In one ear and out the other

Like habits, instincts die hard.

The blog – now on its eleventh year – hasn’t tossed its constant theme, that of our instincts: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.

Let’s go back to a 1972 New York Times Best Seller list, and we will find this title, “I'm OK – You're OK.” And if we pause to digest what it’s about, we may figure out how our instincts have defined Juan de la Cruz. [See below a summary of the book.]

Who is Juan de la Cruz? Over one hundred years ago, Rizal said: “Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?

“Moreover, that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.” [We are ruled by Rizal’s ‘tyrants of tomorrow,’ Editorial, The Manila Times, 29th Dec 2015]

How did we come to love tyranny? Consider: We value hierarchy and paternalism. It implies entitlement, not personal responsibility. Rank has its privileges. And implicit in “paternalism” is for “hierarchy” to dispense favor.

We can build on the premise to explain some of the key developments that we celebrated: Take comprehensive land reform, the OFW phenomenon, the 4Ps (or conditional cash transfer), or the BPO industry. And more recently, POGO.

Contrast that to why the Asian Tigers awed the rest of the world while we were left behind. And think of all the metrics that make us the laughingstock courtesy of our culture of impunity.

That is not to say these nations are perfect. As the blog argues consistently, neither perfection nor permanence is of this world. The universe is dynamic, not static, something that Juan de la Cruz struggles to internalize. And why Rizal created the character of Padre Damaso.

It also explains why we can’t step up to the plate of (a) industrialization and development, (b) innovation, and global competition.

And we won’t if we cannot bite the bullet and beg for Western money and technology, as in opening the economy.

What about Federalism? That is not a simple task that presents a clear path. And given all the balls that we have in the air, it is a significant distraction we don’t need at this time. Short of Federalism, we have taken several initiatives to bolster LGUs and farmed out funds accordingly. We now know there are pluses and minuses.

Think of all the local lords we created that undermine national efforts and block investments, among others, including economies of scale as what happened with agrarian reform. It is not a magic wand, especially to people that succumb to the crab mentality. It is not the answer to the failure of national leadership to prioritize and lead development efforts because we have a litany of such sins that we are on the path to a failed nation.

Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize.

We must keep our nose on the grindstone – drive national income to enlarge the pie and increase the tax base. We cannot be enamored by tax revenues per se, given the structural weakness of our economic model, i.e., a service-consumption economy, not an industrial-investment economy like those of our neighbors.

While it makes sense to justify tax reform to generate revenues for Build, Build, Build, it is classic linear thinking, or as the blog has argued, “the obvious and logical.” Engineers know about “organizing in parallel” and why they employ project management tools like PERT-CPM.

Beyond tax reform, we need Arangkada, to simultaneously drive national income aggressively.

But then we turn around to brag about our sound fiscal management. That is taking credit from the OFWs and our call center warriors. It is very convenient to forget what keeps the economy going. Yet, we admit it is consumption-driven and why Vietnam is leaving us in the dust with its industrial-investment economy.

The world has moved beyond specialization and leverages “the best of all worlds” and why innovation – and modern R&D – as pioneered by Edison is cross-functional. In Silicon Valley lingo, it is “design thinking.” 

That will be like pulling teeth as far as the Philippines is concerned. Consider how we lag in higher education. We are still of the old “specialization” school. And so, “innovation” is Greek to us. 

Likewise, we must learn to forward-think and rapidly internalize the vital few from the trivial many, as in Pareto. Or “vital signs” in medical science; topic sentence in an essay; or the headline in a newspaper. Try synthesis for size.

And we won’t until we overcome the crab mentality because to prioritize is foreign to us. We have a misunderstanding of what “inclusive” entails. It means community and the common good, as in enlarging the economic pie, and not socialism per se. 

It explains why we are decades behind in infrastructure development. 

Socialism per se is classic sub-optimization, and the evidence is that the USSR is now history. It explains why Ukraine, despite the idiocy of Trump, wants to be in bed with the US and not Russia.

And we won’t move the needle if we can’t develop among us visionary leadership. One who can help us define where we are as a people and nation; otherwise, we don’t stand a chance. Because if we can’t establish and agree on a baseline, there is no way we can identify and traverse the road from poverty to prosperity. 

Consider: The 21st century is moving at warp speed. And over decades, we have not been in the game and thus the regional laggard. How do we expect to stand a chance without dynamism in Juan de la Cruz?

Even wealthy nations started “poor” and evolved from an agriculture economy to industrial and then a service economy.

And beyond this textbook model are the Asian Tigers, and then China and, more recently, Vietnam.

