Recognizing our prism

The world is agog – once again – of American-style democracy. That America can turn on a dime inspires the better angels in people.

Indeed, memories fade – and they disappear quickly – given how the world embraced the unspoken schadenfreude, with China on track to become the largest world economy.

And that we in the Philippines welcomed – and turned our back to America – the overtures of China despite its “nine-dash line claim and accompanying claims to historic rights having no validity under international law.”

Of course, we later hedged on the VFA. We also looked at better trade relations with Russia. In other words, we signaled that America is now an afterthought. 

Yet, the world can learn from the Americans. But it is not a cakewalk because democracy presupposes self-government. And it translates to personal responsibility to pursue the common good.

It means within the enterprise; people must subordinate their instincts to that of the nation at large. The crab mentality is a no-no. That is why the Preamble of the US Constitution sets a very high bar, “to form a more perfect Union.”

And given Trump appealed to the extreme far-right of the population, he failed to re-elect despite their number.

In a focus group, “swing voters that used to support Trump say he should never hold office again.” [Axios] That must be why pillars of the conservative wing organized themselves into the Lincoln Project and campaigned against Trump. 

Moreover, self-government must be manageable, and that is why it is also a representative government, as in institutions. And it connotes the imperative of leadership. But that is where Juan de la Cruz falls flat on his face.

Leadership is not the value of hierarchy and paternalism – which implies abdication – as in there is no free lunch.

Hierarchy and paternalism shun transparency and integrity. Scratch my back, and I will scratch yours. And why corruption cum a culture of impunity defines us.

Still, the reality is American democracy – and free enterprise – is too far-advanced for us Filipinos to establish as our benchmark. There are 156 years between Biden and Lincoln. 

That is why the blog keeps speaking to our neighbors, starting with the Asian Tigers, then China, and most recently, Vietnam.

But why can’t we focus on our neighbors? Put another way, how do we recognize our prism to establish the right model in our efforts to move the Philippines forward?

Recall our instincts: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity. Yet, this administration can't figure out why poverty persists, manifested by the drug menace and insurgency.

On the other hand, our neighbors demonstrated that Western-style democracy is not a perfect model and can be improved. And the world applauded as they showed what economic miracles are. Translation: poverty, drugs, and insurgency are foreign to them.

But we like to believe we know the Western model better than our neighbors that we didn’t bother to figure out how they traversed poverty to prosperity. 

And that is another of our failings. We are the regional laggard.

Despite our Western orientation, our prism is that of a failing economy. Translation: Our underdevelopment limits our world view. In other words, we never ask ourselves, how do we benchmark?

Enter neuroscience. It is called confirmation bias. Given our Western orientation, we assumed we know how to drive the economy, i.e., via a service-consumption economy. Look at New York, once a haven of manufacturing, is now a service economy.

And we also know what export-processing zones are – and we have them.

There go our strings of failings.

From Japan – with their Japan Inc. – all the way to Vietnam, our neighbors are among the world’s top exporters.

That is why the blog speaks to benchmarking our development efforts against (a) our neighbors’ export-orientation (b) supported by the requisite ecosystem, with the Pearl River Delta economic zone as the best-practice model.

But how do we overcome the confirmation bias? Simply put, we must study the export prowess of these neighbors and the magic of Pearl River Delta with an unfrozen mind – or if we want to be biblical about it, as innocent as a child.

For example, our think tanks – in support of our economic managers and legislators – must proclaim that they studied these neighbors to the nth degree that we know about their efforts more than they do.

Why is that important? If we are to be better than the competition, we must know more about them than they do. That is practitioner-speak, not academic-speak. 

Beyond fiscal and monetary interventions, we can have a mental model that mirrors an ecosystem’s gold standard, the photosynthesis phenomenon.

Gising bayan!