategists agree the United States is most likely to fight in the future, and is, in fact, already fighting in Afghanistan — insurgencies led by non-state actors. While the Department of Defense produces weaponry meant for such wars, it is also squandering staggering levels of defense appropriations on aircraft, ships, and futuristic weapons systems that fascinate generals and admirals, and are beloved by military contractors mainly because their complexity runs up their cost to astronomical levels.”
“That most of these will actually prove irrelevant to the world in which we live matters not a whit to their makers or purchasers. Thought of another way, the stressed out American taxpayer, already supporting two disastrous wars and the weapons systems that go with them, is also paying good money for weapons that are meant for fantasy wars, for wars that will only be fought in the battlescapes and war-gaming imaginations of Defense Department “planners.”
“The Air Force and the Army are still planning as if, in the reasonably near future, they were going to fight an old-fashioned war of attrition against the Soviet Union, which disappeared in 1991; while the Navy, with its eleven large aircraft-carrier battle groups, is, as William S. Lind has written, “still structured to fight the Imperial Japanese Navy.” Lind, a prominent theorist of so-called fourth-generation warfare (insurgencies carried out by groups such as al-Qaeda), argues that “the Navy’s aircraft-carrier battle groups have cruised on mindlessly for more than half a century, waiting for those Japanese carriers to turn up. They are still cruising today, into, if not beyond, irrelevance… Submarines are today’s and tomorrow’s capital ships; the ships that most directly determine control of blue waters.” Chalmers Johnson
J_ag:
The US also has the capacity to change its strategy when it suits its national interest.
For example, a lot of the proposals in the white paper below are already being implemented:
U.S. Military Strategy and Force Posture for the 21st Century
The collapse of the Soviet Union forced the United States to redesign its military strategy for the first time in decades. It responded by developing the so-called Regional Strategy. The Regional Strategy has as its hallmarks a commitment to continuing alliances, maintenance of a forward presence, and a focus on regional rather than global conflicts. It posits a need to fight two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies (MRCs) and designs a Base Force to provide that capability. The process of designing a military strategy is particularly difficult today because of the enormous international and domestic changes under way.
Needed in these turbulent times is a reinvigoration of the strategy analysis process that served the United States so well at the beginning of the Cold War. In his book U.S. Military Strategy and Force Posture for the 21st Century: Capabilities and Requirements, Richard L. Kugler proposes a new approach to a military strategy for the nation. Kugler argues that the Regional Strategy, even if modified to reflect the priorities of the current administration, can endure only if the international situation remains substantially unchanged. Five ongoing revolutionary transformations make such stability unlikely. They are
* changes in the nation-state system
* the shift from bipolarity to multipolarity
* ideological change such as the triumph of democracy over communism and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and ethno- nationalism
* worldwide economic upheaval
* spreading modern military technology.
A New Strategy Needed
It is not certain that these revolutions will inevitably result in international turmoil, but neither is it clear that they will not. In light of this uncertainty, the United States should not commit to a military strategy that assumes a stable international system for the next two decades. Needed is a new concept with a broader set of objectives than that of the Regional Strategy. Such a concept ties U.S. military strategy both to the international security system and to the domestic agenda. Its core objectives are to deter regional threats, to discourage attempts at global hegemony, and to prevent multipolar rivalries. Concurrently, the concept calls for the United States to assist in developing a cooperative and healthy world economy. This strategy works to produce a safe, stable world that, in turn, protects U.S. interests, fosters a prosperous U.S. economy, and results in an adequate but affordable defense budget.
The new strategy resembles the Regional Strategy in that it accepts the need to be able to deal with two roughly concurrent MRCs and a force the approximate size of the Base Force. But it proposes different strategic foundations. Casting aside the focus on deterrence and containment, it seeks a new set of regional security mechanisms that balance military power, promote a sense of community, and discourage aggression and competitive multipolar rivalries. Nuclear forces will decline in importance as conventional forces assume larger roles in U.S. military strategy. But these forces will have to be capable of a wide range of missions, both combat and noncombat.
