Why we’re losers III; Not forever, I hope

Since we are at it – why we’re losers – we might as well stretch the subject all the way. More and more critics are now taking dead aim at this columnist, more and more detractors. And that’s just fine. Except that almost all are missing the point. We Filipinos are losers in the only game that really matters – national survival. We are failing and failing miserably to extricate our nation from poverty and corruption. And it’s the kind of poverty that’s our portrait to the world – dire, dreadful, desperate, demonic.

If we needed additional proof the Philippines has hit rock-bottom, the International Herald Tribune Wednesday said it with cymbals. In the sector Business Asia (Bloomberg), William Pesek Jr. writes under the heading: Is the Philippines worth the risk for investor?: "President Gloria Macapagal is losing the war against the two things eating away at the Philippines: corruption and poverty….Investors could be forgiven for wondering if Arroyo is no different than her ineffectual predecessors …That investors are losing faith in Arroyo is a bigger deal than meets the eye…If Arroyo fails, the Philippine economy could be in for a massive capital flight. It may have begun already."

More: "On the corruption front, tax evasion is at the core of the problem. Arroyo’s team has still not figured out how to get many rich individuals and companies to pay taxes. Manila’s bureaucracy and corruption are bogging down the process. Politicians who benefit from the status quo are resisting each change Arroyo tries to exact." William Pesek virtually throws in the sponge when, conceding "GMA’s government is the most able the Philippines has had in generations," concludes "it cannot stabilize the economy". As FVR would probably say in obligatto: Period, period, period.

What Pesek could have added or emphasized but did not was that the Philippines was closing in on the cliff. If the economy can no longer be stabilized, it would crack wide open as more and more capital flees. And as it cracks wide open, 80 million Filipinos will be flung to the wolves as jobs swoon, unemployment increases by leaps and bounds, and social unrest races through the country like hyenas on a stampede.

And as this happens, what will those who disagree with me say?

They will say these, among others: Never mind. The essential is that Filipinos will remain happy. They will continue to pray and they will continue to smile. And they will continue to sing. They are extremely courageous in the face of hunger, more so in the face of death. God knows what he’s doing, and we shall leave everything to God. Who really knows what God’s purpose is. So hunger and perhaps starvation will stalk the land, and crime and violence rear their ugly heads even more? So? And who knows? Miracles might come, as they did at EDSA I and EDSA II.

The more sophisticated among our critics argue we have many blessings. We are creative, we excel in music, in the arts, in many more things that make life interesting and colorful. One or two steps more, and another batch of apologists say it is not the Filipino’s fault that he is behind, far behind his Asian neighbors. They have a history, they have a past, they have a story, some even a cultural tapestry of thousands of years. The Filipino has none. Lapu Lapu?

Our friend Frankie Sionil Jose will sharply disagree with that.

He asks me not to throw in the towel, to wait until he finishes his next novel. He sent over his small tome Our Moral Malaise, Our Heroic Heritage. And in handwriting writ large and bold entreated me, "Never, never forget this!" referring to our heroic heritage. Frankie quoted the Southeast Asian scholar Benedict Anderson who posed the query: "Why should the decadent, violent, backward colonial society of the Spanish Philippines produce a man (Rizal) of these capacities? Latin America didn’t. British Malaya and Burma didn’t. French Indochina didn’t and the American Philippines didn’t."

No, Frankie, I will never throw in the towel. In fact, as a demurrer to those who argued the Filipino found fullfilment in his fate, his Faith, his resignation, his humility, his legendary patience and refusal to fight and rebel against poverty and corruption, I mentioned Rizal, Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, Mabini, Emilio Jacinto, Gregorio del Pilar, Ninoy Aquino, Pepe Diokno, Evelio Javier. I argued back that our national heroes laid down their lives. They should continue to be our models, not the brooding, mourning, suffering, cross-bearing Black Nazarene of Quiapo legend.

I submit, as this writer remains on this subject, there are more reasons as to why Filipinos up to this day are losers.

Thousands if not tens of thousands of Filipino families are breaking up. As millions of Filipinos have left for jobs abroad largely because of poverty, they have left their families behind. Once the sturdy, lofty unit of Filipino society, the now shattered Filipino family has fallen into moral disarray. Abandoned children, abandoned wives or abandoned husbands have been exposed to the wilds of a decaying society. Prone they are to venturing into a sea of sin and temptation, of disobedience and violence. Those working abroad do the same thing. This is one of our greatest tragedies today.

Another reason is our geographical structure as an archipelago. The Philippines is riven into more than 7000 islands. Economists and social anthropologists will tell you that almost every facet of life in an archipelago is uneven. Because of huge bodies of seas or waters to navigate, development varies from island to island, province to province. And this is a nightmare for any national leadership that plots the national agenda. Some islanders are lazy, breezy, inclined to loaf. Some islanders are work-oriented, industrious. Language regions have their eccentricities. Ilocanos are very different from Cebuanos. To top it all, the Philippines until today have to achieve real national unity unlike many countries in Asia.

And this inhibits the flaming patriotism that is an indispensable ingredient of national progress.

We never had any "Asianness", the essense of being Asian, belonging to Asia. Our cultural moorings are basically Spanish and American. And so we Filipinos are strangers in our own continent. This is somewhat tragic. It is a reborn and resurgent Asian culture (largely Confucian or Sinic) that now propels our continent dizzyingly and dazzlingly forward in economic and social progress. We fall back and still back, like reverse masts on a ship headed for limbo. We should be ashamed and yet we are not.

Again, the fact that ours is a tropical climate helps perhaps to explain why we are backward economically. As a rule of thumb it is in the temperate countries where economic, social and political progress has whirled to or close to the mountain-top. The main argument here is that the cold climate invigorates, compels man to invent and continue inventing so he can tame the hazards of nature. So he has to work very hard. In the tropical countries, where the sun is out and the climate is breezy, not much work is needed. And a fun-and-frolic culture develops. This rationale goes all the way back to Montesquieu.

A non-argument, however, is the contention that nations blessed with history and, therefore, a longer civilization are by that fact alone much ahead of the Philippines economically. This is false. Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, India, Pakistan, Iran, Cambodia, Mongolia remain Third-World countries. Why? They have fallen far behind in science and technology. They are hard put because their deeply conservative culture cannot easily adjust to surging streams of capitalism and the world market. Here you need technology, which improves by the year, to achieve the productivity the market requires. And access to market education. Here, China has been phenomenally successful.

Huwag intindihin ang bukas is, I think, the refrain of a song I hear often these days on TV. Filipinos have no prism for tomorrow in terms of progress. They are not fond of planning. Presidents come and presidents go even before they have made their mark. So there is no continuity of policy, of wisdom, of a skilled bureaucracy in place, no permanent or semi-permanent threads in the loom of progress. Eat, live, drink and be merry. Mag chibugan tayo. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Hooray! The Chinese do not look just at tomorrow. They look at the next 100 years.

It’s flash-and-surface dazzle that attracts Filipino eyes. An example of that was the death of Rico Yan. He was simply a handsome face on showbiz, not even a great performer. But when he died, the death at the same time of two Filipino cultural giants, Levi Celerio and Lucio San Pedro, was buried in the avalanche of media publicity for Rico Yan. It’s flash that attracted the same eyes to Joseph Estrada. Now it is flash that is likely to catapult Fernando Poe Jr. to the presidency in 2004. Would flash have elevated Tom Cruise or Clint Eastwood to the White House?

It’s flash that attracted Filipinos to basketball. Scores and baskets gyrate upwards. Balls sink into holes with sensual rapidity. Not soccer where you use the brain, legs and feet, and not height. So we’re losers again.