Like a broken record, the blog recycles past discussions because events offer “teachable moments” and don’t happen every day.
“The concept was popularized by Robert Havighurst in his 1952 book, Human Development, and Education. A developmental task is a task that one learns at a specific point, achieving succeeding tasks possible. When the timing is right, the ability to learn a task will be possible. That is a ‘teachable moment.’ It is crucial to keep in mind that unless the time is right, learning will not occur. Hence, it is important to repeat important points whenever possible so that when a student's teachable moment occurs, s/he can benefit from the knowledge.” [Wikipedia]
The blog, come January, will be in its twelfth year. Its genesis is on its website: “I started writing to columnists and newspaper editors at the end of a trip to the Philippines over Holy Week in 2008 – to echo the frustrations expressed by friends and relations that were much louder and more intense than previous trips. My first thought was: with so many talents and skills, how could the country be the basket case of Asia? Are we simply too nice as a people?”
Since then, while keeping abreast of developments in the Philippines, the blog has summarized our instincts: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism that we rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.
Beyond COVID-19 and the money we must throw in to fight this fire, how can we move forward as a nation? How can we traverse the road from poverty to prosperity?
Sadly, for the nation, but comfortable for us in the elite class, the status quo remains the most likely scenario for this country. Why?
Enter: force-field analysis.
“It is a development in social science. It provides a framework for looking at the factors (forces) that influence a situation, originally social situations. It looks at forces driving the movement toward a goal (helping forces) or blocking movement toward a goal (hindering forces). The principle, developed by Kurt Lewin, is a significant contribution to social science, psychology, social psychology, community psychology, communication, organizational development, process management, and change management.” [Wikipedia]
We have more hindering (than helping) forces that are of our making that explain why we’re the regional laggard. We are starting below the ground, not above. And the more countries like Vietnam can zoom pass us, the more unlikely that we can progress as fast as we must as a nation.
Consider: What package of monetary and fiscal interventions will it take for us to generate over four times our current exports? That is how swiftly Vietnam surpassed us as an economy, as embarrassing as to how Samsung Vietnam outdistanced our eight top listed companies revenue-wise, combined. And how they drove the poverty rate down to a third of ours.
It is not rocket science, but the universal law of cause and effect. Sadly, it’s in one ear and out the other. How many times, especially us baby boomers growing up as Catholics, have we heard that it is not about giving fish but teaching people how to fish?
Yet, successful as we are in our respective callings, we are not predisposed to question long-held beliefs. And that is glaring in the case of the polarization of the American political system.
Consider: We’ve focused our efforts on addressing poverty. At the same time, Vietnam, borrowing from the playbook of our neighbors, kept driving their revenues, especially in the highly competitive and high-margin industry, i.e., technology manufacturing of consumer products.
Recall that in 2014, at both the Ateneo and UP economic briefings, the writer questioned the celebratory mood behind the mirage we called “manufacturing rebound”? See below why we study history.
Indeed, because of our consumption economy, principally driven by OFW remittances and BPO revenues as well as the global supply chain, we saw an uptick in manufacturing. Still, analytics demands forward-thinking.
It will take a generation for the Philippines to see the light at the end of the tunnel even at 6%-7% GDP growth rate. Yet, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel if we simply learn from our neighbors. But not if hubris gets in the way like a hindering force.
There is no free lunch. And losers like us have given friendly nations so much ground that we are too overwhelmed with challenges.
The welcome news is that humankind is hardy and robust, and that includes us.
That’s why we study history. “It is the study of change. The world is constantly changing, so understanding the role of change in society helps you interpret the world in its current state. History provides you with a firm grasp of why things change, the mechanisms driving change, and its significance.” [https://www.umultirank.org/study/history/]
Granted that in the age of Trump, there is revisionism – e.g., he compares himself to Churchill, who must be turning in his grave – we want to validate historical narratives.
Here’s something from a Filipino historian: “Students learn how to dig up primary sources online or from a physical library when they are allowed to open. More importantly, they must be able to compare the above with other sources to validate its reliability or truth. They should explain why they used one document over another not because of their personal biases, but by research and the practice of the historical method. Unlike the old way of ‘learning’ when rote memory of textbook and teacher lectures merited a high grade, this method provides the student with a sense of how historians do their work.” [Learning history from primary sources, Ambeth R. Ocampo, LOOKING BACK, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 3rd Jun 2020]
Be that as it may, we are where we are. We can’t just sit idly by when this universe is spinning 24/7. Whatever time it is where we are now, somewhere in the world is a happy hour or cocktail time.
How can Juan de la Cruz celebrate with our favorite cocktail drinks when he can’t even have water or electricity or an efficient public transportation system? But we can cover his rice and be the largest importer in the world. That is no different from our pathetic national per capita income and cover it with OFW remittances and BPO revenues.
“Isang kahig, isang tuka.” That is why we must be ahead of the curve. That is why we must forward-think.
