Our place in the hierarchy of human excellence

I do myself an immeasurable honour in echoing a bit of the sentiment of the eminent Dean Jorge Bocobo when he cites President Arroyo’s “support” of terrorism in his recent blog article We Are All Hostages, Again.

As he re-iterates his rightful place in Philippine society with all the pomp and bearing befitting his status as expert in all things political and lawyerly in a follow-through comment…

[President Arroyo's] record speaks for itself and does not need me to explain it…only to point it out. I am not a Judge, but I like to think that thinking straight is my birthright and duty, as a member of the Jury.

…before coming to the point he wanted to make:

Terrorism is a terrible thing. But [Arroyo] IS the President, not an FV Blogger. It all comes with the territory.

She has portrayed herself as a fighter of terrorism. But it seems she has done nothing but aid it with her self-preserving hypocrisy.

On top of that are her corruptions, her destruction of the Constitutional order in 2001, her violations of human rights, and an insuperable vanity.

[President Arroyo] is headed for perdition. And rightly so.
[my boldface]

Indeed, spoken like a true Filipino, Dean.

Basta ako hindi ganun.

While I agree with Dean’s attack on Arroyo’s flaccid approach to dealing with terrorism, I will have to beg to differ on an aspect of this attack — an aspect that may be a bit too subtle for the average Filipino mind to grasp. This aspect has to do with a brilliantly simple principle I have often espoused:

The quality of our leaders merely reflects our character as a people.

Interestingly enough, His Eminence cites a specific blight in the already laughable comedy-of-errors known as Philippine History…

The high points of GMA’s career of sponsoring and aiding terrorists through the payment of bribes continued through the Angelo de la Cruz affair in Iraq during which she memorably repositioned the Philippine Humanitarian Forces into a humvee and high-tailed it back to Pampanga after paying a fabulous $2 million ransom [...]

…which provides a convenient segue into a piece I wrote on the subject back in 2004 which expounds on the subtle point I introduced earlier.

If I may…

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The Lack of Substance of Filipino Society

by benign0
GetRealPhilippines.com
03 August 2004

All form, no substance. That’s the Filipino.

The latest manifestation of the Pinoy character — the ahead-of-schedule troop pull-out from Iraq in July, 2004 — has left many — and even some Filipinos — scratching their heads. The implications of this action will ripple far and wide for a long time. It is a triumph of evil over the basic principle of non-negotiation with kidnappers. The act may have saved one life. But it put thousands more at risk as practicioners of terrorism are further emboldened

When a country joins an alliance for purposes of war, it doesn’t just pull-out in the heat of battle.

If one is not prepared to shed blood, one must not join a battle.

Whether the Iraq War was a worthwhile undertaking or not is not the issue here. The issue is the reason (or rather lack of any deep reason) behind the participation of the Philippines in this war in the first place. Unlike the withdrawal of Spain, which was executed by a different Administration, only one Administration had overseen both our enlistment into the Iraq War and our disgraceful exit from it. Understanding the true motives behind both the glib “yes we’re in” and the disgraceful “we’re outta here!” calls of the Philippine Government, is an exercise that will ultimately lead to only one thing — political agendas. There is no deeper spirit to anything the Pinoy does whether it be going to Church or going to War other than partisan politics — the art of grandstanding, one-upmanship, and intrigue.

The Philippines did not pull out of Iraq because there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction to be found. And it certainly did not pull out because it felt that its fundamental principles were being violated (there aren’t any to be violated in the first place). It pulled out because its Government wanted to shore up its popularity and present itself as a compassionate “partner of the people”. Good press and political survival, that’s what drives Government — a government that mirrors its constituents — a people who go to Church to exhibit form rather than experience the substance. A people who adorn the skin of its national symbol — the jeepney — while allowing engineering mediocrity to persist underneath it for 50 years. A people who are quick to slap the label of “Hero” on what is nothing more than a victim.

