Zen and the Art of Filipino Character Maintenance

It has been observed that Filipinos seem to live in the now, a wholly admirably quality of you have read "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle or are into Zen Buddhism. But it does make for a rather chaotic and reactive style.

Face it, planning ahead is not  commonly or skillfully done here. In the context of a prior blog, that's why taking a 2% excise tax on ore dug out by foreign miners seems like a good deal.  The 2% looks sweet compared to nothing.  Nevermind that a Philippine company, digging the same ore, would pay 13% in income taxes on it. Plus pay dividends. Plus reinvest profits to build more mines.

 It's a lot of work and time to get a Philippine mining company up and running. So many obstacle, so troublesome. So take the money that is available today.  Focus on the now.

"Ohmmmmmmmmmm . . ."

Not a care in the world about future generations. Never a thought about how precious minerals are. They are here, then gone. They aren't like trees at all, or rice that you can plant three times a year.

What's with this lapse of extended thinking?

I'd opine that it is not just a limitation in time. It is a limitation in space, too.

Take Enrile's million peso Christmas bonus to senators. It follows the laws. Sentors are top leaders and they should be well paid. So what's the problem?

"Ohmmmmmmmmmmm . . ."

The problem is the insensitivity it projects to poor people. That is what I mean by limited thinking, spatially. The traditional Filipino mind seems relentlessly unable to comprehend that others exist and have needs and feelings. That a healthy community demands the emotional well-being of a whole population. It is not simply a collection of individuals, each empowered to neglect the other.

"Ohmmmmmmmmmm . . ."

Enrile's gift, plain and simple, was insensitive.

So I view these limitations together.

• One, in time, the lack of accomplishment at thinking forward.

• Two, in space, the lack of accomplishment at thinking of the community of others.

So traditional Filipinos are indeed Zen, eh? Very focused, not only on the now, but on the self. Like a single point of light upon which to meditate and center life.

"Ohmmmmmmmmmm . . ."

Now before manualbuencamino comes at me with his hatchet, or GabbyD with his axe, I'd better hunt for a Filipino reference so they know I am not making this stuff up. So that readers know I am not racist or culturally bigoted.

I found a good one. The best, actually: Felipe M. De Leon Jr., Chairman of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

Professor De Leon* wrote an article on July 29, 2011 posted in the "infocus" publication of the National Commission for Cultural and the Arts. It is entitled "Culture in Development".

Here are some excerpts interspersed with my interpretive remarks, or elaborations, as it pertains to the subject at hand. JoeAm says look within. Professor De Leon says:

• A developing country should not look for the image of its own future in so-called developed countries, but in its own culture and ecology.

Hmmm, a reader just made the same point. Culture is distinct and should be appreciated for its distinctive qualities, not forced to fit into the box of critics. The good professor illustrates why this is important to the Philippines as it strives for development and greater wealth:

• All  models of development are essentially cultural. . . . Cultural identity is the fundamental source of social empowerment. Rob a people of their identity and they become passive, lost, indolent, uncreative and unproductive, prone to depression and substance abuse, and plagued by a pervasive feeling of malaise and powerlessness.

"Pass the  tuba, buddy."

JoeAm would propose that the powerless lose hope and the sense that they can be architects of the future. They lose the will and the skill to project forward, see barriers, imagine ways around them, and identify the steps that need to be taken. Problem-solving lethargy.

They also lose the will to be kind to others, and spend a lot of energy justifying themselves.

The professor has an idea as to why problem-solving lethargy is a trait of Philippine culture:

• Our educational system remains colonial rather than culturally appropriate. Many of our schools do not produce people who are highly resourceful, creative and adaptable to a fast changing and extremely complex contemporary world. They encourage dependence, a job-seeking, employability mentality rather than originality of thought, entrepreneurial qualities and self-reliance on native skills, knowledge and strengths.

Clipping patterns. No pattern, no dress.

