Consuelo de bobo

It helps a lot not to be bright in this country. That way one not only survives, he can actually be hopeful about desperate situations, hopeless endeavors and lost causes. There is always light at the end of the tunnel, a silver lining in the darkest of clouds and merciful salvation may yet be gained by the most predatory soul. Everything is simply a matter of time and timing. Even in the worst possible case, happiness is no more than a lifetime away. One has survived and that very fact is an already remarkably promising beginning.

This consolation turns on the idea that one had somehow avoided the worst. Pulse Asia surveys show that many Filipinos suffer persistently worsening lives and yet remain hopeful because they believe that other people had not managed to survive at all, or – having survived – are suffering much more. It is often said that misery loves company, but what is often left unsaid is that the miserable are comforted by the idea that others are in greater misery.

Thus, robbed or raped, the unfortunate victim is immensely thankful for not being killed, like so many others. Suffering deep pay cuts by heartless employers using current economic difficulties as a convenient excuse, most workers are grateful that they still have pittance-paying jobs. Faced by do-nothing public officials, citizens are glad that they at least do not plunder the nation or commit treason in selling the national interest to the highest-bidder among alien groups.

National administrations fortify this tendency to rationalize everything and to be upbeat as regards any situation the country finds itself immured in. Thus, in 1997, Filipinos were supposed to be thankful for being the least hit by the financial and economic crisis because our economy – not being as developed as the others in the region – did not suffer as much. Underdevelopment is a terrific defense against crises that come only with development. One is not bothered much by power failures if one settles for wood-fed stoves, kerosene lamps and transport like the peasant’s carabao-drawn paragos or the city-dweller’s battered bicycle.

Even the current hype of doing much better than other countries needs proper contexting. Otherwise, it becomes the consuelo of those who welcome ignorance as bliss and disdain knowledge of a situation – what Machiavelli beautifully and brutally calls la verita effetuale de la cosa, the effective truth of the matter – as an unnecessary complication. Economies reflecting negative growth rates – even those that are in outright recessionary mode – are not necessarily worseoff than those that can claim to have positively grown. A great deal depends on the base one used in calculating either negative or positive growth. An economy with a GNP or GDP historically growing at five, seven or ten percent for 15 years may show negative growth rates in 2001 and still be much betteroff than another economy largely dormant or erratically performing during the same period but posting a three to four percent GDP growth in the past year.

A well-to-do economy may depreciate to become no more than a relatively well-off economy; a poor economy may appreciate to become much less poor. No one in his right mind however would confuse being less poor with being well-off or wealthy. The Japanese, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Taiwanese and Hongkongites would be hard to convince that their economies are worse off than that of the Filipinos. It must be added quickly that among Filipinos themselves, it would be just as hard to persuade those who are intelligent or knowledgeable that this much-repeated public relations spiel is indeed la verita effetuale de la cosa.

Filipinos must have better consolations in these difficult times than those that assume they are mostly ignorant or – condescendingly granted some degree of intellectual acuity – invariably settling for minimalist expectations, making do with whatever they have at the moment because some thing worse always threatens.

Ignorance is best cured with knowledge and education. Patriotic leaders have to invest in a system of formal and informal education which enables the citizenry to know the cultural, political and economic history of the Philippines as well as that of other countries. (It would be great if parents could initiate their children into their nation’s meaningful history, ang may saysay na kasaysayan ng kanilang bansa, way before their primary grades.) Filipinos also have to understand that what is historically given is amenable to being modified, even radically changed through purposive and active human intervention. The entire nation must be inspired to work more, expect more and settle for nothing less than what befits human being in a decent society.

As Filipinos and their leaders undertake this education and their national development, there will be less and less need for shallow consolations. After all, with greater knowledge and better education, there should be less and less bobos in this country. Who then will be served by a consuelo de bobo?