“We (at UPLB) were part of the problem. UPLB must build strength in the long-undervalued social sciences — economics, sociology, psychology, and anthropology included — and their crucial application to agricultural policy and governance.” [“Great man, great ideas;” Cielito F. Habito, NO FREE LUNCH, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 9th Mar 2021]
In other words, nation-building is not one-dimensional. On the other hand, Pinoy abilidad is. Worse, it is shortsighted yet assumes the primacy of logic.
In fairness, it comes from a reactive instinct. But that is why we need a serious national examination of conscience.
While our neighbors have left us behind, we must recognize why they keep pushing us down the abyss. And social science tells us why. Because of their experience in traversing poverty to prosperity, their cognitive development is far-advanced than ours. They are beyond binary thinking – as in Pinoy abilidad – and into relativism.
Let’s pause right there so that we can dig even more profound.
Recall how the blog keeps raising 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.
In other words, our caste system can explain a big chunk of our reality.
We call it destiny when it’s the absence of dynamism. And so, we can’t internalize social mobility. Recall how Filipino chess phenom – Wesley So – explains why he left the Philippines and opted to be an American. “I don't have the connection back home. I am from the province.” Translation: America, despite its flaws, offers an even playing field.
On the other hand, think of why the US is sinking in the democracy index. The American caste system has reared its ugly head. That is why a couple of times, the blog raised the “Southern strategy” – a Republican Party electoral strategy to increase political support among white voters in the South by appealing to racism against African Americans. [Wikipedia]
In fairness, both political parties have succumbed to tribalism and no longer recognize the imperative of personal responsibility to pursue the common good. Recall why I have no respect for US politics and, except for the recent presidential election, never exercised the right to vote. It is to protest and demonstrate my rejection of a disaster waiting to happen.
In other words, I don’t have to buy everything American. See above; cognitive development, i.e., the nuances between dualism and relativism.
But let’s get back to the Philippines.
We cannot use the Constitution as a crutch to rationalize our inability to move this nation forward.
Let’s start with political patronage and oligarchy. Disclosure: I worked for eight years in one Philippine oligarchy. It is easy to rationalize that they mean well. But it is clear how much influence they exert – and how they can undermine the rule of law. For example, then-Senator Manny Villar admitted that our failure to eliminate the Constitution’s restrictive economic provisions comes from this influence.
But have we learned the lesson? Why does the blog keep raising that our eight top companies – combined – cannot even match one Vietnam enterprise’s economic contribution? We’re talking about Vietnam, not one of the Asian Tigers.
Yet, our media cannot promote any other subject but these top companies. How parochial and insular can we be?
Sadly, because of political patronage and oligarchy – two sides of the same coin – corruption has morphed into impunity.
How much insanity are we yet to demonstrate? Did we not sing hosanna to elect Duterte? Did he eliminate political patronage and corruption? No one person can do that. It has to come from Juan de la Cruz.
And media is a good starting point. Why is the blog, despite 12 years of falling on deaf ears, still around? Of course, I am ten thousand miles away and freer to speak truth to power. But we have to start somewhere.
And I am delighted of the acknowledgment that “We (at UPLB) were part of the problem.”
Let’s pause once more and ponder.
Because of our value of paternalism, overcoming poverty has become our be-all and end-all. Yet, our track record is dismal. Despite the IRRI being in our backyard, we import rice – that Vietnam is exporting. Again, we’re talking of Vietnam, one of the most impoverished countries until very recently.
Vietnam, unlike the Philippines, can forward-think and visualize traversing poverty to prosperity. And it is not new. The Asian Tigers did it, and so did China.
And the lessons from these neighbors aren’t rocket science. “Beg for Western money and technology,” said Lee and Mahathir to Deng.
And the most recent example is Samsung Vietnam. To add insult to injury, they are adding Apple AirPods.
And our response? A slew of legislation, but they don’t hit the nail on the head.
Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize.
Why can’t we? We like to discuss economics, and one very fundamental element of economics is the scarcity of resources. Not even America is exempt from the reality.
But the crab mentality comes hand in glove with our caste system. We value hierarchy on the expectations of paternalism.
In other words, none of the initiatives we proudly pursued contributed to nation-building, from the comprehensive agrarian reform to the coconut subsidies to promoting the OFW phenomenon and the BPO industry.
They smack of Pinoy abilidad – shortsighted yet assumes the primacy of logic.