• Our colonial experience seems to have conditioned us to seek rather than create work opportunities, to adapt rather than to innovate, and to conform rather than to lead. The captive Filipino mind, having been alienated from its creative roots, cannot generate economic opportunities within its native setting because of this alienation. The needs and values it serves are external to itself. We borrow alien thought and value systems and forms of expression and produce nothing but derivatives and clones, superficiality and mediocrity? We forget that we can only be truly productive using our own thought processes.

So this is the (notorious?) Filipino constraint on productivity, the failure to build a future into thinking.  Rather, the approach is to respond. To adapt. To react. Not to anticipate. Not to plan. There is no way to clone the future, so the architecture of a future path simply does not get done.

But the colonial damage is even deeper according to the good professor:

• Centuries of being regarded as backward and inferior by the white colonizers engendered in us a collective self-contempt, a psychic malady I would term the Dona Victorina Syndrome. The Dona Victorina Syndrome, a manifestation of acute inferiority complex, is disastrous for national development. It denies and confuses us about our identity as a people. . . . There can be no national unity without a sense of pride in being Filipino. For how do we expect a Filipino to care and work for the good of the nation if he does not even believe in being Filipino? If at the slightest opportunity, he would eagerly migrate to other countries in pursuit of a foreign identity? If at the slenderest sign of political instability, he will stash away his savings in a foreign bank?

Now he gets to Senator Enrile and to JoeAm's contention, expressed several months ago, that Get Real Post blogger benigno and Senator Sotto and his ilk have exactly the same character, self-righteous, condescending, and contemptuous of the common Filipino. The professor lays the malaise of the Philippines at the feet of the elite, those who, like Get Real Scribe benigno, despise Filipino culture:

• There is not such thing as a damaged culture, only a damaged self image. If a "damaged culture" exists a all . . . it is only among the Filipino elite, who has the lowest opinion of Filipino culture. . . . The colonial powers inevitably encouraged and supported the emergence of an elite class with whom it could easily collaborate. A serious consequence of this is cultural fragmentation. . . . As a result, the culture of the bureaucracy is more attuned to the needs and values of the elite than to that of the vast majority of Filipinos.

So the professor lays waste to James Fallow's 1987 Atlantic piece on the Philippines as a damaged culture. But he does not say the Philippines should retreat into complacent isolation:

• We have so much to learn from other countries when it comes to unity, especially setting aside our differences in times of crisis . . . If[we] are to become one nation, we have to begin deconstructing the very negative self-images we have imbibed through centuries of colonial misrule and mis-education, especially among the elite who are the power wielders and thus have the greatest responsibility to serve and be one with the people.

I wonder if Senator Sotto and Senator Enrile can grasp what the good professor is saying. Or if they would apply the Filipino cultural penchant for handling conflicting ideas like water off a duck's back. Shuffling them off as irrelevant. Even if they aren't.

• Negative self-images, whether individual or collective, can cause untold social and cultural damage. We have to begin celebrating our genius as a people and not continue to neurotically wallow in our defeats. According to Dr. F. Landa Jocano, why do we tend to celebrate our defeats - like the Fall of Bataan and the Death of Rizal - whereas other peoples celebrate only their triumphs. Abraham Lincoln was also assassinated but nowhere do we find his body being depicted as he was falling down. Instead, we find him at the Lincoln Memorial seated with dignity, majestically presiding over the destiny of his nation.

I suppose that is why winners like Manny Pacquiao and Jessica Sanchez are cheered so loudly. They are (usually) not flat face-first on the canvas. And it is why JoeAm could almost scream, "YOU WANT A HERO, LOOK AT YOUR PRESIDENT NOT YOUR TV!!"

The professor, fortunately, is more subdued. However he is also passionate:

• If all cultures on earth are to survive, most of them have to change some of their beliefs and practices in order to become compatible with one another. Cultural relativism has a limit as exemplified by our condemnation of such forms of behavior as exploitation, oppression, torture, terrorism, racism, and genocide.

Like, get right with good values. (Note to self:  send a copy of this blog to UNA honchos.)

And the good professor leaves us with good guidance for development. Like DO SOMETHING about the cultural impediments to healthy thought and productive work:

• . . . It behooves us to formulate a national action plan, if not a national policy, for culture in development. . . . We have to integrate cultural and economic planning and enable the government to adopt a cultural perspective in development planning. . . .

