Filipinos deserve each other

Written on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 10:13 am | by benign0

Apparently, special license plates are a big issue in the Philippines as MLQ3 describes in his latest blog entry. And me being the lover of simplicity that I am only had this to say about all that:

Filipino politicians merely reflect the people who elected them.

It’s simple, really. ;)

For that matter, the way the public responds to (or more appropriately, shrugs its collective shoulders at) all this makes the whole thing moot:

- We tolerate the wang-wangs (sirens) sported by any bozo who sports these plates;

- We tolerate the routine use of police resources to blaze trails of privilege through Manila’s clogged roads so that politicians’ spouses can get to Rustan’s in time for morning tea chats with their amigas; and,

- We routinely change an impertinent look during an argument with some bozo into a sheepish smile upon being told by said bozo Alam mo ba kung sino ako?

Kung baga, we get treated like losers because of the simple fact that we act like losers, think like losers, and allow people to treat us like losers.

So, yes my countrymen, the simple fact of the matter is that we deserve each other. The existence or non-existence of “special plates” to adorn whoever’s whatever car simply fades into the colossal woodwork that is the more fundamental issue of our low-thinking-applied approach towards regarding just about anything — whether it is the in-your-face injustice we love chattering about in an unstructured manner, or whatever else makes the Philippines the regional basket case that it continues to be.

In fact, what eventually emerged as the key argument about why this who-cares practice of issuing “special plates” to the representatives of the people of this great republic turns out to be quite anti-climactic and echoed by no less than Mr. Nash. I was gonna respond to his comment where he says:

But then again, Manolo is right, we deserve to see what our politicians are doing during office hours. If possible, they should be wearing neon vests for high visibility.

But then what was gonna be my short response to it turned into this blog post.

Interestingly, this snippet of wisdom highlights the more fundamental issue that underpins all of this, which is the low-trust nature of our society. There is an utter lack of any ability in Pinoy society to trust one another to do the right thing, and is something I describe in detail in my short treatise on Pinoy-style trust (or, more aptly, utter lack of it):

Thus:

Trust is progressively eroded in a society afflicted by endemic corruption. When trust among a people is reduced, more control measures are applied. And as more control measures are applied, the more the atmosphere of mistrust thickens. More control measures mean slower processes and more human intervention in these processes breeding more opportunity for corruption. The grotesquely convoluted systems and procedures that paralyse our nation’s bureaucratic processes are a legacy of this runaway positive feedback loop — corruption breeding mistrust, mistrust breeding controls, controls breeding more corruption.

Corruption –> Reduced Trust –> Draconian bureaucratic controls –> More corruption

Simple equation.

And then some Einstein came up with this brainwave:

[…] our people are not corrupt. Otherwise, they would have benefitted from the largesse of the government.

Which then highlights the whole problem with Pinoy-style thinking which is to assume that corruption and other crooked activity is the only means to acquiring wealth; a primitivist style of thinking which I describe in an article where I use Pinoy movies as a window into the underbelly of Da Pinoy psyche, to wit:

In Filipino movies, rich people are rich because they (1) are crooked, (2) inherited their wealth or are descendants of colonial carpetbaggers, and/or (3) are politicians.

Such a tunnel-visioned perspective on social and economic class provides a reassurance to the average Filipino that he is the favoured underdog in the on-going class struggle but at the same time excusing his indolence, lack of initiative, and apathy. The lack of appreciation of character traits that contributed to the financial success of the legitimately wealthy is a significant hindrance to implementing a sustainable livelihood program for the common Filipino.

Which brings us back to the quintessentially Pinoy hump of a conceptual hurdle that we seem to be unable to oversome:

Why is the Philippines so mired in poverty and so unable to even envision a path leading out of it?

Many would prefer to simply lay down and die in the hope that the problem will simply go away someday. Others at the very least try to apply a bit of thinking to the challenge at hand. My hope is that someday the latter outnumber the earlier in Pinoy society and think outside of the kind of squares exemplified by entire discussions on whether “special license plates” should be issued to politicians.

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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.

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4 Responses to “Filipinos deserve each other”

  1. Jon Limjap on August 28th, 2008 11:05 am

    The title totally reminded me of the scene from The Dark Knight where Joker tells Batman:

    “You complete me.”

  2. Solid Pinoy on August 28th, 2008 12:47 pm

    And what’s so bad about that?

    I like Pinoy Movies, I really do! Our movie plots may seem ridiculous on the surface but beneath all that poor acting, lack of editing, and seemingly amateurish use of cameras, lies a profound inner storyline that moves the soul. There is a hidden genius behind all these bakya movies. Its like watching a Quentin Terentino film with LSD.

    Take Philippine Basketball as another example. Who needs to play defense? Or taking the inquiry to a deeper level: who needs to play basketball at all? What you see instead is an intricate drama on the basketball court where the story is more important that the game itself. This is essential into imparting the lesson of class warfare through the mechanism of satire.

    Ah now it all makes more sense does it?

    Once you appreciate all the hidden symbolisms, an intellectual trojan horse if you will, one begins to realize that Eat Bulaga is just fucking brilliant!

  3. Philman on August 29th, 2008 12:03 am

    Hey fella, everybody and his aunt want to change Philippine society. But of course, we all learned from our Anthropology/Sociology course, that what it took centuries to form, id est culture, cannot be changed overnight, over months, over years, and over decades.

    Its good to be Real. But try to be Realistic.

  4. pumpy on October 27th, 2008 6:34 am

    Also, the world is not made of “simple” equations and hasty generalizations about societies.

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