Take a look at what we have sacrificed as a people on the altar of political grandstanding:

(1) The nurturing of Filipinos’ victim mentality

What is not mentioned is the nature of the presence of thousands of people like Angelo de la Cruz in even the harshest of environments — working menial jobs, pumping foreign currency into the consumer economy, and leaving their children — an entire lost generation — to come of age parentless. That a Government would come to the rescue of a man who is fleeing the failure of his Government and people to build a prosperous nation — yes, OFWs are refugees from Filipino incompetence — and then lionise him as a hero is the height of hypocrisy. There are thousands, no, millions of Filipinos whose suffering and shameful poverty the nation routinely tolerates with banal efficiency (the only thing Filipinos are efficient at). Yet the Government chooses to focus on one man — and put at risk the interests of the larger Filipino people. More disturbing still, we have once again we have outdone ourselves in the World League of Injustice. Alvin Capino writes in an abs-cbnnews.com article:

though, the OFWs who have been killed and wounded in previous bombings and shootouts in Iraq should be getting the same treatment from the government as de la Cruz, who, from what we heard, got a house and lot, scholarships for his children, and was feted to a fiesta, where public funds amounting to P300,000 were spent. None of the other OFW heroes who were killed and wounded in Iraq and many other places have been treated this way by the government.

Heroes are men and women who act with conviction. What we have now is a perversion of the concept of “hero” — Pinoy style! The very people that symbolise everything that is wrong with the Philippines are now deserving of our medal of honour. Men who have eight children, who suddenly discover they are unable to feed them, and then work overseas to the detriment of the upbringing of an entire generation of Filipinos. They are now our heroes.

(2) The international standing of Filipinos

A nation that makes whining about colonial mentality and racism a national hobby ironically seems to lack the cojones to earn the respect of the global community. According to this Time report:

Arroyo has been flaunting her decision to grant the kidnappers’ demands and bring home the soldiers as a badge of honor. She crowed about De la Cruz’s homecoming in her annual State of the Nation address, saying that Philippine lives are “held more dearly than international acclaim.”

“Philippine lives are ‘held more dearly than international acclaim’”. Really now. That’s a lot of words from the leader of a nation that tolerates having a sizeable number of its citizens eat and live off garbage dumps. The prospects for global acceptance are indeed dismal for a people who crave respect but do not have the collective spirit to resolve to earn it. This is disturbing considering that the Filipino’s characteristically debilitating colonial mentality predisposes him to hold anything foreign in high regard. Certainly global praises are standards par excellence.

(3) Unrealistic expectation of Government’s duty to OFW’s

The Australian newspaper The Age reported in this on-line article:

The question is, what happens the next time a Filipino worker is in trouble overseas? On Thursday, Mr de la Cruz said he expected the Government would extend the same helping hand.

However, Dr Arroyo sounded a note of caution: “The circumstances may not (always) allow such a successful outcome.”

OFW’s are becoming another squatter situation. They are sucking up Government resources and attracting political pandering to the detriment of the nation.

This lack of a clear collective direction and conviction in the Filipino people is but a symptom of our collective lack of substance — unlike the solid spheres that more robust societies are represented by, ours can be more likened to a thin-skinned bubble with nothing but air at its core flying off to wherever the wind takes it.
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What have we learned thus far?

Quite simple, really™.

There is no escaping our collective accountability as a people for the pathetic place we currently occupy in the hierarchy of human excellence. While internally amongst ourselves it is quite clear to each one of us who we individually are, what we personally stand for, what cliques we run around with, how our credentials distinguish us from the rest, the way our affiliations seem to absolve us of the state of the collective, to the rest of the world we are quite simply Filipinos. A people who inhabit an island nation named after a Spanish king who just simply can’t get it together.

Whether you are an Angelo de la Cruz, a “Nicole”, a Leah Salonga, a Manny Pacquiao, or, yes a person of eminence such as the venerable Dean, just simply flies over the heads of the rest of the global community. So try as we may to be categorised as n “FV blogger”, a non-jolog, an anti-Arroyo dude, or whatever else we fancy ourselves to be, there will always be the other 89.9 million of our compatriots who will give us a cold splash of reality.

And that is what is real folks.

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