And JoeAm would specifically recommend a focus in the schools on better skills and disciplines in thinking forward, in time, and person to person, spatially. In simpler terms, how to plan and how to build community one positive, supportive relationship at a time.

_______________________

From Wikipilipinas:

• Felipe M. de Leon, Jr., is professor of art studies and head of the SubCommission on the Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. He was former chairman of the humanities department of the University of the Philippines. He is also a lecturer and researcher in the international academic circuit. He comes from a highly gifted and musical family. His father was the National ArtistFelipe Padilla de Leon.
  
  
  Hie is active in promoting and preserving Philippine indigenous musical forms, such as musikong bumbong. In 2003 he was project director of the First National Bamboo Music Festival, explaining that the country's bamboo music is a reflection of the Filipino people's ingenuity and sense of community.
  
  
  As Commissioner of the National Commission for Culture and Arts, de Leon delivered a series of lectures on Philippine culture entitled "Philippine Development: A Cultural Perspective" at the Center for Pacific Asian Studies, Stockholm University on May 2, 2006; "Approaches to Understanding Philippine Culture" at the Philippine Embassy on May 3, 2006; and "Management by Culture" in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 4, 2006.

The Strength Within

Stick with me if you can. This one's a ride. Ideas grow where you plant them and propagate in an organized random way.

Doing this blogging bit is a little like stuffing a plant into the fine red Philippine soil. You plant one idea and before you know it, you've got another plant poking up over there. And one over here, too.

Things propagate easily here, whether they be babies or banana trees. I once asked my agriculturally endowed sister what the definition of a "weed" is.

She said "a rose in the cornfield is a weed".

Well, we have weeds and we have roses here, and they all grow like gangbusters. I had to take out all the ferns because the spores were flying through the air like so many invisible locusts attacking the Kansas cornfields, producing hives on my wife and incessant coughing from me and junior.

I've come to the conclusion recently that Filipinos are not very introspective in a proactive way. They are introspective in a negative way.

It's that matter of face again, or thin skin. And cultural values shaped by those political Catholics in their doctrinal house of cards who would suggest psychiatry is a sin. Just turn to Jesus. Or Mary. Or God.

Anywhere but knowledge.

I like President Aquino because he is an inward guy. Reflective. Thoughtful. He allows humility to rise up in a genuine way, rather than arrogance. His arrogance is actually determination, an insistence on staying the course, no matter the criticisms that surround him.

And boy do Filipinos do criticisms well. It is all a part of the interpersonal win/lose battles taking place in any interpersonal interaction.  People here do naturally what shrinks try desperately to get people to stop doing.

Judging themselves based on how others respond.

"No no no Jose", says the shrink.  "Others respond differently because they walk in their own environmental and emotional bubbles. They are not in your bubble. They have reasons for reacting as they do. Legitimate reasons. Respect them and their bubbles. Popping them just gets messy."

But here, there seems to be a need to pop bubbles, to dominate. To win the argument. To cut down the opponent. To triumph. To demand that he walk in the same bubble.

Which of course is fruitless and fills the nation with acrimony and envy and bullets.

That's why President Aquino is an exception. He can walk away from a needless argument. He walks more like Jesus than the political priests of the CBCP for sure.

I'm guessing the Philippines is the orphan kid who was whacked upside the head too many times from his overbearing colonial parent. Filipinos took to heart the shouting and insults and demands and started figuring they don't measure up.

So, like the 8th kid among 12, one tends to over-reach to try prove one is worth something.

I'm thinking that President Aquino is injecting a healthy dose of self-esteem among Filipinos and THAT more than jailing President Arroyo will be his lasting legacy.

I praised President Aquino in a Rappler discussion thread and another commenter called me a "yellow general".

So there you go. Give the Filipino a choice of building his nation or tearing it down, way too many will choose tearing it down. Because then THEY can feel good that they won the argument by demolishing someone. 

Just like that colonial papa did to them and their self-esteem.

