Overcome “Pinoy Kasi” or perish

“No new laws, such as the creation of a separate disaster management department or yet another task force, will make much difference without, for starters, the necessary competence and will to implement critical plans to completion.

“The Commission on Audit (COA) has a pertinent reminder on this in a recent report: Flooding in the metro could have been prevented, or at least mitigated, had the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) completed crucial flood-control projects planned for 2018 and 2019.

“In 2012, its annual audit report noted that the MMDA—whose mandate includes the formulation and implementation of policies and programs for an integrated metro-wide flood control system—completed more than 80 percent of flood-control projects only in the third and fourth quarters of that year. That defeated its purpose: mitigate and prevent the damage from the heavy rains.

“The COA recommends that procurement for flood-control projects be done by the first quarter before the start of the rainy season from June to November.” [Hold MMDA to account, EDITORIAL, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 22nd Nov 2020]

The above Editorial raised the challenge of basic competence and will to implement critical plans to completion.

What else is new?

Enter: Behavioral economics. “Very little can surprise me anymore. But perhaps the most surprising is that many people, particularly economists, believe that we are perfectly rational. The interesting thing about economics is that it has become the main guiding principle for policymakers, lawmakers, and businesses.

“My hope for the kind of work I do, and for behavioral economics in general, is that by augmenting standard economics, it could help design better policies that work with what people can compute and the ways they reason.

“In particular, I think that this approach in behavioral economics can have a substantial impact on savings, health care, and a tendency to engage in risky behaviors. What motivates me the most is trying to take what we’ve learned from cognitive psychology and apply it to real-world problems to improve the way we live. 

“To remain aware of our irrationality. That is easier in situations where we have a history of acting irrationally.” [The Science of Irrationality: Why We Humans Behave So Strangely; Dan Ariely, scientificameric.com, 21st May 2008; Ariely is a behavioral economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of the best-selling book, Predictably Irrational]

Those familiar with the blog may recall it discussed the book, Thinking Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman. A Princeton University psychologist, he won the Nobel prize in economic sciences in 2002 “for bridging economics and psychology.”

And he reinforces the following points (a) “2 systems determine your behavior in your mind – one conscious and the other automatic, (b) Your brain is lazy and causes you to make intellectual errors, (c) When you’re making money decisions, leave your emotions at home.”

But let’s get back to Dan Ariely and his examples on behavioral economics’ impact on personal savings and health care.

Like countless US companies, his old MNC-company has the 401-K or savings and investment plan for employees to invest in the market that they can draw down upon retirement. To be guaranteed retirement health insurance, they instituted a program where employees pay the insurance over ten years.

Here’s another disclosure: The writer’s interest in economics and psychology came from his private-sector practitioner experience. It evolved rapidly at first but a mere sliver of the challenge he was continually figuring out.

His first job, which was all of ten months, made him realize what it feels to be at the bottom of the hierarchy. Thankfully, on the next one, he was given the task of creating a function in a young company, i.e., what we know today as “shared services.” He hired three subordinates to manage different areas, and one of them he called “Systems.”

It was before the age of IT. It was the “big box” era from IBM, and Phil Am Life had one of the largest. His stock in the industry had risen after people learned he turned down the job of a programmer. It was a career unknown to him. And he may have made an irrational decision. He could have been in Silicon Valley instead of Park Avenue.

What did he learn while at the bottom of the heap? That information is power. He did not have it and was moving like a robot. That explains why he told his boss that the job was not for him in the sixth month, i.e., he wanted more challenges. He suggested for the writer to explore a programming career given the company had decided to computerize.

He passed the required tests and shown around the cubicles of the programmers. A stall was not his image of a promotion, but a real office. And that’s what he got on his next job. How irrational can that be?

Fast-forward to the present: He introduced his Eastern European friends to 21st-century innovation and global competitiveness. For example, their portfolio of products is world-class and, in specific cases, bested those from giants.

“The free enterprise system is not ‘rules but principles.’ It must satisfy the fundamentals of (a) human needs, (b) the common good, and (c) innovation – given the real world’s demands of sustainability and dynamism.

And so, he kept feeding them with principles instead of “rules and specific answers.” In the beginning, they were “angry” because they assumed that given the writer’s experience, he had answers for them.

But the “primacy of principles” is also why he was able to change the planning and budgeting system of a 200-year old Fortune 500 company – despite not being an accountant or a finance person. And today, he teaches big data and analytics to his Eastern European friends. 

“If you understand the principles, you can create your algorithms. And you can figure out whether to buy a business or not or when to sell one.“

Simple as it sounds, it demands forward-thinking. Because without forward-thinking, one is reduced to “analysis” and can fall into the trap of “analysis-paralysis” without first figuring out “the object of the exercise.”

Consider these simple parameters to figure out the object of the exercise: Where are we? Where do we want to be? How do we get there?

For example, we cannot keep brushing aside that we’re the regional laggard. In other words, while there will always be the low-hanging fruit that we must exploit, we have a structural problem. And we can’t take our eyes away from the ball.

Industrialize. Industrialize. Industrialize.

Yet, we can’t go it alone.

We must “beg for foreign money and technology” – as our neighbors did – and not let political patronage and oligarchy shut the rest of the world – and Juan de la Cruz – out.

We must traverse poverty to prosperity.