Different Strategies for Different Worlds
The five revolutions under way could play out in very different ways, ranging from far better than today to far worse in terms of global stability. Thus, defense planners need to think of the different strategies that might be pursued under the alternative circumstances. The different worlds will impose a range of military requirements, and it is important to understand how choices made today will affect the United States’ ability to respond to the future. The figure depicts the range of future worlds and the level of military requirements as a percentage of today’s Base Force.
The most optimistic case, a world of global harmony, would offer tranquil relations among major powers and little risk of regional conflicts. The U.S. military strategy would aim at preserving harmony and dealing with the limited conflicts that remain. In this climate, concurrent MRCs would be unlikely and the U.S. force posture could be 20-35 percent smaller than the Base Force. On the other end of the spectrum, an unstable multipolar world would include tense relations with Russia and China and a collapse of today’s system of alliances. Thus, NATO has disintegrated and U.S. relations with a nuclear-armed Japan have degenerated to strategic confrontation. The U.S. military strategy would focus on maintaining balance among Russia, China, the European Union, and Japan. Force requirements would include the full range of nuclear deterrents and a large expeditionary force capable of waging major wars in Europe and Asia.
Mission-Based Capability Analysis
Determining the force levels for this range of contingencies is difficult. The traditional approach of threat-based contingency analysis has lost its usefulness because postulated threats lack credibility, and the planning factors that underpin it have not kept pace with the changes in military technology and doctrine. Recognition of the shortcomings of contingency analysis has led some to propose a resource-based capability analysis, which focuses on the desired capabilities of a force rather than a specific threat. Although useful in many regards, this methodology also falls short of answering questions about total force size because it fails to define requirements clearly.
Instead, the author argues for a mission-based capability analysis that bridges the gap between the other two methodologies. It measures adequacy in terms of capabilities, not domination of specific threats. And it looks to capabilities in terms of outputs, not resource inputs. The methodology assumes that the nature of future wars is uncertain and therefore focuses on the kinds of strategic wartime missions U.S. forces should be capable of performing. The strategic premise of this methodology is that the United States can defend its interests if it can deploy sufficient forces to two MRCs and retain a pool of uncommitted forces for other purposes. The methodology postulates that U.S. forces must be simultaneously capable of five different strategic missions:
* Rapid deployment of a joint U.S. field army capable of overwhelming force in one MRC
* Prompt deployment of a second force, largely composed of active units, capable of defensive operations in a second MRC
* Maintenance of a small strategic reserve composed of active and reserve units
* Maintenance of a rotation base of reserve forces
* Maintenance of reinforcements, provided by the reserves, that could enlarge either or both MRCs should requirements expand.
These missions impose a range of military needs. If requirements are high across all five missions, the Base Force would not satisfy them but would suffice in most situations. Because the Base Force contains a margin of safety, it could sustain reductions in the range of 10-15 percent and still be adequate. Deeper reductions would compel decisions about priorities among the multiple missions.
And then there are the policy recommendations such as provided in the Global Beat’s GRN Publications:
One thing about the US, it has great capacity to change its world view when its national interest so requires. More interesting is the process by which such change is achieved – it begins with sober building of consensus and checking the facts, discussing the merits, identifying the best option, commits the breadth of its resources.
Hindi ocho ocho.
Land of the Free Home of the Stupid….Geez I thought that there was only one delusional bO….
http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/12/land_of_the_free_home_of_the_stupid?page=1
Mr J_ag, I hope you’re not under some kind of impression that the term “atom smasher” refers to some kind of military weapon. It is not. It is just another term for a particle accelerator (kind of like the Large Hadron Collider) which is used for peaceful civilian research purposes. :-D
Once again the delusional one answers. The U.S. did not go through with their particle collider due to the cost. Hence they joined up with other countries to find the God particle so to speak.