Living the cycle. Just like in a family.

Brutality begets brutality. Kindness begets kindness. Ignorance begets ignorance.

Except for those few who find a way out.

I rather think those who find a way out do naturally, without psychiatric intervention, that which is healthy.

They grant others the right to be themselves. They accept responsibility for their own choices. They recognize the value of knowledge and the fruitlessness of superstition. They see the importance of trust and the damage of betrayal. They know the community is important: the family, the neighborhood, the city, the province, the nation, the earth. The community is the platform for safety and health and convenience, if it is done right. From looking at the importance of community, they learn to give of themselves to others.

No where in that paragraph is there a need to prove oneself a winner, or to tear someone else down to avoid being a loser.

The look within can occur without thought, I  think.

Rather like prayer. I believe you can get right with God in a wordless burst of emotive energy.

Those who do think about it can certainly help this healthy progression.

That's the press and the bloggers and the politicians and the leaders. You notice I distinguish between a politician and a leader. Their drivers differ.

All that these opinion makers need to do is come to the honest, unspoken, soul-felt realization that the Philippines is rich with resources and potential and is a place to cherish, not condemn. It will recast their whole approach to information and leadership.

Enough digging and throwing of dirt. Up with planting and building and respecting others. Enough of the winning and losing, as if life were games rather than serious business. Up with laughter and humility and honor and the values that lift, rather than crush.

Philippine resources are the people of good will and honorable intent, intelligent people with love and generosity in their hearts, land that grows green and abundant,  seas that reflect eternity and everlasting hope in the endless patterns and poundings.

I tell, you folks, if you would just look within, yourself, privately, and forget what everyone else is shouting, you'll find a very simple truth.

It's good to be Filipino.

Democracy: Grace, Wisdom and Confidence

Two prior blogs on Philippine governance and culture dealt with: (1) subservience as an ethical value in the Philippines which makes speaking out risky, and (2) an apparent lack of patriotic humility among most leaders in the Philippines; this results in the failure of dynastic leaders to respect that opposing views help keep democracy centered. Free speech is under attack in the Philippines, rather like kings don't brook criticism.

This article will consider the following three concepts, applied to the Philippines, as defined in the Humpty Dumpty New World Dictionary:

• Grace. Noun. The state of being kind and helpful toward others, a common application of the spiritual Christian meaning " that which is of God, through Jesus".

• Wisdom. Noun. The uniting of knowledge and perspective to generate an elaborate yet precise understanding of a situation or condition.

• Confidence. Noun. The assurance a person gets from within that he or she can do what needs to be done.

What is the importance of these words? The importance is found in understanding when they exist in Philippine daily living, and when they do not. And when they exist among political leaders . . . and when they do not.

Grace

Take the matter of grace. It's meaning derives from religious faith, so it is easily found in Philippine churches. Catholic priests walk in grace within the cathedrals and in the outreach they do to ease the suffering of those in pain. This caretaking is enormously kind and helpful to the Filipino faithful, many of whom do not have much material wealth. They are granted spiritual ease through the grace of the Church.

 On the other hand, the priests, bishops and archbishops do not always walk in grace. When they engage in the dirt of political argument, they take positions. Hard positions, in many respects, helpful to some people and harmful to others. The Church is guided by rules, by doctrine. The rules are not elastic, not easily changed. They reflect choices: like the well-being of unborn babies over the well-being of the poor. The Church largely holds itself innocent of any result from its positions, from its doctrine. This is the opposite of grace which requires healthy doses of compassion and kindness and sober acceptance that decision means result. Doctrine that is imposed without responsibility is not grace.

Grace need not be a strictly religious term. Cory Aquino walked in grace because she was a fundamentally kind woman. We know now that Jesse Robredo worked and walked in grace, aware of the importance of living by high-principled rules of fairness and kindness and honesty.  He was rare. Most of us slog and connive and are weak of principle, taking advantage of circumstances and using others.

Grace has a kind of innocence attached to it. Or maybe purity is a better word. Honesty and kindness. Simplicity and empathy.