The Church can be a significant stumbling block when it stops at poverty – as the be-all and end-all. As the blog raises tirelessly, poverty is the effect of underdevelopment in the case of the Philippines.

The Church has to move beyond selling salvation in the afterlife as its reason for being. That is why the blog speaks to Franciscan theology. “The Kingdom of God is within you. The Kingdom of God is at hand.”

And it comes from the creation story that we are in the image and likeness of the creator – and that it is good.

And the sciences confirm that development is a dynamic phenomenon. Like the rest of humankind, we Filipinos need not be in a rut, in poverty. We can be prosperous as our neighbors demonstrated.

Prosperity is not exclusive to the West. That is why the writer has spent most of his retirement years with his Easter European friends, to help them overcome decades of tyranny and abject poverty.

We, in the East, are free to partake of these spoils.

But it presupposes harnessing our God-given talents and not let our brain stay lazy. [See above; behavioral economics.]

Sadly, our caste system adds fuel to the fire.

We in the elite class must be leading and showing the way to Juan de la Cruz. But why should we when the system benefits us?

It is the human condition, and that is why, even in the US, the caste system holds on the average Joe. And that is why the writer has no respect for US politics. 

Democracy demands self-government and personal responsibility in the pursuit of the common good. Recall the Two Great Commandments. It is not about being conservative or progressive.

If the Vatican cannot take on the minority view and remains wedded to tradition, what more Americans? They should have learned from the Gilded Age.

Sadly, in the 21st century, they are backsliding.

The change can come from the dynamism of the Americans.

For example, are the millennials doing a reprise of Woodstock?

“In the early morning hours of Monday, 18th Aug 1969, the Woodstock weekend concluded spectacularly with Jimi Hendrix’s performance. Hendrix played for nearly two hours – the most extended set of his career.

“Forty-five minutes into his set, Hendrix broke into his rendition of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ injecting the national anthem with new meaning for a new generation. 

“The guitarist performed his most famous solo, channeling the atmosphere of beauty and love amid anger and aggression that defined the culturally-tumultuous era.  

“You can hear the Air Force dive bombers staking their lives for the country in Vietnam through Jimi’s whammy bar dives.

“You can feel the mourning of American mothers and fathers in the fragments of military funeral hymnal ‘Taps’ he added near the song’s end. You can hear the nation’s chaos in the atonal distortion.

“And you can hear the hope shine through as Hendrix hits the anthem’s final notes with optimistic purpose.

“The concert officially closed with comments by stage announcer Chip Monck, imploring the stragglers to grab a plastic bag and help clean up–to do ‘anything you can do to give us a hand to leave this area somewhat the way we found it. I don’t think it will ever be quite the same.’

“Everyone dropped their defenses and became a huge extended family. Joining together, getting into the music and each other, being part of so many people when calamity struck – the traffic jams, the rainstorms – was a life-changing experience. 

“None of the problems damaged our spirit; in fact, they drew us closer. We recognized one another for what we were at the core – as brothers and sisters, and we embraced one another in that knowledge. 

“Woodstock declared that a young generation could take on the issues of personal freedoms, stopping an unjust war, creating respect for the planet, and work for human rights. Woodstock showed that the world could be a better and more peaceful place, and that view keeps resonating.

“Because of Woodstock, we’re always aware that the issues we thought disappeared in the ‘60s will ever need attention. Like the Civil Rights Act, signed in 1964, we thought everyone’s right to vote is a given, but that issue needs attention now more than ever. We made much progress on the environment, but global warming and new forms of pollution are growing.

“There was a level of shared consciousness that occurred that weekend – that we need to stay involved and be sure that the next generation knows that it’s their turn to be involved.

“Despite the rain, lack of food, and limited sanitation, those at Woodstock found genuine respect, kindness, and unconditional acceptance of others. When eyewitnesses recall Woodstock’s memories, they seldom – if ever – linger on the drugs or the sex. What they do treasure are the three days of unity – chatting happily with local cops, or sharing oranges with strangers, or standing on a street corner handing out lollipops – the simple human dignity of sharing and caring. 

“The impact of the remarkable growth of the counterculture and social consciousness spawned in the 1960s would ebb and flow over the decades, in tandem with the ongoing seesaw of political viewpoints and national agendas across the nine presidential administrations since then.

“Woodstock vividly represents the intangible best qualities of the American experience. Apollo 11 demonstrated US achievement’s most tangible expression; Woodstock symbolized a new generation's possibilities and dreams – whether those dreams could be achieved or not.

“What Woodstock represented, and what it still represents today, is hope. Woodstock gave the hope that things could be different.

“Woodstock showed that people could take care of each other. For that reason alone, it reaffirmed our faith in people.” [“The Cultural History of Woodstock and a Message of Hope,” https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/172879]

We Filipinos may not have the dynamism of the Americans. But we must unlearn our instincts.

We must overcome “Pinoy Kasi” or perish.

Gising bayan!

“Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. And where freedom and its blessings are a reality for a minority and an illusion for the many. Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy, dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste. 

“But the fault was chiefly their own. Filipinos profess the love of country, but love themselves – individually – more.” [Ninoy Aquino, Foreign Affairs magazine, July 1968; Stanley Karnow, New York Times Magazine, “Cory Aquino’s Downhill Slide,” 19th Aug 1990.]

“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]

“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]

“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]

“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]