Historical and environmental determinism and genetics…from LKY
Why the Mongoloid Sinic race of East Asia is a superior race similar to the Northern Hemisphere Aryans in Europe.
“Groups of people develop different characteristics when they have evolved for thousands of years separately. Genetics and history interact. The Native American Indian is genetically of the same stock as the Mongoloids of East Asia — the Chinese, the Koreans and the Japanese. But one group got cut off after the Bering Straits melted away. Without that land bridge they were totally isolated in America for thousands of years. The other, in East Asia, met successive invading forces from Central Asia and interacted with waves of people moving back and forth. The two groups may share certain characteristics, for instance if you measure the shape of their skulls and so on, but if you start testing them you find that they are different, most particularly in their neurological development, and their cultural values.” LKY
http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/other/culture.html
http://positions.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/4/3/519
Can’t humans simply increase the supply of resources as they have done before? “We can change the supply of some things if there is only one limiting resource. If it is food, then we can have a green revolution and produce more crops,” he says. “Unfortunately, we need lots of resources. We need food, we need water. We are already using something like 70 or 80 per cent of the world’s fresh water. So you say, ‘Alright, we’ll get around water by desalinating sea water.’ But then there’s the energy ceiling, and so on.”
“With a nod to the feast before us, I say there seems little chance that Chinese or Indians will forgo the opportunity to live a western-style existence. Why should they? It is even more improbable that westerners will give up their resource-hungry lifestyles. Diamond, for example, is not a vegetarian, though he knows a vegetable diet is less hard on the planet. “I’m inconsistent,” he shrugs. But if we can’t supply more or consume less, doesn’t that mean that, like the Easter Islander who chopped down the last tree, thus condemning his civilisation to extinction, we are doomed to drain our oceans of fish and empty our soil of nutrients?”
“No. It is our choice,” he replies, perhaps subconsciously answering his critics again. “If we continue to operate non-sustainably, then in 50 or 60 years, the US and Japan and Europe will be in bad shape. But my friends in the highlands of New Guinea will be fine. Some of my friends made stone tools when they were children and they could just go back to what their ancestors were doing for 46,000 years. New Guinea highlanders are not doomed,” he says, draining his pomegranate juice. “The first world lifestyle will be doomed if we don’t learn to operate sustainably.”
Jared Diamond
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/144fa854-82e2-11de-ab4a-00144feabdc0.html
“The right lesson from Lehman should be that the global financial system needs major changes in regulation and governance. The current safety net approach may work in the short term but will ultimately lead to ballooning and unsustainable government debts, particularly in the US and Europe.”
“Asia may be willing to sponsor the west for now, but not in perpetuity. Eventually Asia will find alternatives in part by deepening its own debt markets. Within a few years, western governments will have to sharply raise taxes, inflate, partially default, or some combination of all three. As painful as it may seem, it would be far better to start bringing fundamentals in line now. Restoring confidence has been helpful and important. But ultimately we need a system of global financial regulation and governance that merits our faith.” Rogoff
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rogoff59
Try the other idea: because we are among the most naturally-endowed countries, we are among the world’s most impoverished!
It’s like this: you live in a land where you could sit all day, sleep all day and yet still could feast on plenty for the land is oh so very bountiful. Like a piece of inheritance to a spoiled brat, it doesn’t make him; it’s his curse.
Then maybe ask, who the heck controls that bounty?
straight from the horses mouth – “2. if it’s a genuine meritocracy and or open economy it also spells extinction for many not just in the upper but also middle classes who can’t/won’t compete”
I think many young people today are misled to believe (1) that Filipino culture as it exists today cannot be improved upon, (2) that to be critical of it is to undervalue it, (3) that to claim personal pride in one’s heritage means the utter embrace of its entirety to a fault. This fasionably ubiquitous but rather misplaced Proudly Pinoy thinking is amazingly limited to the things that either don’t matter, or don’t affect the status quo.
What a few Filipino youth of decades ago have heard, and what some of today’s youth still hear:
Soft-version : “… anak, huwag ka nang mangarap. Iyan ang
guhit ng buhay natin, hanggang dito lang tayo talaga.”