If Vietnam can rapidly create an economic miracle, why don’t we replicate their Samsung Vietnam initiative, given our exports are in the same product category? That is why the blog has repeatedly discussed winning over Apple AirPods.
And that means we need to fine-tune legislative efforts to ensure we indeed bring Apple AirPods to the Philippines.
Policy-making does not have to be driven by managing averages. That is socialistic. That is why there is Pareto, to get the biggest bang for the buck. We must design incentives to win against our neighbors, not to contain norms. And not be in a race to the bottom as the crab mentality demonstrated to Juan de la Cruz. It’s called suboptimization, not rocket science.
Still, nation-building cannot be one-dimensional. For example, China has the distinction of creating the most successful economic development project in the Pearl River Delta. We must replicate that effort.
We cannot simply be ensconced in our version of an ecozone.
If we continue to look beyond our shores, there is another challenge we must learn to address.
But that is why we need a national examination of conscience. Pinoy abilidad tells us that China is now the biggest economy and must be in bed with them.
Again, that is shortsighted. If we are genuinely freedom-loving people, we want to partner with like people. Think of the “Quad” nations of the US, India, Japan, and Australia.
And these nations can use our location to promote their noble cause in the region. That is why the blog has raised the advantages offered by Subic Bay.
Consider cognitive development again. The “Quad” nations are not declaring war against China. They want to demonstrate that freedom-loving people can come together. On the other hand, they all do business with China. But they won’t accept everything Chinese – as in I don’t buy everything American.
And there are many examples. Vietnam’s communist party and China’s are friends, yet the former chose to partner with America despite the Vietnam war and opened their economy to foreign investment.
Or think of how Hong Kong people are separating themselves from China despite their Chinese blood and heritage. Or why the Ukrainians turned their backs to the Russians and embraced the West.
And just as Singapore and the Asian Tigers did not lose sovereignty in their pursuit of Western money and technology, the Vietnamese moved up from binary thinking to relativism – aka cognitive development.
As those familiar with the blog may recall, I have done business in these countries, and friends shared these sentiments, if not their world views.
But then again, we Filipinos must learn to be self-critical and overcome 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.
While our neighbors have left us behind, we must recognize why they keep pushing us down the abyss. And social science tells us why. Because of their experience in traversing poverty to prosperity, their cognitive development is far-advanced than ours. They are beyond binary thinking – as in Pinoy abilidad – and into relativism.
Let’s pause right there so that we can dig even more profound.
We cannot embrace “Que sera, sera” any longer. This century moves beyond warp speed, courtesy of the millennials — confirming this universe’s dynamic character. And if we can’t internalize our predicament, Juan de la Cruz’s plight will worsen.
The blog has repeatedly discussed Kurt Lewin’s force field theory. “Force Field Analysis was created by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s. Lewin initially used it in his work as a social psychologist. Today, however, it is also used in business for making and communicating go/no-go decisions.
“The idea behind Force Field Analysis is that situations are outcomes of equilibrium between forces that drive change and others that resist change. For change to happen, exploit the driving forces, or strengthen the restraining forces.” [https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_06.htm]
Surprise, surprise; I did not learn the model overseas; I knew it in the Philippines and employed it for decades globally and will explain how I ushered change in my old MNC-company and helped my Eastern European friends.
The blog also speaks to my experience in Big data and analytics. They are the quantitative tools that must come with the social tools. And the range of applications is limitless – from changing the planning and budgeting model of a 200-year-old MNC to embarking on restructuring initiatives to pursuing innovation outside the company’s technology center to becoming a dominant global brand and reaching close to 70 percent global household, never attained by any other consumer-packaged brand to enabling an MSME in the poorest country in Eastern Europe to be recognized by the EU as a model to becoming giant killers in an industry dominated by Western behemoths.
If we apply Lewin’s model to the Philippine predicament, if it is not apparent yet, the forces restraining our development efforts are a product of our instincts – best described by our caste system.
How do we overcome them? Stop relying on political patronage and oligarchy.
But it presupposes tossing parochialism and insularity and the crab mentality. We can then learn to forward-think and recognize that turning poverty into prosperity is not out of this world. It is only so because our world is so minuscule that we defined it as poverty.
And that what we need is paternalism that we can draw from political patronage and oligarchy.
Are we from an ancient world?
Gising bayan!
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