Being proud to be Pinoy: Not as easy as we think

Written on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 7:56 am | by benign0

We cannot be proud of something that we don’t have, are not, or will never have, much less something that does not mean anything (like being proud for pride’s sake, for instance).

To therefore understand why all these calls to be “proud to be Pinoy” seem to ring hollow nowadays, we have to revisit the essence of this pride we “should” be feeling for the Philippines — the achievement, assets, and added-value to humanity that should be underpinning said pride.

What is an ASSET of our country that we can be proud of?

One undisputable Pinoy asset I can think of is people. We have more than 90 million of them. But what is the VALUE of this asset? Does sheer number alone add value?

Sweden has one tenth the population of the Philippines. But its output in terms of what it contributes to human achievement utterly dwarfs that of the Philippines.

To put it even more darkly, what would humanity miss if the Philippine Islands were to suddenly be swallowed up by the Pacific Ocean, never to be seen again?

Before we get too outraged by such a suggestion, keep in mind that this is something that similarly defines your existence in a business organisation. What value do you add to the business? If you were to not show up to work one day, would anybody notice?

It seems, therefore, that we are sitting on an asset that does not deliver commensurate value — just like all the oil in the world would be worthless to these desert kingdoms if the internal combustion engine had not been invented. Unless we resolve to turn our sheer numbers into sheer strength, we will be nothing more than an over-populated Third World island nation whose instability is an increasing liability to the neighbourhood.

Note that we digress. Ironically this tendency to digress illustrates the point I try to make here. “Pride” in one’s country is a complex beast. Much as many out there would like us to think, it is not a simple matter of making a conscious decision to be “proud to be Pinoy”.

Try asking a girl out for the first time by telling her to profess her love to you first and you’ll know what I mean.

My pal cvj said in a comment in mlq3’s blog:

economic achievement —> love for (or pride in) country

…what i think the Korean and Indian letter-writers say is that (based on their respective country’s experience) that it should be the other way around..,

love for (or pride in) country —> [makes possible] economic achievement

Beyond that, i believe that once started, pride in country and economic achievement are mutually reinforcing virtuous circle (aka positive feedback loop).

Again, as if it were that simple.

Mr. cvj fails to realise that it is easier to build a logical causal link between the argument and the value returned in the earlier statement:

[IF achieve THEN pride]

than it is for the latter:

[IF pride THEN achieve].

When one achieves it is easy to be proud. Simple.

But when one is proud, how does that necessarily translate to achievement??

Explaining the latter can be likened to the way creationists attempt to explain how we came to be by backward-engineering their arguments from Scripture. Real classy indeed.

It’s simple, really. One just needs to go by the simpler principle.

Achievement = Pride

One cannot be proud of something that consistently fails. Our efforts to become a prosperous nation need to be re-focused towards developing a strong national ethic of achievement and eradicate that pwede na yan mentality that Pinoys are world-renowned for.

Tags: , ,
Add to del.icio.us | Digg this! | Yahoo MyWeb | Google Bookmark It! | Stumble It!
About The Author: benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.COM and has once been described as "one of the most enthusiastic hecklers of the politically-passionate" by a respected journalist.

Filed Under Society

Related Entries:

Comments

23 Responses to “Being proud to be Pinoy: Not as easy as we think”

  1. cvj on April 24th, 2008 9:39 am

    Benign0, thanks for the link and the mention. The point of the Korean and Indian letter writers (whom i referred to in my comment) is that they did not start loving their country when it was already rich. Even when they were as poor as us, they already loved and were proud of their country. I can see that up close in the Indians i work with. My Indian colleagues are not that far from me in terms of various measures of achievement and yet i do not see them self-flagellating about their Indian identity. (They do complain about corruption, inefficiency etc. but that does not translate to questioning their being Indian.)

    By contrast, James Fallows (the author of that Damaged Culture essay) pointed to the fact that even those Filipinos who have achieved success (and therefore by your standards have every reason to be proud), have not shown love for country by the fact that they ship out their wealth when things get ‘dicey’. So, for them, your assertion…

    [IF achieve THEN pride]

    …does not seem to follow, at least when applied to love for or pride in the Philippines. That’s the ‘damaged culture’ that he was referring to. This shows that, as far as love for country is concerned, things are not as simple and straightforward as your assertion:

    Achievement = Pride

    On the other hand, the Korean and Indian letter writers i referred to are speaking from the point of view of the respective successes of their countries and they are telling us from their experience that love for country had a lot to do with that success so they do demonstrate that empirical validity of the assertion…

    [IF pride THEN achieve].