But it’s in one ear and out the other.

It explains why our Constitution is parochial and insular, i.e., it nourishes our instincts. Likewise, it perpetuates a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset and undermines the ability to forward-think.

Beyond poverty, these instincts inform how we look across our shores, as in trade and foreign relations. Hence, we see tyrannical nations as soul mates but view pluralistic ones with suspicion, i.e., self-interest is inherent.

Consider how we described China as being like us, i.e., Orientals despite China’s adventurism in the West Philippine Sea. Also, how we view Russia. Both are tyrannical rules. 

But we are more suspicious of the West. They are pluralistic nations but have a history, i.e., they were once colonizers. Also, they are wealthier and more powerful. Yet, our neighbors begged for Western money and technology, notwithstanding.

The consequence? Look at how rapidly we dropped into the abyss. We now rank with Myanmar and Cambodia.

Here’s a quick read of “I’m OK – You’re OK.” It is a 1967 self-help book by Thomas Anthony Harris. It is a practical guide to transactional analysis as a method for solving problems in life.

“The book made the New York Times Best Seller list in 1972 and remained there for almost two years. It sold 15 million copies to date and (was) translated into over a dozen languages." [Wikipedia] 

“I’m not OK – You’re OK: When I think I’m not OK, but you are OK, then I am putting myself in an inferior position. This position may come from being belittled as a child, perhaps from dominant parents or maybe careless teachers or bullying peers. 

“People in this position have particularly low self-esteem and will put others before them. They may thus have an active ‘Please Others’ driver.

“I’m OK - You’re not OK: People in this position feel themselves superior in some way to others, who are inferior and not OK. As a result, they may be contemptuous and quick to anger. Their talk about others will be smug and supercilious, contrasting their relative perfection with the limitation of others. 

“This position is a trap into which many managers, parents, and others in authority fall if their given situation makes them better and, by implication, others are not OK.  These people may also have an active ‘Be Perfect’ driver, and their strivings make others seem less so.

“I’m OK – You’re OK: When I consider myself OK and frame others as OK, then there is no position for me or you to be inferior or superior. That is, in many ways, the ideal position. Here, the person is comfortable with other people and with themselves. They are confident, happy, and get on with other people even when there are points of disagreement.

“So what? Understand how you frame yourself and others as being OK and note how you respond to this. Then think about the other person and how they are framing it. 

“Note how some combinations work together, for example, where one person has the position of ‘I’m OK/You’re not OK,’ and the other person has ‘I’m not OK/You’re OK.’ 

“In such matching positions, the relationship may well be stable, and both will gain some comfort of confirmation from this. When situations do not fit, mainly when both people are ‘I’m OK/You’re not OK,’ then this is a recipe for conflict or confusion.” [changingminds.org]

Let’s get back to our challenge and the essence of time. We like to think that we are proactive by championing quick fixes, e.g., from the comprehensive land reform to POGO. But that is a misunderstanding of what “proactive” means, confusing it with our instincts. It is not a knee-jerk.

It also explains why we misconstrue leadership – with tyranny – and sovereignty – with parochialism and insularity.

Take proactive. How long have we been debating the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution? Or federalism? Or how long have we been kicking the can with infrastructure development? 

We are the regional laggard with millions of impoverished Filipinos and families. There is no semblance of proactivity there.

We are not in a classroom setting. Yet, we rely on our assumed knowledge. The 21st century is running at warp speed. We don’t recognize the value of perceptive judgment precisely because we lack the experience in development.

For example, our paradigm is that of a consumption economy. What to do? In this era of “rapid technology and innovation,” there is such a thing as “fast-fail,” which we know from Science 101 as “experimentation.” Therefore, Silicon Valley is the center of rapid technology and innovation.

In other words, we don’t have to cross all the “t’s” and dot the “i’s.” There is such a thing as “prototyping.”

And we have an excellent example in Arangkada. There is enough thinking that went with it yet may not pass as a Ph.D. dissertation for educators to embrace. Still, there are lots in Arangkada akin to “big data.” The hard part is the analytics.

The writer, as a practitioner, always uses the Great Commandments to introduce analytics to his Eastern European friends. Forget the 613 commandments. 

The key is not to develop 42 industry road maps like the DTI is doing but to pick one or two industries and aggressively pursue prototyping. The two that give the biggest bang for the buck will be a good starting point. 

But that hypothesis is outside the paradigm of DTI – i.e., that is not how they frame the challenge. They work on the premise of driving efficiency and productivity.

That comes from linear thinking, given our assumed knowledge, i.e., the factors of production. It also explains why we view poverty from the supposed wisdom of the 4Ps (or conditional cash transfer.) 