We all have a little of it, I suspect. We live it best in church.

Perhaps we should figure out how to walk in grace outside the church, too.

And perhaps Philippine political leaders should understand what faith REALLY means. Not use it as a marketing tool to secure votes.

Wisdom

I am reminded of basketball in the Philippines. The kids work hard on what I would call showboat dribbling, the fancy-pants ball-handling aimed to impress. They enjoy the one-on-one face-off with the defender. They love taking him off the dribble and making him look the fool. It's all macho. Skill, for sure.

But they can't shoot a bank shot. Can't score the points.

Facts without perspective is rather like that. Facts without context or purpose is like that.

The goal is not finding facts, or dribbling.

The goal is finding knowledge, or scoring points. That is the distinction between ignorance and knowledge.

Wisdom is yet one step further than knowledge. It is found in comprehending that the score does not matter. How the game is played matters.

Wisdom is a very special enhancement of facts. It finds the deeper meanings. It is a rare quality of knowledge that is expert at assessing context and the intricate dimensions of smart. It takes a few knowns and unknowns and molds them into profound and useful meaning.

I suppose the opposite of a wise persona is a one-dimensional persona.  Or a reactive persona, one that defines its context by what has already happened rather than identifying the possibilities and risks looking forward. Rather like the Philippines deals with storms. After the damage and death, some of which may have been preventable if storm preparation were wiser.

I personally think wisdom is partially genetic; the brain has to be wired correctly. And it is partly learned, the skills of observation, deduction and logic, where logic includes an assessment of the risks of various choices. It also requires a softer quality of heart or compassion or spirit.

Readers Coco and Edgar Lores wrote that Philippine governing skills lack any special knowledge or capability. Dynasty-style governance is power that promotes and protects power. It lacks wisdom and utility. Lacks problem-solving that works in a determined way to take care of the Philippines.

It is understandable that the poor are practical and reactive. It is not understandable that self-proclaimed leaders would fail to acquire the wisdom needed to properly care for their nation.

Confidence

In college I studied Radio and Television Arts at the University of Southern California. One of the professors was a man named Ed Borgers. Dr. Borgers looked a little like a truck driver, paunchy, big belly, tie too small resting on that big belly, sleepy-eyed, wandering around in front of the class stroking his chin and pondering before speaking. Each word measured and meaningful. He was a genius at seeing relationships and context.

The good Doctor argued that every expression contains three qualities: direction, weight and intensity.

Might we apply these dimensions to confidence? Direction is the outward act, purposeful and certain as to success. Weight is the amount of certitude. We can be absolutely convinced that we will achieve the goal. Or we can pray for the best in uncertain circumstances but proceed as if we know it will succeed. And intensity would be the effort we put into following through to make sure of success, the determination to overcome barriers that arise, without losing grasp of our assurance.

I recognize certitude in the Pilippines. Lots of ego and stubbornness. But many people seem to LACK confidence and use certitude as its proxy. Shout loud enough and people will become convinced that you know what you are talking about. Say often enough that something should be done "because I say it should be done", not because it is the right thing to do, and it will be done.

The RH Bill is stalled right now because two views are at loggerheads. The view of the Catholic Church and the view of Women's Rights advocates. Backers of both are absolutely convinced they are right. And therefore, will not bend.

Given those closed views, neither can possibly be confident they can accomplish what the Philippines needs. Confidence requires a comprehension that there is no one single path to achievement. It requires comprehension that problems will arise. That circumstances change. That give is as important as get.

A confident person would understand that either extreme is not the goal. The goal is a program that (1) promotes health care that is sensitive to the values of the Philippines and (2) builds values in the Philippines that are sensitive to the health of its citizens.

Values are not cement. They can change. They can be changed by confident people. Flexibility is an important part of confidence.

Philippine leaders do not exude confidence, I think. They exude bluster which is one part braggadocio and one part excuse-making. Hubris is a confidence of Ego, not a confidence of accomplishment.

Grace, Wisdom, Confidence

Each requires the other.

Philippine democracy, to be deep, rich and successful, requires all.