Don’t worry, be happy

Many of us were stunned when this report came out late last month that Filipinos were among the happiest people in the world. A Malacañang announcement cited a World Values Survey which concluded that out of 50 countries surveyed, the Philippines was sixth in terms of people saying that they were "very happy" with their lives.

We were at par with the Netherlands, just slightly behind Ireland and Iceland and ranked better than, among others, Australia, the United States, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Italy and Spain. We were the only Asian country among the ten happiest nations in the world, far ahead of China and Japan.

However, Mahar Mangahas, president of Social Weather Stations, the local partner of the World Values Survey, cast doubt on the authenticity of the survey cited by Malacañang.

Mahar trotted out, instead, another World Values Survey which covered 80 countries and put us in 31st place in the happiness derby. This time, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, the U.S., Australia and France finished ahead of us. However, this WVS survey cited by Mahar did confirm that Filipinos are happier than those argumentative Italians and Spaniards.

On the other hand, two Asian countries, Singapore and Vietnam, finished 24th and 29th, respectively, slightly ahead of us. Japan and China again didn’t do well, the former at 42nd place and the latter at 48th. In both surveys, the surprise was Nigeria, the country with the lowest average income per person, which finished second in the allegedly "bogus" survey, and a respectable 19th in the allegedly "genuine" one.

Immediately, eyebrows were raised all the way up to the ceiling. Nigeria regularly finishes at or near the top of the lists of the world’s poorest, most corrupt and repressive nations. Billy Esposo who, together with Mahar Mangahas and radio host Ariel Ureta, was among the guests at my television show last Thursday, wrote about a highly-respected Nigerian journalist’s take on the survey. Mr. Reuben Abati basically slammed the survey but noted that Nigerians are happy in spite of the tough challenges of their lives because they are as resilient as they are durable. "In our happiness," he said, "we find a way out. Like water, we find our level."

In the Philippines, too, the notion that we are among the happiest nations in the world is "counterintuitive," as journalist Alan Robles put it in a Time magazine, Asian edition, article reacting to the survey. "We Filipinos," he noted, "live in a country mired in poverty, political conflict, corruption and environmental destruction."

Moreover, SWS itself came out with a survey recently where self-rated poverty was higher and people said they were eating less meals than before. Perceptions of peace and order, the adequacy of health and social services, economic outlook and the efficiency of government institutions have never been favorable in this country. Does the supposed happiness of Filipinos make sense, or were the survey-takers simply duped by the tendency of Filipino respondents to say what the questioner wants to hear?

Well, if it doesn’t make complete sense, it is at least understandable. Robles says that for Filipinos, happiness is social, not material. We’re happiest, he says, in a group, i.e. family, friends, immediate community, even strangers. The small group, he adds, is our "bastion against life’s unfairness." We have long been familiar with corruption, inequality and injustice. We just try not to let any of these get in the way of enjoying life, Robles stresses. "For Filipinos," he concludes, "happiness isn’t a goal: it’s a tool for survival."

For my part, while I acknowledge that we could certainly use as many tools for survival we could lay our hands on, surveys which purport to portray Filipinos as happy really worry me. They worry me, not only because government has a tendency to cite our alleged happiness as evidence that they are doing, if not quite fabulously, then at least reasonably well. Note that it was the government’s propaganda machine that trotted out that survey which the SWS suspected as being bogus. What other motive could there have been for this premature disclosure of an unverified survey, if not to try to sell us the proposition that, hey, you’re happy, what else do you want?

What I want, what I’m sure all of us want, is genuine happiness, not a bogus happiness which looks more like a self-induced, unduly prolonged state of denial. To say that we know all about our problems, but won’t let them get in the way of enjoying life, is to me a form of abject surrender. If we succeed in "enjoying life" despite these problems, then it becomes much easier to pretend they don’t exist.

If happiness isn’t a goal, but simply a coping mechanism, then it is a false happiness. We’re simply acting as if the conditions existed to enable us to be really happy. But since happiness, even the false kind, can act like a drug and turn us away from reality into a world of make-believe, we never go through the trouble of grappling with our basic problems and looking for lasting solutions.

Now I think I know why we’re in such a rut. It’s because we don’t want to admit that so much is wrong about how we do things. We pride ourselves in a democracy which exists only in form, not in substance, for the vast majority of our people. Some of us actually think that the "strengthening" peso, our "surprising" gross national product in 2004 and the surging stock market mean that our country’s fiscal and financial problems are over. They aren’t. Still, it seems, we simply must be happy, regardless of reality and the unpredictability of nervous foreign creditors and bondholders.

Years ago, when a study on Filipino values came out, we learned what was right and what was wrong about us. Even then, we knew that families and relationships were among our strengths, but were also among our main weaknesses.

In politics and government, we saw how family and the small group could feed corruption and political dynasties. Moreover, while family ties are strong, our sense of national community, of nation, is markedly weak. If the small group is a bastion against life’s unfairness, it is also a reason for resignation, inaction and apathy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for happiness. Who isn’t? But for the right reasons, not as an opiate to forget or ignore what’s really happening around us, or to convince ourselves that it’s not even worth trying to make a difference. In that sense, maybe we could do with a little more unhappiness.