benign0's blog

There are many artifacts, ideas, and beliefs in our lives that hang on to us with emotional hooks. Often these hooks remain securely fastened to our psyche even as the sense of their continued presence in our lives begins to wane. Recall how you would unhook a clothes hanger from your closet rack. The act of unhooking something requires one to first work against gravity to clear the hook from the object you want to move it away from. Some of us fail or wait an entire lifetime before that small, but perhaps uncomfortable step is taken. Others are lucky enough (or have the presence of mind) to recognise every opportunity to unhook themselves from old baggage as soon as these present themselves.

Oftentimes it is the most mundane of things going on around us -- things we take for granted as business-as-usual that, when regarded from the point of view from a lateral thinker so effectively highlight some the most disturbing aspects of our society. Picture these scenes, for example: - The ubiquity of heavily armed uniformed private security personnel detailed at every other corner shop, bank branch, and entrance to residential enclaves. - Stonewalling automaton-like sales clerks and bank tellers trained in a narrowly-defined transactional scope; police officers fearful of applying the law to what may turn out to be a high-ranking politician or government official. - Homeowners -- from the wealthiest down to even lower-middle-class families -- cloistered in gated communities that require specially issued passes for outsiders to enter. These are but a small subset of a vast landscape of what are mere symptoms of the underlying deeply-entrenched rot in Philippine society.

We'd like to believe that we deserve a society that treats people fairly regardless of how well they speak and write English and regardless of whether they speak it with a regional accent or not. We think, if we continue stomping our feet enough in a loud appeal to nationalist sentiment, that we could one day see a society where people with a fourth-grade level of English language proficiency are as well-regarded as those of us who are privy to the kind of thinking and knowledge that only the English language (as well as the languages of cultures with extensive track records of achievement) can efficiently convey. Unfortunately what we think we deserve is not usually what we actually get.

[ I wrote this article in June of 2009 as the world reeled from the aftershocks of the 2007 to 2008 global financial meltdown. It remains relevant today as we evaluate development paths we need to take as a nation in a world that is undergoing fundamental change in economic order. It is relevant because Filipinos continue to foolishly look to foreign capital and import-driven consumption as a source of its economic salvation. ]

I have often asserted that Filipinos are a people who are primarily driven by hiya (shame). Unmoved by any calls to higher purpose or noble pursuit, Filipinos continue to do the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. As such I remain convinced that any political solution pitched as a "cure" to the malaise that grips the Philippines at the very threads that weave the very fabric of its society (whether it be the latest "messiah" running for office or the current top-down change initiative in vogue) delivers incremental improvements at best.

Development in understanding in recent years is making real limits on growth a lot more palpable since it is becoming quite evident that our approach to measuring economic value and the costs of acquiring said "value" (i.e. our monetary system) is woefully incomplete. Yet economic growth remains the be-all-end-all that pervades every aspect of human aspiration. Corporations scramble over one another to get into the next market to expand into. Shoppers are continually trawling vast malls looking for the next must have . Credit is wantonly extended to grease the entire endeavour.

What do (1) the disastrous ascent to power of Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, (2) the crystallisation of trial-by-media into the backbone of Philippine criminal justice, and (3) an over-reliance on noise-making and stunts to instigate change movements all have in common? Answer: people power . The idea that spectacular and noisy mass movements -- in all their chaotic and unstructured glory -- can result in a deep structural change of the sort that yields enduring value started in the Philippines with the transpiring of the 1986 Edsa "Revolution".

The mission is quite straightforward -- alleviate poverty, invigorate the economy, and make both outcomes sustainable . There is not much in the way of alternatives to consider as far as the mission goes. But as far as actions go, there are many alternatives and many ways of combining these alternatives. Perhaps the one gathering momentum is the way to go. But to remain focused on the mission necessitates continued openness to evaluating alternatives even as we proceed with the popular option. That way the public remains better engaged .

One of the key aspects of the Constitutional Reform agenda revolves around the proposal to open the Philippines to full foreign ownership of business assets and private property. It is a worthwhile option to explore as it has been known for quite some time how inept Filipinos are with creating capital indigenously and at keeping a productive chunk of it within its borders . Nonetheless, there is still a need to remain vigilant as to the nature of the capital we allow Filipinos unfettered access to, specifically: We want capital coming in that expands capacity for sustained gains in productivity and equity creation .

Everytime I walk by the local Flight Centre (an airline ticket booking chain that offers McDonalds-like travel agency services) in the city, I note the posters and fliers displaying sweetened holiday deals to various Southeast Asian cities beckoning Aussies shopping for their next overseas getaway "adventure". You can't help but notice the ridiculously low fares to "exotic" cities like Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and even Phnom Penh - a city just fresh out of the Stone Age. With the Aussie Dollar flying above the rest of the developed world's deppressed currencies, and winter fast approaching in the southern hemisphere, our credit cards are locked and loaded.

The Philippines is a most massive outcome of lots of actions underpinned by very little thinking. So many initiatives, advocacies, "movements", agendas, and vested interests driven by even more characters in a country of 100 million clueless people -- it sounds like a chapter out of John Barrow's seminal book Impossibility . The Philippines is a case study in Impossibility. But it is only so because we barrel down slippery slopes without a lifeline to a basic plot . The vital few is a management concept that we can, perhaps, apply as we face the next six years as a way to keep our bearings even as we slog through the complex of petty politics and the din of chatter in our pursuit of clarity of purpose . Here are what I think the three vital few issues that define Filipinos' aspirations.

American photojournalist Kim Komenich is out looking for the subjects of the iconic photographs he took of the Edsa People Power "Revolution" of 1986. He even won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography for his trouble. Poor guy, though. He has no idea what a big joke Filipino-style street "revolutions" had since become -- a testament to Da Pinoy's renowned talent for perverting otherwise noble endeavors .

What's it going to take for the current administration to stop blaming the previous administration for everything bad that has happened and even the ones that keep happening after former President Gloria Arroyo (GMA) left Malacanang? It has become some sort of a tradition for President Noynoy Aquino (PNoy) and his minions to blame GMA for all the ills in the land.

My colleague Orion had acted on a brilliant idea and posted on AntiPinoy.com an excerpt from Singapore's Elder Statesman, Lee Kuan Yew's (LKY) great book: From Third World to First: The Singapore Story . We take it for granted that material and accounts like these are so readily available for all to learn from but forget (1) how books are prohibitively expensive to most Filipinos and (2) how most Filipinos lack any inclination to read books to begin with. So kudos to Orion for making the next best thing available on line. Check out LKY's revealing insights on the character of Philippine society on AntiPinoy.com .

Politicians are quick to grandstand about their achievements and their "contributions" to the development of our wretched land, the Philippines. Whenever statistics about the economy or survey results describing public sentiment is released, politicians will go on a media blitz to ensure that an association between these and themselves are implanted in the vacuous minds of their constituents. Retrospective narrative about statistics is easy. But it takes real courage and conviction to use statistics as prospective measures of future performance.