A culture of impunity

Ciel Habito asked, Are Filipinos too selfish? Let’s hold the thought and run through some of the more recent articles in the media.

Here goes: (1) Every Panganiban sugar landing can fetch a life term; (2) Death by ‘elected position’; (3) The best way to stop ICC; (4) The Leila de Lima conundrum and a compromise; (5) Get “tough,” Mr. President.

In the meantime, we don’t run out of prescriptions, e.g., (1) PHL agri tech deficit found to have widened after modernization law; (2) Jeepney modernization; (3) Playing around with trains, gov’t afflicts commuters; (4) Bad Banker; (4) Cooperatives; (5) Labor welfare; (6) Revenue Oriented Teaching Courses; (7) Water.

Are Filipinos too selfish? But why?

Our culture of impunity is the outcome of our caste system and instincts. How? The two things we nurture and perpetuate are “privilege and entitlement.” And one comes with the other. Those high in the hierarchy enjoy rank as its privilege, including rent-seeking, if not incompetence. And those lower are entitled – to paternalism.

The bottom line: We are in on a sprint in our race to the bottom.

The evidence? Because of privilege and entitlement, we value the “trivial many” instead of the “vital few.” And that brings us farther away from and, of course, in our journey from poverty to prosperity. Our economists must know better. Pareto is the earliest known econometric model.

And our economic managers know the “present value” concept, that time is gold because of the compounding effect. Yet, we keep recycling them despite their adherence to “insanity” – the only reason we have been growing at the 6%-7% GDP metric is because of Juan de la Cruz, the over $50 billion he brings in from remittances and the BPO revenues. Neither is a creation of our economy. It is the outcome of “pwede na ‘yan.”

Recall that I disagreed when our economic managers and economist celebrated a “manufacturing uptick” in 2014. See below; “focus” is three-dimensional.

And the more glaring evidence is the millions upon millions of hungry and poverty-suffering Filipinos. See above; some of the more recent articles in the media and our non-stop prescription offers.

Consider: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy; ours is a culture of impunity.

“Unpatriotic acts don’t only come from criminals, but also from bureaucrats in the national and local governments who seem to delight in throwing as many hurdles as they can in the way of getting something from the government.

“In the 1990s, a visiting delegation from Harvard Medical School was here to scout for an institutional partner for a Harvard teaching hospital and must have recognized Filipino medical practitioners as among the best in the world. Thus, our country seemed a logical place to establish its brand in Asia.

“Months later, I learned we lost them to Singapore, which rolled out the red carpet and even offered building space. I could only shake my head in dismay. They supposedly got turned off that among the first questions they consistently faced in their meetings here was “What's in it for me/us?” [Habito, op. cit.]

Recall that AIM came about in 1968 in partnership with Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, Harvard Business School, the Ford Foundation, and visionaries of the Asian academic and business communities. [Wikipedia]

Question: Where is AIM today? But what’s in it for me/us? Let’s “Filipinize” the faculty, including the GMAT; the latter is too expensive for Juan de la Cruz.

In other words, Juan de la Cruz, the local and national government bureaucrat, and professionals like physicians and educators can succumb to “what’s in it for me.”

Are we surprised farmers can’t succeed in organizing and running cooperatives? What about modernizing agriculture or the jeepney? What’s in it for me? Or think of the Marcos family, the Arroyo family, or the Estrada family. You can add more names.

Let’s hold it right there. 

As Ciel Habito rightly put it, agriculture must be productive, competitive, and profitable. In other words, we must determine the “vital few” farm products that will lend themselves to productivity, competitiveness, and profitability.

That’s why the blog keeps hammering the “vital few.” We must learn to prioritize, not succumb to the crab mentality.

For example, Axelum identified the portfolio of industrial and consumer products that command healthy margins that respond to human needs, especially in the US and other continents.

That means there is a market that we can penetrate and attract economies of scale. Coconuts are a great example because we are the second largest producers.

That premise will dictate whether we want to compete aggressively in agriculture. Our challenge is beyond paternalism and poverty. It is about innovation and global competitiveness. That is how our neighbors became first-world economies. And their people became wealthier than Juan de la Cruz.

And the North Star for Juan de la Cruz is exports of $200 billion teed up by the Ang Bulacan initiative. Beyond the Bulacan airport is an ecozone that will generate said export revenues. For example, we can replicate the Axelum model in Bulacan.

And agribusiness is a subset of nirvana, aka industrialization.

Those who read the blog may remember my first caveat to Eastern Europeans. Freedom, democracy, and the free market are not about rules but principles. They wanted to be the best in the business and toss the socialism they knew. And that’s how they give Westerner global behemoths a run for their money, i.e., learning by doing, guided by the above caveat.

Here’s a quote from an earlier posting. “Yoda: Your focus is your world. However, “focus” is not one-dimensional, as in binary thinking. It is three-dimensional among those who excel especially great leaders. And they are inner, other, and outer.

“In other words, in the case of Juan de la Cruz, inner means knowing himself as in self-awareness. But because “no man is an island,” he must also know his neighbors – i.e., other. Moreover, he can’t ignore that we are a subset of this universe – i.e., outer.

“Some science comes in for those keen to read up on neuroscience. For example, inspiring leaders assessed on a brain measure of “coherence” – the degree to which circuits within a region interconnect and coordinate their activity – showed a high level of coherence in this vital inner and another awareness area. The specific “region” was in the prefrontal area of the right side of the brain. [Focus: The hidden driver of excellence, Daniel Goleman; Harper]

“On the other hand, the dots connect amongst (a) freedom, democracy, and the free market; (b) the 3Cs of the hardy mindset: challenge, commitment, and control; (c) democracy is the mirror image of Christianity – the imperative of the personal responsibility in pursuing the common good; and (d) the elements of cognitive development – i.e., that beyond binary thinking are multiplicity and relativism – the imperative of context.’

The bottom line: We won’t establish a working and functional democracy if we can’t embrace that democracy is the mirror image of Christianity – the imperative of personal responsibility in pursuing the common good.

Even our worldview is a function of the embrace of our caste system.

The evidence? Our instincts tell us that the West is arrogant, i.e., they don’t dispense paternalism, so we would rather lionize autocratic nations like China and Russia. And now Iran and Saudi Arabia. See above; democracy is the mirror image of Christianity.

Ciel Habito asked, Are Filipinos too selfish? Let’s hold the thought and run through some of the more recent articles in the media.

Are Filipinos too selfish? But why?

Our culture of impunity is the outcome of our caste system and instincts.

Gising bayan!