Hard-version : ” Hah, nag-a-ambisyoso ka? Anong akala mo, mas magaling ka sa amin?”
Okay-version 1: … silence…. or a slight improved “..nako, hindi ko alam iyan. Ingat, hah?”
Okay-version 2: “… hindi ko alam iyan. Maghanap ka ng marunong diyan at humingi ka ng payo.“
Le me add a fourth item to what you listed Filo: (4) If you try to improve or change anything, you are un-Filipino. I think we just have to grit our teeth and go on improving despite all those finger-waggers calling us un-Filipino or traitors. That’s a risk everyone trying to be good runs – the risk of being accused of actually doing evil. Doing the right thing needs balls… hefty balls if you ask me (pun not intended, hehe).
Hear hear Chino F! Exactamundo.
I THINK, THEREFORE I AM. We become what we think. If we think ourselves as minority. Then, we become minority. If we think ourselves as member of the human race. Endowed with talents; intelligence; ability to succeed, etc…then we become a one.
There are also intelectually stimulating Filipinos. Just come to
the Filipino Voices Blogsite. There are intellectuals. There are
paid hacks who think everybody are dumb as they are. There are
ignoramuses…a lot of personalities. Venting different viewpoints and agendas.
To conclude; we hope that the next generation: the Information
Technology Generation of Filipinos. Will be better than my generation. They are well informed and exposed to the world. They
will be harder to deceive by self serving politicians.
‘this was an observation i mentioned elsewhere -about the relative absence of filipinos in top jobs in companies overseas; we fill the middle echelons but seem content with that.’
This is usually true for first generation Filipinos in the USA but not for the second generation. It’s hard for the first generation to go up the corporate ladder and take more responsibilities while raising kids in an environment alien to them and at the same time subsidizing those who were left in the Philippines.
i agree. filipinos generally are not risk-takers. most plod along in their job, with the same employer, with two things in mind, i.e., job security and certainty (paseguro). promotions or wage increases are mostly secondary. their mantra is “loyalty”, convinced that they will be rewarded for it and assured of keeping their job no matter what. thus, many work devotedly for years until replaced by a younger worker, or retired with a token pension and a watch.
You would count yourself a risk-taker no Manong Bencard? When you upped and left the Philippines, did you not risk everything?
I think Filipinos are risk-takers. How else can you explain those who are willing to work in war-zones? Those who mortgage everything to find placement overseas? Heck, living in Manila is a risk everyday.
I will concede however that as a collective we cannot engineer huge risks. But as individuals, we are armed with the ‘bahala na’ or fatalistic attitude when jumping blind into the unknown.
sparks: I think both Bencard and MLQ3 are referring to risk-taking as burned-into-the-DNA. After having done two or three big-risk moves like leaving-Pinas, clawing to one job, moving to another, and another… does the now still-only-40-years-old or younger citizen take additional risks (to get to senior-VP-and-above (MLQ3′s scenario) or to try entrepreneurship after age 30), or does the citizen hunker down in order to protect what has been achieved?
.. or to enter Pinas politics (cvj’s current theme)
Risk-mitigation (guaranteed salary even 5 years after becoming getting booted out after becoming mayor or congressman) is an underlying theme of cvj’s current proposal
http://filipinovoices.com/giving-our-elected-officials-a-chance-to-be-honest
So to quality as a risk-taker, you have to have to make more than 3 risky moves in your lifetime? Talk about moving the goalpost.
The same commentary is used against the Lucio Tans, the Gokongweis and the Ayalas. “Hunkering down
to protect what they havestaying within their area of competence …” of banks, malls, office buildings or beer — not good enough and these entities are measured for what they have not accomplished (e.g. assembly-line factories manufacvturing plasma TV or ruggedized routers or servers, etcetera).That may be a key — “risk-taker” is “..in the eye of the beholder”. This explains why “risk-taker” is not in the World Bank or ADB reports replete with measurable metrics like tons-production, GDP, population, miles-coastline, miles-highway, etcetera.