    As to the sources of our pride, as long as you don’t have any illusions on the inherent frailty of men and women in general, i do find a lot of things to be proud of in being Filipino. I do agree though that this is no reason to be cocky.
    I also agree with your essential point that we could and should work to achieve more than what are achieving now. Next to lack of love for country, the problems we have as a nation have to do with problems of inequality and large scale (aka national-level) cooperation and coordination.

  2. Nick on April 24th, 2008 1:06 pm

    Actually, good point Benign0, the workforce is there, but how are we utilizing them? And our we training that workforce in the right industry? Are we providing the right infrastructure?

    There is pride, even if we are lagging, but it is hard to see our neighbors achieve more, especially if we are capable of surpassing them…

    I’m proud, but pride can only get you so far.. It will not make our nation become an Asian powerhouse, only a nation full of proud Filipinos languishing in dismal performance compared to its neighbors.

    Pride must be a part of a greater Filipino citizenry, not the only part.

  3. Jon Limjap on April 24th, 2008 3:20 pm

    Maybe there’s something about Korean and Indian civilization that I should point out to cvj.

    Before being poor third world outbacks, both the Korean and Indian civilizations had hundreds of years of glory, evidence of which is seen in glorious ancient structures (e.g., India’s Taj Mahal, or Korea’s Daejeon gate which unfortunately got torched recently). They had an identity, and they have achieved in their own times before. The same banana can be said for China.

    The Philippine quandary is that it does not have a rich-enough past to hold on to. The only past it could speak of are dark ages of colonialization, preceded by a tribal society that hardly integrated into a true nation that identified itself as Filipinos.

    Hell, even the name of our nation has been given to us.

    The challenge for the past 50 years of Philippine independence has been to gain that identity and finally be able to construct that civilization.

    Benign0,

    My question is, how do you rally enough Filipinos to get up and achieve? That is the more important question here, I think.

  4. Jon Limjap on April 24th, 2008 3:21 pm

    Correction: the gate in Seoul is called Nadaemun, not Daejeon.

  5. cvj on April 24th, 2008 5:14 pm

    Jon, the letter writers did not point to their being ‘old civilizations’ as the key to their success. They only said that they loved their country.

    Being a young country with a relatively sparse history is nothing to be ashamed of. The same thing can be said of Vietnam. Just like us, their name (meaning people who are ’south of Viet’) was also given to them by someone else. That didn’t seem to stop them from beating the most powerful military on earth and then orchestrating an economic takeoff. Singapore, just like us, is one country, a creation of one man. So is Malaysia. Even, the India that we know is also a conglomeration of disparate kingdoms united only by the Mughals and the East India company. Besides, we already have a pantheon of heroes that we could be proud of.

    We have a lot of challenges but not having a past comparable to the great civilizations to look back to is not one of them. Besides, there is little that we can do to change the past.

  6. Jon Limjap on April 24th, 2008 7:35 pm

    CVJ,

    Nonetheless, the common denominator of the countries you mentioned is that they have an identity. They see themselves as Vietnamese, as Malaysian, as Singaporean, as Indian.

    My impression is that individual Filipinos still define themselves as Cebuano, Bikolano, Ilokano, Waray, etc. etc.

    I am aware that the Chinese still define themselves thru their provinces of origin (and I think there are so many things inherently wrong in the method by which they are achieving economic gain, so much so that it sounds like economic-gain-at-the-expense-of-one’s-laborers) but I digress.

    Point I wish to underscore is that one has to identify with their ilk before being able to achieve anything as a race/nation, and prior to being capable of being proud of one’s self.

    Again, how to do… how to do?

  7. cvj on April 24th, 2008 10:29 pm

    Jon, one good way to start is not to shortchange ourselves with all sorts of hangups. We have to recognize that, as a people, we are neither inferior (nor superior) to other peoples. The problem i see is that we bounce between Benign0-style self-flagellation and Jessica Zafra-inspired ‘world domination theory’ cockiness. Let’s navigate within that zone of quiet self-confidence. Then we’ll be more clearheaded in looking for solutions to our problems. Also, we have to get rid of the elitist mindset as represented by Benign0.

  8. Jon Limjap on April 25th, 2008 7:54 am

    cvj,

    Ah, but there’s a rub. I have been under the impression that Filipinos have a massive, massive case of inferiority complex, a disease that makes them unreceptive of criticism, however valid or helpful, and beholden to foreigners and foreign lands and their achievements.

    I have been boggling my mind on how to inspire such “quiet self-confidence” when many Filipinos see themselves as dirt cheap, and secretly wish that they were born somewhere else while (unjustly) blaming their misery at the simple fact that they *are* Filipino.

    I don’t think quiet self-confidence could ever be effective when you’ve got more people who have inferiority complex than people who believe (are proud?) in themselves.

