The Olympic medal haul and our no-results track record

Today will see us greeting yet another Philippine Olympic contingent coming home, you guessed it, empty-handed. A country of over 90 million that cannot produce one good president has managed to achieve one thing over the last couple of weeks of Olympics. It continues to strengthen the consistency by which it demonstrates world-class innovation at finding new ways to living up to its no-results track record of achievement.

Yet again we stand out as the sinkhole in a region of achievers. Refer to today’s INQ7.net article on the subject where some regional context is given to our goose-egg Olympic haul. While our gaze progressively turns inward into our cancerous politics, petty domestic conflicts, and pathetic internal commodities starvation, our peers (or, more appropriately, what were once our peers) continue to solidify their links to the global community.

As Ben Kritz so succinctly put it in his brilliant article:

When they fail to meet, or even comprehend, global standards Filipinos prefer to be judged by their own.

Indeed, while our neighbours have stepped up to the plate of international-level competition not only in sports, but in commerce and finance, we have progressively shrunk into our cozy world of pwede na yan and looked to the future guided by our national bahala na philosophy, while clutching our Bible of Achievement — Ang Mga Istandard ng Atsibment ni Lola Basyang.

It’s been twenty five years since Ninoy’s assasination and we are none the wiser about how we capitalise on this martyresque “sacrifice” that we fancy ourselves as being so good at. Yes, “sacrifice” holds such cherished spot in the national psyche that we honour it with its own six-syllable Tagalog word — pagmamalasakit — while that other concept that enjoys a proven track record of delivering results for entire societies — i.e., efficiency — remains a mere headscratcher among Tagalog-speakers. Our parents sacrifice. Our OFW’s sacrifice. Our soldiers sacrifice. Heck, our PEOPLE sacrifice. But the question remains:

Where are the results?

It’s the SIMPLE question that investors ask. In fact it is the only question worth asking. Ironic, isn’t it, considering we are a nation that is so utterly dependent on foreign investment (unable to create any capital worth its salt indigenously despite a well of natural resources to die for – no pun intended) to prop up our consumption-driven economy?

So next time we catch wind of that ridiculous patronising often-asked question: Is the Filipino worth dying for?, step back and re-phrase it as:

What is the Return-on-Investment on an act of “sacrifice” that results in death?

Death is the “ultimate sacrifice” which one would think would result in that elusive ultimate outcome — prosperity and freedom for all. I see the “freedom”. But where is the prosperity? Is it really “sacrifice” that brings home the bacon? Maybe that is just what that bunch of men-in-robes would like us to believe to keep us hooked on a belief system that doesn’t actually pay very good dividends.

Blessed are those who weep and mourn, for one day you shall laugh goes one of my favourite mass songs. Lines like that give you that oh-so-good warm fuzzy feeling that makes your inability to extricate yourself from wretchedness feel like some kind of perverse achievement.

Unfortunately the real world does not live off blessedness, and certainly not off good intentions. It lives off results that create wealth off the back of smart work. When a people have made “sacrifice” into a mantra to describe their way of life, they have effectively baked in failure into the equation it uses to calculate its future fortunes.

So, thank you to the Philippine Olympic Team for doing your best.

Pwede na yan.

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