I think it depends on what kind of risk-taking you’re talking about.
1. Risking one’s head and reputation by holdupping someone for their cell phones;
2. Risking one’s complacent life by going abroad and gunning through the racism and hardship for a better life (I am being continually urged to do this, BTW);
3. Risking one’s relative security of job by leaving a company and starting one’s own business based on a really new idea;
And more.
Risking something for the right purpose… that’s the challenge.
The observation is incomplete because it does not account for the 1st generation of Filipinos who are entrepreneurs. they are not content with being middle managers. however, instead of staying and gunning for the top post – having picked up the requisite skills and experience, they set out to form their own firms and consultancies.
It is not uncommon to meet former middle management Fil-ams who have pursued entrepreneurship – to become their own CEOs and become job providers instead of becoming job seekers.
If you haven’t come across one – join the Philippine American Chambers of Commerce in your area – you will be surprised at multitude of the silent CEOs and silent millionaires who belong to the top 20% of American taxpayers.
Racial discrimination is real not only in the U.S., but in foreign
countries. Try to build your own business, if you have the talent.
Break that Glass Ceiling mindset that you have.
In any corporation.There are Glass Ceilings. You cannot rise above them, if the color of your skin are not the right color.
There are less year-2010 glass ceilings than there are year-1970-glass ceilings because a handful of people did not accept the sentence that “….the celing : you cannot rise above them.”
One wishes for children who decide on their own about “Hanggang dito na lang tayo, anak”.
“Sobra ka atang ambisyoso, anak. Eh, hindi ba malakas ang kalaban?”
At this point, it must be valid to ask – where will all these rhetorics lead us?
Benigz hello, we’ve been ransacked by Spain, corrupted by the Americans, brutalized by the Japs, vandalized by Marcos and now being currently ransacked, corrupted, brutalized and vandalized by Gloria Arroyo.
What makes you think we can be a great nation?
We can be a great nation if we *think* great. That’s the point of Benigz’ post. Think, not feel… or put feelings in their proper place. Unfortunately, intellectuality is low on the common Filipino culture’s list of good values, so we run the risk of continually being an ungreat nation.
Both attitudes of superiority and inferiority are signs of immaturity. The better combination is an attitude of humility and self-confidence.
But of course, the Pinoys are intellecttually fatuous; what with all those indoctrination we get from the Catholic talibans and other religious crazies. Compound that with the government’s default and abdication on its role in educating its people, hardly surprising.
Are Filipinos as a race genetically predisposed to be imbecile? Don’t think so.
The system, in the hands of our irresponsible ruling class, wants the masses to remain dumb.
The solution is not as simple as flicking a finger and willing the 80 million souls to turn from idiots to non-idiots overnight as suggested by our delusional simpleton friend Benigno.
Just remember to not to equate assertiveness, high self esteem, independent and critical thinking with “feeling superior” – that’s sooo… immature.
@tranquil:
Nobody on this thread has any illusion that changes will occur overnight. Your attitude on the other hand assures us that positive change won’t start with you.
Oh reeealllly???
Filo,
I think positive change starts with a hard-nosed look at the realities. Seems to me that tranquil, though not so tranquil today, hits some important points. I think one of the biggest barriers to positive change is Filipino defensiveness that always retreats to defending the status quo.
Joe
I realize I wasn’t my usual tranquil self either. Sorry guys, tranquil.
everybody else is to blame except you and the rest of you, right? have you heard how the jews had been “ransacked, corrupted, brutalized and vandalized” and almost annihilated and wiped-out from the face of the earth? they have built a great country out of a god-forsaken, barren territory, and not a gang of nations drooling to blow them off into extinction has, so far defeated them.
stop all these idiotic excuses, cop-outs and blame game. lets own up to our faults and do something positive about it, for a change.