  9. cvj on April 25th, 2008 8:50 am

    Jon, on your last sentence, that’s why i believe that in matters of pride (and love for country), the right attitude to take is ‘just do it’. This is to prevent making an ‘inferiority complex’ an issue in itself and allow us to focus on more tangible problems.

    In this, Benign0 is unfortunately part of the problem. A lot of our perceived inferiorities are misdiagnoses which are oftentimes products of Benign0’s mind propagated over the years and echoed by his like-minded followers. We could do with less Benign0-style Pinoy-bashing because there is nothing inherently inferior with being Filipino. (There is nothing inherently superior either but that holds true for non-Filipinos as well.) At least that’s what my travels and exposure to foreign culture have taught me.

  10. Anthony on April 25th, 2008 6:53 pm

    I’m beginning to think that Filipinos must be one of the most angst-ridden people on the planet.

    Look in one direction and you see hand-wringing about the Philippines’ lack of achievements in the world stage. Then there are the ‘children of diaspora’ with their so called identity-crisis. There is bitterness about our colonial past, or perceived injustices by this government and that tycoon baron. You hear calls to be proud of your glorious country in one ear and in the other, wailing about The People’s misery.

    When will this navel gazing end?

    If I had to personify the country as a whole, it would be a depressed and self-absorbed teenager with a slight personality disorder. India and China would be that old champion boxer, coming out of retirement to show the young kids how it’s done.

    This teenager needs to quit moping and start training.

    Does it really matter if most people are content to settle for mediocrity? Those that can do something should, regardless of their ambition’s scope.

    I’m not criticising this blog; it’s great and definitely more than just ‘writing in the air’ as someone put it in another comment. Discussion and analysis is important when trying to solve a problem. It is action of some form. However, it would also be good to see how people are putting their plans to work. Is that possible?

    In the words of The King:
    “A little less conversation, a little more action please…”

    :)

  11. Anthony on April 25th, 2008 7:05 pm

    Here, you can play this while you read: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzIK72iFDk4

  12. moya on April 25th, 2008 7:15 pm

    We Filipinos have many achievements that we can be proud about! We have invented many things that have changed the world!

    1. The florescent lamp
    2. The moonbuggy
    3. The internet (yeah, really)

    Notable Filipinos in the world stage:

    1. Phoebe Cates
    2. Ernie Reyes Jr.
    3. Lea Salonga

    Did you know that Matthew, one of the disciples of Jesus, is part Filipino? Anong say mo diyan tiyong!

  13. Pumpy on May 1st, 2008 8:38 pm

    Here’s a more logical solution: force the government to do its job by minimizing corruption. This will free up more than enough resources to support food security, the military, public education, health care, and so on, and this will allow Filipinos to work harder and do better. Pride, achievement, trust, and other things that we like should follow.

  14. Amper on May 24th, 2008 10:16 am

    “The Philippine quandary is that it does not have a rich-enough past to hold on to. The only past it could speak of are dark ages of colonialization, preceded by a tribal society that hardly integrated into a true nation that identified itself as Filipinos.”

    This is merely inferiority complex. The problem with the Philippines is we want to skip of ‘colonization’ period. I’m not saying the pre-colonial islands are not important, but let’s accept what history has given us. Why, Singaporeans are proud and they have less than us as compared to pre-colonial heritage. They are proud, I believe because they see the importance of their colonial heritage. Same with Latin American countries. They are proud of their prehistoric past BUT proud too about their colonial past. Same with Spain, who herself was colonized by the moors for 700 years and they are proud of their Moorish heritage. The Philippines, we immitate too much of Japan, Korea, etc.

  15. Juwan_D on November 19th, 2008 7:36 pm

    Amper,

    Well said.

    I think filipinos are simply not the ¨patriotic or nationalistic¨ type, I can even say that we filipinos dont really love our country.
    If you ask a filipino about it you will get different answers. OFWs will definitely tell you he/she loves the Philippines and that he/she is proud to be pinoy..however that part is just secondary. OFWs work abroad solely thinking about survival..feeding their families back home…i think no one can think of patriotism if you have family to feed and a huge debt from recruiment agencies or banks.

    There was a time when the ilocanos abroad during the 60s or 70s (not sure) when asked if they were filipinos..they would say NO and that they are Ilocanos and not filipinos.

    I saw on CNN one filipina-canadian..asked about her nationality and replied Canadian (which was legally true) but her looks showed otherwise

    A filipino in spain, got his spanish citizenship..and told me Im no longer one of them..because I am a filipino and they are spaniards…

    These few experiences of mine made me think about the love of a filipino towards his being a filipino…is it the good life they are having in other countries that makes them abandon their roots?

