Raising the bar ten-fold . . .

The writer grew up in the inner city of Manila when ancestral lands were being subdivided – and neighborhood streets were being laid out. And houses had to be literally lifted and moved inside their respective boundaries. And as a little boy the writer saw ‘bayanihan’ in action! That was how folks called it – from the root word ‘bayani’, which literally means hero. He was in awe as their tiny chalet was lifted and carried by the shoulders of the volunteers. With his maternal grandparents’ house, more volunteers came – and they needed steel rollers to move it. And sensing what was to happen he hid from everyone, climbed the back stairs for the joyride.

He now realizes where we missed respect for easement rules, for instance. Whether the family knew about them, the writer would not know. But then, it explains why beyond population growth we have made Metro Manila utterly dense – and not environment- nor traffic- or pedestrian-friendly? It requires rules and respect for these rules – discipline, in other words, to address our fundamental challenges? The writer remembers the builder coming to explain to the wife that there would be one less step to the front door in order for the height of the house they were building to be in compliance with village rules. She was not a happy camper – but it is when we take these ‘little things’ for granted that we add fuel to the fire of corruption – and underdevelopment? A cousin related how in a major urban center she had to deal with fire department inspectors because their building was ‘not exactly in compliance’ – but then again, that is our culture: ‘this is my property I can do whatever I please?’

We’re not ready to institute something as fundamental as queuing at a bus stop until Marcos had to follow up his martial rule with the ‘new society’? We always get what we deserve? ‘We’re not ready’ is a convenient excuse? We’re not ready to raise the bar 10-fold for us to be a developed economy? It is a journey but unless we start somewhere we would not be ready – ad infinitum? We’re economic laggards not because of destiny? The open skies policy would remain controversial – and we would be unable to move forward in agribusiness or mining – for that matter, if we don’t call upon our ‘bayanihan’ spirit? It’s not a tiny chalet we’re moving, it’s a huge real estate populated by close to 100 million Filipinos? But who cares – to join hands, be shoulder to shoulder, and carry our yoke to raise the bar 10-fold? We can’t be little kids still simply in for the joyride? Investing in technology and innovation, and talents, products and markets, and developing our competitiveness is no joyride? But to be frozen in time – perpetuating the cacique culture – is such a joyride, on the shoulders of 10 million heroes, a.k.a. OFWs?

We can’t build a broad-based economy if we keep to a very low bar – in every key facet of our life as a nation, from the soft elements of power and authority and insidious corruption to the hard elements of our natural resources? And it appears that the common denominator is our “culture, current knowledge and values, [and] attitudes” as a people? Reports the Business Mirror, Apr 16^th, [Given] “the unabated degradation of the country’s natural ecosystems . . . [and] if government would just opt for the conventional Band-Aid approach, in the next 20 or 30 years, everything will be physically the same, if not worse, compared to where the country is now . . . In fact just for reforestation alone, more than $1 billion is needed to reforest the degraded areas in country . . . We cannot just pour in money into the uplands without looking to the culture, current knowledge and values, [and] attitudes of the people. That’s why this is a long-term program . . . In the early 1900s it was estimated that 70 percent of the country was covered with 21 million hectares of forests. Today only around 7 million hectares of forests remain, or 18.3 percent. In the last century alone, the country lost almost 15 million hectares of tropical forests . . .” Have we conceded that the next generation – and beyond – would be like ours?

Next door, the Indonesian BOI Chairman expects his kids to export high value-added products instead of simply digging and exporting coal like his generation is doing. They’ve been working hard the last 6 years: benchmarking and pushing for higher rice production and steel utilization . . . towards industrialization; while incarcerating hundreds in their fight against corruption. And they find inspiration in the Hong Kong story – where they worked hard over 30 years to overcome the scourge!