In which case Manoy Benhur, I am ever grateful for Gloria Arroyo, your soon-to-be-client, for ranscaking, corrupting, brutalizing, and vandalizing the country and its people. We just might find our Jerusalem then.
I nominate Gloria for sainthood.
Heil Hitler..
Heil Gloria..
i said you and the likes of you are the root cause of your your own miseries, not “gloria” or anybody else. let’s all REFORM ourselves and make our nation great. it all starts with YOU!
Bencard are you in any way related to Spongebob and Squidworth? There are holes aplenty in your argument.
you tried that before and it didn’t work. now you’re at it again. i can make the worst comparison for you but i’ll hold my tongue this time. it doesn’t add anything whatsoever to the discussion. that’s a good thing to start. GROW UP!
what is wrong with Tordesillas’ blog? can you give an example of this incoherence?
Ellen Tordisillias blog? Many times, it’s a handy source of breaking news. Only that there seems to be too much negativity in the blog’s discourse such that some non-regular visitors of that forum end up wanting to become rebels. :-)
if anyone thinks there’s nothing wrong with “ellenvile”, he should have his head examined preparatory to a lobotomy.
ouch! i can’t say whether there something wrong with it, not being a reader. i was asking coz B0 (and now you) seem to have such strong opinions about it.
to gabbyD: Go check out “ellenville”. EllenT’s presentation of some “stuff” can be quite interesting to behold.
And much more fun to observe is the banter among the Ellen regulars.
Generally the genetic makeup of the majority of the Philippine population is still not wired for nation building. Emphasis on the word still.
The mendicant, dependent culture still abounds. Foreign businessman who do business locally always tend to hire as their top honchos, the “hybrids.” A former Chinese finance minister was said to have declared once that it would be difficult and take a while to erase the feudal culture in China which was ingrained over thousands of years. Their ability to modernize quickly was more a feat of simply copying what was already available that enabled the large migration of rural labor to industrial labor.
The collective group think (command society) has been long ingrained in the Chinese psyche.
Meanwhile the Philippines economic policy planners have decided due to their own ideological blinders that a capital import dependent economy is their take on what free trade and free markets are all about. It is easier that way and they can get positions with these foreign groups. Since that precludes any effort to manufacture the productive capacities domestically since the incentive structure is biased against domestic saving generation. It makes real estate and business around that sector the only game in town.
http://www.project-syndicate.org/print_commentary/rodrik31/English
“Not necesarily. Growth in the developing world tends to come in three distinct variants. First comes growth driven by foreign borrowing. Second is growth as a by-product of commodity booms. Third is growth led by economic restructuring and diversification into new products.”
“The first two models are at greater risk than the third. But we should not lose sleep over them, because they are flawed and ultimately unsustainable. What should be of greater concern is the potential plight of countries in the last group. These countries will need to undertake major changes in their policies to adjust to today’s new realities.”
“The first two growth models invariably come to a bad end. Foreign borrowing can enable consumers and governments to live beyond their means for a while, but reliance on foreign capital is an unwise strategy. The problem is not only that foreign capital flows can easily reverse direction, but also that they produce the wrong kind of growth, based on overvalued currencies and investments in non-traded goods and services, such as housing and construction.” Dani Rodrik
http://www.project-syndicate.org/print_commentary/rodrik31/English
Oh please don’t bring in genetics into the picture as it muddles your otherwise sound comment. Genetically, we’re most closely related to the Southern Chinese (and the Taiwanese aborigines).
“Genetically, we’re most closely related to the Southern Chinese (and the Taiwanese aborigines).” A most definitive assumption masquerading as fact.
It is historically accurate to state that the Southern philippines were the centers of organized communities that were eons ahead of the small tribal communities in the Northern Philippines.
There is no doubt that the people of Batanes are closely related to the tribes in Taiwan. However the evolutionary developmentary process of the natives in the South and the Northern part of the country are obviously different.
Migration of peoples always results in the transfer of technologies. However there was huge gap in the technological capacities of the both groups of people.