    By the way..the spaniards dont really like the thought that they were once a colony of the moros…they hate that…even though they look like arabs themselves :)

  16. benign0 on November 20th, 2008 3:16 am

    I dunno. Is there added-value to being associated with the Philippines? More like a stigma if you ask me. It’s like carrying around a sack of bricks.

  17. jcc on November 20th, 2008 9:00 am

    jon,

    let me paste your post:

    “Ah, but there’s a rub. I have been under the impression that Filipinos have a massive, massive case of inferiority complex, a disease that makes them unreceptive of criticism, however valid or helpful, and beholden to foreigners and foreign lands and their achievements.”

    How is this position validated?

    Pinoys are never inferior to anyone. Sometimes we mistake Pinoys’ “mapagbigay, hospitable at magalang” in front of foreigners as sign of inferiority. No it is not.

    Sometimes, Pinoys working abroad are being discriminated in the workplace by the whites but such treatment does not engender resentment in Pinoys. It becomes a source of pride. Whites or other Europeans would not provide a fair playing field to Pinoys for fear that our brown colored kakabayans can outshine them so they loaded he dice in their favor.

    But I may be speaking of Pinoy professionals who went abroad and who were employed on the basis of their professional degree. I have no data of OFW’s who went to some countries as DHs. But in our country they already feel inferior unless these are the professionals who for lack of opportunity worked as DHs abroad.

    I would rather say that Pinoys are not inferior. If you take our bloggers as the genre of Filipino character, it is the exact opposite of inferiority.

  18. Jon Limjap on November 20th, 2008 9:41 am

    jcc,

    Welcome to the discussion, albeit 6 months late :P

    My statement came from the following observed (albeit, perhaps inaccurate) traits:

    a.) Filipinos who have the “onli in da Pilipins” mentality, e.g., everything and anything bad only happens in the Philippines and the rest of the world (usually defined as the USA) is very, very beautiful

    b.) Filipinos who blame the absolute state of their ill-fortune to being Filipino, per se

    c.) Filipinos who love being the lapdogs of white Americans, which bring about totally deplorable Pinoy offspring like Michelle Malkin

    d.) Filipinos who think, in absolute terms, that Filipinos can do no good, e.g., “Ang mga Pilipino kasi walang disiplina, ang mga Pilipino kasi ningas cogon, ang mga Pilipino kasi…” ad nauseam.

    d.) Filipinos who always think “local is cheap” and “imported” is the only products worth buying, not by virtue of quality, but by virtue of country of origin. “Steytsayd” is top of the line, Japan second, and so forth.

    All of these are self-castigating behavior that is regularly exhibited by Pinoys, and embodied in our culture by the parading self-flagellants of Good Friday.

  19. Jon Limjap on November 20th, 2008 9:45 am

    benign0,

    Value is as value is. Either it is present or not. Being associated with the Philippines should neither be baggage nor bonus.

    Thinking in those narrow terms embodies the attitude of shallowly choosing products because of brand, without any other consideration.

  20. joma on November 20th, 2008 9:56 am

    …just a small question: Supposing you haave the choice to select which country you will be born, what will it be?

  21. Jon Limjap on November 20th, 2008 10:46 am

    joma,

    Difficult to answer question, because I think (modesty aside) that if I were born anywhere I’d find ways to make myself useful.

    Godforsaken country or not, I’m fine, really.

  22. leytenian on November 20th, 2008 11:53 am

    Achievement=pride.

    True for an individual person who are successful in their own ways but if someone think of the filipino people as a whole, that’s only one side of the story.

    I have to repeat myself again:

    There is a close link between human development and economic growth. Economic growth puts people at the center of economic policy. Our policymakers must focus on strategies that emphasizes people and their productive potential. It is the only way to open opportunities where people can participate in growth and benefit from it. How can a pinoy in the Philippines achieve something and have pride about it if there’s no opportunities?

    economic growth, if not properly managed, can be futureless, jobless, ruthless, voiceless, rootless and vacuousness ( your favorite) to human development. The quality of growth is as important as its quantity in reducing poverty.
    ( take note of management)

    Economic Growth =human development
    Government Achievement= pride for all filipinos.

  23. leytenian on November 20th, 2008 12:02 pm

    It’s not our culture. It’s the wannabe political leaders who are in office that believe we can grow as a whole. But first they have to be paid then they will implement by 50/50. That’s how they work with no ethics, no system and no moral. They can only take care of themselves but has never sacrificed of the people. What’s the definition of public service? what’s the definition of an employee as an asset. They become a liability for this country and putting all innocent people at risk. Juts like father and a mother, they will do their best for their children. The concept of Social Responsibility is lacking among these wannabes. I don’t think that’s culture. It’s lack of common sense, period. :)

Leave a Reply