If we are to overcome the forces that are hindering our progress, two things must happen. We fix those forces that are standing in the way and exploit those that are driving us forward.
Should we pause right there and ponder? For example: Where are we? Why are we here? Where should we be? If those vegetable seeds that we plant in our garden can grow and be our nourishment, what more for a people that produced a Jose Rizal?
Sadly, we now own the “Dutch disease.” We keep bragging about our forex reserves and lower debt levels blind to the reality that we owe it to over 10 million OFWs. We are not fixing the forces that are standing in the way.
And that means moving up from a service-consumption economy to an industrial-investment economy. For the longest time, we have relied on monetary and fiscal policies to pursue growth and development.
That’s why the world, including the West, was stunned when the Asian Tigers surpassed many of the wealthier countries in the developed world. Singapore is more competitive today than the US, for example. They figured out how to beat a Western system. And we can’t. Because our education system is from the West?
That’s why the blog brings it out a lot: Fortune 500 companies took matters into their own hands because the Western education system has many shortcomings.
For example, in the writer’s old MNC-company, they tapped resources to understand where the education system was. They then created an in-house curriculum better than a typical MBA, for example. But even more fundamental to the challenge is, how should learning be imparted?
Take leadership. For example, how is “leadership” developed? Or how should companies hire? And how does an organization get the best out of its talents? As necessary, how does an enterprise create a virtuous circle so that it thrives in the 21st century? And that challenge will not disappear despite the efforts described above.
Democracy and leadership are fundamental in this universe because they build on their dynamism. And here is where we struggle because the status quo is our security blanket. While it took ages to learn, human development taught humankind how to thrive in this very dynamic milieu.
And our value of hierarchy and paternalism – aka our caste system, i.e., static – has no place in that reality. We like to blame the isms while failing to recognize the log in the eye of Juan de la Cruz.
Where do we begin? How can this generation take matters into its own hands to understand where the education system is and create one that tracks and enhances human development – not undermine it? How do we move up from dualism or absolutism to relativism and recognize when we must question how we think?
But that is why rapid development is critical because of metacognition; it presupposes experience. That is why Singapore has surpassed the US in competitiveness.
Can we internalize the riots going on in America because of George Floyd? How come other countries followed suit? Recall we applauded extrajudicial killings because we supported the war on drugs? And because we love tyranny?
Recall “Cut and cut cleanly, Laxalt advises Marcos.” [And now we know the Marcos unexplained wealth remains unexplained.] It’s called American exceptionalism that Trump does not understand that he undercuts American credibility in spades. He says these people are thugs. There were as was Satan in the garden.
But Trump is tone-deaf to miss the import of the protests. Consider: He has the sword of Damocles over his head, given the number of cases he is yet to deal with, including when he steps down as president.
Unsurprisingly, he has divided even the Republican Party given countless of them are higher up in human development. At the same time, Trump represents the absolutist Padre Damaso to miss the reality of Satan.
In fairness, the 2008 Global Recession’s greed reflects America’s decline despite the collapse of the Soviet empire. And the populism that Trump rode makes it worse.
And Putin and Xi can only celebrate.
Consider: Three wealthy nations keep the three most massive US military presence outside America: Japan, Germany, and South Korea. Has any of them lost the respect of the world?
But because Merkel was the first to beg off from the G7 meeting to be hosted by Trump, he wants to reduce the US military presence in Germany. Putin can’t hide his glee. He wore a long face after the Baltic states hosted NATO, and despite Trump’s offer of a “quid pro quo,” Ukraine got their piece. Recall Trump wants a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Then consider what is happening to Hong Kong. Between the West Philippine Sea and Hong Kong, how much ground has China now got covered?
Recall what the blog has raised. Perfection is not of this world, as Eden demonstrated. Yet, the universal law of divine oneness does not disappear like cause and effect. We will always need to reach across the seas as our forebears did via the barter trade, for example, and we better recognize where “oneness” as in the rule of law is valued as opposed to tyranny.
We are toddlers compared to the Americans in living out the ethos of democracy. There is no free lunch. If the Americans have their work cut out for them, so do we – and in spades.
And are we going to embrace this teachable moment? That democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
It’s called personal responsibility. We can be comfortably ensconced in our world, but there is no such thing. Recall the universal law of “divine oneness.”
It is beyond Franciscan theology. Recall the photosynthesis phenomenon. We are born to thrive in this universe.
And our neighbors are showing us how. We can’t be behind the curve in a world that history tells us is “constantly” changing.
Gising bayan!
“True social reform has little to do with politics. To unmoor ourselves from the burdens of the past, we must be engaged in the act of continual and conscious self-renewal. All men are partially buried in the grave of custom. Even virtue is no longer such if it is stagnant.
“Change begins when we finally choose to examine critically and then recalibrate the ill-serving codes and conventions handed down to us, often unquestioned, by the past and its power structures. It is essentially an act of imagination first.” [David Henry Thoreau; American essayist, poet, and philosopher; 1817-1862]
“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]
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