Prior to the arrival of the Europeans the natives of the North used to trade resource based products (with crude value added) for pottery and iron pots.
One can trace the evolutionary development of peoples though their application of stone tools and/or iron tools and fire.
The original hominids came from Africa and the struggle for survival forced them to seek greener pastures. They were migratory tribal families.
The physical features of the humans who survived in the cold reaches of the North were shaped by the environment. Similarly go visit the Philippine countryside and observe the physical differences of the extremities between a city based human and the rice farmer.
You can tell who works the land by the difference. The human brain is the physical apparatus that creates thought but it is thoughts that create. Which is the cause and the effect? Humans created the artificial constructs of time. In certain parts of the globe there remain to be humans who have no clue of modern timekeeping.
What makes you the superior human simply because you were forced by circumstance to manage time.
There has always been a debate in economics on the issue of supply side management versus demand side management.
But what of the peoples who have not reached that point yet of the exchange economy?
The link i provided has further links to the results of the studies that have been made to establish this fact.
Benigno,
Sometime ago, not God but a fellow here revealed a possible solution/idea that does not entail livelihoods that a Government create nor capital that foreigners provide.
Your reaction comprised of “with my shareholder hat on I’d say this: So what?”, etc….
http://filipinovoices.com/the-poignancy-of-filipino-aspirations/comment-page-1#comment-76300
Btw, I addressed a post to you in your “Noynoy Aquino riding on the symbol” thread.
http://filipinovoices.com/noynoy-aquino-riding-on-the-symbol/comment-page-1#comment-84320
Somehow it got sent to the middle of the posts like a previous one so you might not have noticed it. This is just to give you a heads up in case you want to respond.
cvj– you have to detrmine first in the Philippine context who “we” are..
The Javanese built temples in Java honoring the Gautamma. That would mean that they already had an artisan class who could cut and shape stone. That would mean they had hand tools..
Point to any engineering remnant in the Philippines apart from the reshaping of mountains for terraces in the Philippines. Even before Christ the Chinese had a degree of engineering and were building structures that exist till today. The great wall at first were protection from the Turkish Huns.
Our native ship builders were predomiantly from the South. The balangay. Taken together with the Indonesian and the Philippine archipelago which by the way starts close to the tip of India and Sri Lanka all the way to the Fiji islands comprise the largest group of islands in the world. The people of these isalnds primarily live off the sea and are natural sailors who use no instruments to navigate the seas. The wind, waves, sun and stars are their guide.
You introduced yourself as an IT maven.. Which part of IT… hardware or software? I have a friend who maintains the software of the Apache attack helicopter in Iraq. I asked him which part of the operations of the attack helicopter and he mentioned all the mission critical systems. His expertise is entirely in all kinds of software engineering and programming related to machinery and weapons systems.
However when we asked about software for business processes he begged off saying that he was a mechanical engineer and did not know business processes. He was being paid well for his services and had no intention to switch. In modern warfare engineering is the difference.
This is fascinating stuff, the origins of Filipinos north and south. I wonder as to the direction forward.
You IT people recognize the rapidity of tech developments. My Osborne computer in 1980 had a memory of 64k. Why is it that Filipinos are still the same as in 1980, in terms of what I would call organizing their own development?
The goal should be to discard the past and evolve forward as a society at the pace of technology. Screw the history. It is useless.
Joe
a people without a past.. is a people without a future
it took america over 100 years to produce the first passenger car, telephone, airplane, radio, tv, movie camera, let alone computers, cell phones, dps, bluetooth, i-pod, video and audio tapes, etc., etc. it took the whole world many milleniums to produce all that. the philippines is a nation for only 63 years. why are you so impatient about its development? come back after 37 years and then make your comparison.
you cannot ignore history, man. throwing a lighted cigarette on a gas leak after doing the same a week before and surviving the resulting conflagration, is dim-witted and downright suicidal.
i should say many MILLENNIA.
BongV,
True, but a people tied to the past are a people bound.
