A positive trait

The issue of TIME magazine for Feb. 28, 2005 carries an article by Alan Robles, a Filipino journalist who lectures at the International Institute of Journalism in Berlin. The article is entitled "It Doesn’t Take Much." Meaning, it doesn’t take much to make Filipinos happy. He says that in various surveys, Filipinos have been found to be among the happiest people of Asia.

This is contrary to all logic as Filipinos have to contend with very many hardships. Among them, poverty and a corrupt officialdom, and the fact that it is one of the countries most prone to natural disasters, like typhoons, floods, earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions.

Filipinos, he said, are easily amused. And for Filipinos, happiness is not material but social. They are happiest when in a group – whether the group be composed of family or friends or even strangers.

Most of us can corroborate all those facts. For example, the Japanese Occupation during World War II was one of the worst periods of any country’s history – certainly the worst in ours. The Japanese, despite their veneer of politeness, were capable of extreme cruelty: we were the victims of one of the most savage massacres of all time. Not to mention the reign of terror that lasted three years from 1942 to early 1945. And yet, many of those who survived the war years can look back on that period as in many respects a happy time. It was time when many of the things we had gotten used to were lacking, but there can be fun in making the best of a bad situation. There is joy in making fun of the enemy, or even outwitting him. As the TIME article says, "it doesn’t take much."

This fact – that we are an essentially happy people who can be amused easily and who can enjoy life even at its hardest – that fact is a very important socio-political reality. It is a positive trait. How else could we have lived through so much that would make any other people miserable?

But this positive trait which works in our favor can also work against us. The fact – that we are easily satisfied, that we can be happy with little, the fact that we can enjoy life even in the midst of hardships – that fact is a real drawback to progress. It is why we tolerate so much corruption, why we are willing to put up with shoddy things, with things of inferior quality. It is why our buildings and our roads are in poor repair, why we are willing to put up with inefficient government services.

How, for instance, could anyone live in a place with as foul a stench as the basurahan? Yet hundreds of families live there, content to live on what they could scavenge from the garbage.

Americans are very demanding, and they get good service. We are not demanding at all, and we get the short end of the stick.