We don’t turn the challenge on its head, that “poverty” is the effect of our underdevelopment, characterized by our meager per capita income.

We have been racking our brains to raise the productivity of farmers without first figuring out the right product, one that has a market and command the requisite margins to make the farmer’s undertaking viable. That is why Malaysia turned from rubber to palm oil.

But even more fundamental is to define the desired outcome. For example, the DTI started on the right foot. We need an incremental $100 billion in exports like yesterday to at least be like Thailand. 

If these industries come from Central Luzon or Cagayan de Oro or Davao, so be it. The key is to do a “fast-fail” so that we learn very quickly and gain perceptive judgment to then upgrade the effort. We don’t have first to debate federalism.

Take China. China has over a billion people. They did not debate the system of government. They acknowledged that the three regions of Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing would be the epicenter of rapid economic growth because of population and existing commercial activity.

Disclosure: The writer wrote a concise set of bullet/talking points for the COO of his old-MNC company to get into China. And it was not even a 15-minute conversation. Yet, as though from nowhere, after he had left his office, the CEO appeared, and was already tagging along. “When are you going to offer the job to John?”

It took longer for his efforts to move the company’s budgeting process from finance-driven to business-alignment driven because people had to experience how the prototype works. It is a 200-year old Fortune 500 company that demonstrated its dynamism.

And it was even faster to approve the purchase of a product technology that paved the way to fortify the company’s global dominance of their biggest brand. A classic “buy versus make” decision.

What is the point? None of the above merits a Ph.D. dissertation. It’s called the real world. It brings Lee Kuan Yew to mind who ran Singapore like a company or a business enterprise. 

He focused on driving revenues, as did the Asian Tigers as well as China and Vietnam. Rapid infrastructure development was a key element, and so was rapid industrial growth and competitiveness and lower taxes.

Not to forget, begging for Western money and technology was paramount. In other words, driving revenues (as in the aggregate products and services a nation produces) in this success model is beyond raising tax revenues. Yet the net effect is higher taxes because of the bigger economic pie.

It is about defining the desired outcome and not the inputs as in classical trickle-down economics. [See above the factors of production.] Which we in the Philippines still don’t appreciate. Begin with the end in mind. See above, Arangkada is a good example; and why Malaysia turned from rubber to palm oil.

Recall we Pinoys are like a fish out of water, that is why we keep taking the wrong turn at the fork.

The story of creation says it all. The universe is dynamic, not static. 

Unsurprisingly, the Catholic Church, the universal as opposed to the tribal church, has kept the minority view that is the Franciscan theology. And Popes Benedict and Francis represent the contrast. Recall the Galileo fiasco undermined its claim of universality and had to be corrected.

Think about how tribalism is reinforcing the polarization of America, and they have Trump and his ilk to thank, with a little help from Putin and his former KGB buddies. Indeed, Putin has reason to celebrate, and so has Xi. The more Trump shrinks America, the bigger he makes these two countries.

We Filipinos cannot allow the rest of the world to leave us behind. And we will if we fail to comprehend what dynamism demands of Juan de la Cruz. That parochialism and insularity make us tribal, not universal. Worse, we cede the Asian century to be the exclusive club of our neighbors.

Gising bayan!

“Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? Moreover, that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.” [We are ruled by Rizal’s ‘tyrants of tomorrow,’ Editorial, The Manila Times, 29th Dec 2015]

“Now I know why Paul dared to speak of ‘the curse of the law’ (Galatians 3:13). Law reigns and discernment is unnecessary, which means there is little growth or change in such people. When you do not grow, you remain an infant.” [Faith and Science, Open to Change, Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, 23rd Oct 2017]

“As a major component for the education and reorientation of our people, mainstream media – their reporters, writers, photographers, columnists, and editors – have an obligation to this country . . .” [Era of documented irrelevance: Mainstream media, critics and protesters, Homobono A. Adaza, The Manila Times, 25th Nov 2015]

“National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its currency’s value, as classical economics insists. [A] nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade.” [The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review, March–April 1990]

“You have to have a dream, whether big or small. Then plan, focus, work hard, and be very determined to achieve your goals.” [Henry Sy Sr., Chairman Emeritus and Founder, SM Group (1924 - 2019)]

“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” [William Pollard, 1911-1989, physicist-priest, Manhattan Project]

“Development [is informed by a people’s] worldview, cognitive capacity, values, moral development, self-identity, spirituality, and leadership . . .” [Frederic Laloux, Reinventing organizations, Nelson Parker, 2014]