Bencard,
I won’t have to come back in 37 years. I’ll either be living here or more likely be buried here. In living here, I face the practicalities of the poverty . . . the crime, the lack of hope, the nonsense. I don’t want things to change TOO much. Just a robust economy so people have jobs, hope and real pride. Good education. Health for the kids. And stop the nonsense that emerges from government everywhere you turn.
As I have said, I think you travel in a different social circle from most.
Joe
joe:
tied to the past.. and without a past – are apples and oranges
you, joe, stop the government? HOW DO YOU?
if all you can do is criticizing it, you should have not left america. there is so much here to criticize about, e.g., 1 of 8 americans is struggling with hunger and so, with 2.5 million population that’s an awful lot of people. at least here, you have a REAL voice – the ballot, which you don’t have there.
sorry, i meant to say 250 (not 2.5) million population.
BongV,
Let’s go to a specific subject. Regarding history, I have enjoyed learning of the Moros from your comments, and I know their history is important to legitimize their claim to land and to illustrate the punitive treatment they received. The dilemma I see is that it is impossible to unwind history to take things back to a pure state. That is the root of my question, what do you do about the Catholics and others who hold to different beliefs who have moved into the “stolen” land?
My house(s) in the US were burglarized five times, over the years. I lost some very valuable and irreplaceable items. Now, one’s homeland is not the same as a gold pocket watch given to one by ones loving spouse, but the principle is the same. You can’t get back to the original state. Even buying a replacement watch doesn’t quite cut it, sentiment-wise.
The only way forward is forward. It is, I suppose, feasible to separate Mindanao from the Philippines. But the chance is zilch negative that that will happen, other than by extreme violence. And with separation, you cast innocents to unkindly fates, just as the Moros were cast to unkindly fates. Two wrongs . . .
I think it is better to argue from reason than history, about how to solve the problems.
It seems to me the most constructive way forward is for the national government to recognize that remedial steps are required to do what can be done within the context of existing law, or new laws under a sound constitution, to rectify past wrongs, to the extent they can be rectified. Rather like “affirmative action” in the US did. Mostly, I think investment in building legitimate commercial underpinnings is needed, and that the peoples of Mindanao have to appreciate that a wholesome future is best gained by unifying politically and by stopping the destructive violence that turns the rest of the Philippines against them.
I personally don’t believe in separate laws for separate lands within the same nation. The US Indian reservations were an unqualified disaster. Separate law undermines national unity and the secularism that permits people of different faiths to live in harmony.
If the conflict continues to seek to go back in time, no solution can be found. Only going forward is there a solution.
And, yes, I know the Philippine government has zero credibility with you and with many others. And that is a legitimate foundation for separatism if it continues.
But, anyway, that’s where I’m coming from on this.
Joe
These were the Moros – the same people whose heritage some mofos present as Filipino while grabbing the lands of said people, and getting into delusions of a Sri Lankan solution.. to a Palestine-esque scenario – and behaving like China in Tibet. Sooo… dysfunctional :)
“We” as in the present inhabitants of these islands. Genetics has nothing to do with the achievements of the Javanese or the Chinese, many of whom would belong to the same DNA Haplogroup anyway. Genetics operates on the scale of tens of thousands of years and studies show that more than a third of the Filipinos share a recent (in genetic terms) common male ancestor with the bulk of the Chinese people (Y-DNA Haplogroup M122) and another third shares a common male ancestor with the Taiwanese natives specifically the Ami people (Y-DNA Haplogroup M119). All i would like to point out, is that if you’re looking for differences, it’s not in the genes. You can carry on with the rest of your analysis without dragging genetics into the picture.
There are no structures in the Philippines in part because, for most of its history, until recently (as in two hundred years ago) there were so few inhabitants in these islands.
cjv,
Yes. Which means that the main distinction between nations these days is culture and education, and culture is just well-ingrained education. The advanced cultures are shucking aside the non-beneficial cultural bindings.
Joe