This generation is toast!

Consider this Editorial that countless must have read: “Reaching the academic top means fixing school problems from the ground up.”

Is education the problem, or are we – this generation is – the problem?

Education in a country is an expression of its culture. Education did sprout out of a vacuum.

Every challenge we face, our impulse is to talk mechanics or the “how-to.” For example, we offer up strategic planning as an elixir. Think of Arangkada and the scores of industry road maps we proudly created.

Similarly, we like to dissect and do “analysis.” 

Those familiar with the blog may recall I did strategy in a Fortune 500. And it demands strategic thinking beyond jumping into the mechanics. 

And beyond “analysis” is “analytics.” In both cases, the imperative is forward-thinking. And that is where the untrained can fall flat on their face. For example, why can’t we overcome the “crab mentality”? Because we can’t figure out the “vital few” from the “trivial many.” Or what the “drivers” are versus the “enablers.”

What to do? 

We justify our fate and point the finger at the West because of their outsized influence in the global community. Indeed, they failed in that sense.

Yet, we betray our misunderstanding of what “community” is, including the global community.

A community is the product of individuals coming together for the common good. There is no free lunch.

Sadly, our instincts – aka the caste system – are the prism that informs our worldview. We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy; ours is a culture of impunity.

Unsurprisingly, do we take our instincts for granted that we don’t even know who Juan de la Cruz is?

In other words, we measure everything by individual achievements that only make us proud.

How can we crow about political patronage and oligarchy? But that’s why we misplaced our values. For example, our value of hierarchy comes with our value of paternalism. And the latter undermines personal responsibility. In other words, they reinforce each other.

Translation: In the community at large, the common good is supreme. And that is our biggest failing.

The good news is that we’re not alone. Even America, the world’s acknowledged measure of freedom and democracy, has dropped the ball.

Let’s assess the assertion again – and it is not a new theme dissected by the blog.

Our parochialism and insularity are beyond the pale. Unlike our neighbors, we never outgrew an inward-looking bias.

How? We can’t fathom the reality demonstrated by these neighbors. They begged for Western money and technology.

While we celebrated oligarchy and the handful of dollar billionaires we created, and worse, to undermine personal responsibility, we nurtured paternalism.

In other words, we respect hierarchy because it comes with the value of paternalism.

And so, we proudly pursued poverty alleviation efforts in conjunction with employment generation.

In the process, we institutionalized our “crab mentality.”

Translation: We, including our economic managers, touted efforts that propagated the “trivial many” while undermining the “vital few.” Pareto is foreign to us!

And that explains why we failed miserably both in agriculture and industrialization.

Sadly, we can’t look at ourselves in the mirror. And the Philippine elite and chattering classes won’t own up to our failings.

Instead, we like to dwell on the failings of the global community.

What to do?

There is no free lunch. Underdeveloped as we are as an economy and nation, we have the onus to put our own house in order. It’s called “personal responsibility” – in the global community context.

That’s why the blog never tires of speaking to the efforts of my Eastern European friends.

They could have pointed to the decades under Soviet rule that turned them into the poorest country in Europe.

Yet, over the last nineteen years, they have achieved something beyond a flash in the pan – because it has endured.

While the wife and I have been in Eastern Europe since April of 2022, we took holidays because I was confident they no longer need my hand-holding – their training wheel.

“I cannot teach you better than your experience.” That was the message I gave when they asked me to do a session in “crisis management.”

In case they took them for granted, I recalled the success stories under their belt. “You have gained an enviable depth of experience over the years.” Over 30 of the senior managers listened to me. Yet, they didn’t expect that I would call on specific individuals to narrate the details of these success stories.

In turn, I challenged them to be a one-billion-dollar company. “You were less than a ten-million-dollar company and unprofitable for eight years, yet you over-delivered beyond the challenge to be a one-hundred-million-dollar company.”

For example, despite the war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian business is up 32% year-to-date. And Poland, supporting the Ukrainians against the Russian invasion, is doing better with sales of 67% over last year. And in the West, Germany’s business is ahead of the prior year by 39%. And all three countries deliver double-digit profitability.

And in the Americas, Latin America’s business is 69% up, and the US is ahead by 44%.

But what about the bigger world? They also asked me to launch the company’s “sustainability” – or green – initiative.

And the message was, “Ours is a simple business. We make things and sell things. We must prioritize sustainability efforts to give us the biggest bang for the buck and a competitive advantage in our products. And to do the same in making these products and in the factories where we make them. And to optimize the efforts, we must partner with third-party providers, e.g., raw and packing materials and trade partners. That will ensure that the initiatives are extensive yet relevant – and benefit all stakeholders.

Let’s get back to the Philippines.

I again call on Philippine industry leaders like Messrs. Ang and Dominguez to lead the effort to replicate the success of Vietnam to lure Samsung and Apple, making Vietnam the latest Asian Tiger.

In other words, we must fight our “crab mentality” and aggressively pursue the “vital few.” We now know that putting up over 300 export processing zones is not the answer to our poverty.

For the last time, we must recognize that our academic bag of tricks is not up to the task demanded by the real world. It is the real world. We learn from experience.

Editorial: “Reaching the academic top means fixing school problems from the ground up.”

Is education the problem, or are we – this generation is – the problem?

Education in a country is an expression of its culture. Education did sprout out of a vacuum.

What to do?

We justify our fate and point the finger at the West because of their outsized influence in the global community. Indeed, they failed in that sense.

Yet, we betray our misunderstanding of what “community” is, including the global community.

A community is the product of individuals coming together for the common good. There is no free lunch.

Gising bayan!