Classmates and Achievement

Johnny Lin made a remark in a recent thread that focused on President Aquino's membership in an Ateneo group called the "Fab Five". The comment pertained to an Inquirer article that revealed that President Aquino appears to rely upon the counsel of his schoolmates working at the Palace over the counsel of his cabinet members.

That struck me as representing a uniquely different cultural quality than what you find in the United States. Schoolmates in the U.S. are generally not so deeply attached and influential as schoolmates in the Philippines. Yes, some people carry high school or college associations for a lifetime, but they are independent friendships, generally not linked to jobs.

The bonds of school friendships in the Philippines seem to take on a much deeper meaning. I see the pattern over and over again, with my wife, with Facebook friendships, with Gloria Arroyo and the generals she promoted, with President Aquino. Schoolmates are an integral part of one's decision-making and life's path in the Philippines.

No wonder Facebook fairly roars in the Philippines.

Is that bad or good?

Considering that the broad commercial and political roads here are paved in favor, it is simply a pragmatic thing. A necessary thing. Friends and family and classmates can open doors. So the close personal associations here have a utility that American's don't use as much because no ambitious boss in the U.S. would risk hiring a friend over someone who is competent.

The utility of family ties also binds OFW's to the homeland. Overseas workers send billions of pesos back to parents and wives and kids. Love is three thousand pesos a month and a box of Goldilocks treats delivered when visiting.

The ties that bind.

So I don't think one ought to criticize the President of the Philippines for being consistent with Philippine culture UNLESS one is also willing to criticize this entire national network of friendship and favor over competence.

For myself, I criticize both, arguing that nothing would energize the Philippines more than an equal employment law that unleashed competence as the driving force underpinning personal success.

But my views are generally dismissed as culturally irrelevant because "that's the way we do things here, Joe" and besides "you Americans do it, too, or you wouldn't have two Clintons in high politics, or the Bush family or the Kennedys". 

And I argue back that those are exceptions, not the rule, and the drive for MEASURED COMPETENCE is deeply  ingrained in business and public service employment practices in America. Careers incent achievement ; friendships do not. U.S. employers structure well-defined career paths for promising people. They set specific performance targets and conduct regular reviews of progress. Salaries, promotions and bonuses are tied to achievement.

It is different.

Friendships and families have utility in the Philippines. I can't tell if that utility is a substitution for affection or an add-on. In poorer communities, I think the utility is very pronounced as kids are sent out to the fields to help generate some income or food. Grandma also has utility, as a baby sitter while the single mother is out working. So utility works both up and down the family line.

If you like the way it is done in the Philippines, I have no problem with that.

I merely suggest there are other ways, and sticking with the status quo is a choice.

Just be fair and don't criticize the President of the Philippines for acting consistent with Philippine culture.

If you don't like the status quo, try some serious introspection. Consider the way Philippine society works as a form of infrastructure, and put in some different platforms, some different dynamics. For EVERYONE.

If Philippine leaders can imagine a Philippines focused on competence, they can put in place the framework to assure it. Indeed, I think that is what President Aquino has done with the Executive Branch.

Does Chief Justice Sereno have the clout to do that with the courts? We will see.

The Legislature is a rats nest of favor over competence. That is the public's fault, the media's fault, and the social media's challenge.

But for sure, people can't change the social infrastructure if they insist on doing things the same way it was done 115 years ago.

Philippine Class Structure, Revisited

The core of this article ran about a year ago. I've since added the class "Rational Climbers" and will now try to put it into a context that is useful.

This article is commentary. It does not pretend an academic or statistical foundation. It is a westerner’s impressions of Philippine society gleaned by living in this beautiful, vibrant country. Joe's aim is to understand the Philippines and contribute to the pool of ideas that encourages continued progressive development.

There are classist societies and there are classy societies. The trick is to get from one to the other by making sure there is an upward drive so that people gain by helping their nation gain. Helping it to be more productive, safer and wealthier.

As I observe the Philippines, it seems to me there are clear class distinctions defined by a person’s wealth, geography, education and power. Some are large, others small. There are walls between some of the classes and that is troublesome. It means people have a hard time moving up and the nation's character comes to lack the drive that is needed to progress with determination.

Going from bottom to top, hidden to visible, non-influential to influential, we have:

• The Tribal Class: The mountain or island tribes. Almost no wealth, geographically isolated (a blessing and a penalty), limited education, and no influence outside the local community. This is the invisible class of Philippine society. Members have few roads and limited utility infrastructure, weak law enforcement, and no health care. They are the families washed away by mudslides and poisoned by mine effluents. And the rest of the nation forgets about them until there is another disaster that thrusts them onto the front pages of the newspapers.

• The Subsistence Class:  The agrarian and laboring workers. This is the vast, sweaty core of a thin but broad Philippine economy. These are the people who work for P200 or less a day, with no future job promised. Career is an unknown word. Forget social security and health care. They work the rice fields, fish the seas, dig the foundations, haul the cement, climb the coconut trees, whack the weeds on the side of the road, drive the Jeepneys , staff the local stores, provide household services, and pedal tricycles. They are the Philippines, in its most honest, hardworking, fun loving and sustaining self. They don't have enough money to be corrupt but they have so little money they will sometimes "innovate" to get some more. They have lots of kids and send them to the fields early to help put rice on the table. They are the worker bees of Philippine society, locked into poverty by an overabundance of mouths to feed and almost no way out. That needs to end.

• Low-End Skill Workers:  Masons, carpenters, call center workers, store department managers, small store owners, shop foremen, bus drivers, military men, policemen. People in this class can support a family and send their kids to public school. They are the entry point to ambitious self-improvement, and could succeed if the points of progression were not all blocked. And if aspiration, like career, were a prized concept in Philippine society. It is not. But kids born to these parents do have a small chance to break out. They would have more of a chance if the public schools weren't such a mess of overcrowded, under thinking pools of obedience. Low-end skill workers cluster around large towns and urban centers. TESDA is crucial to their success and growth.

• The Rational Climbers:  The class of Rational Climbers encompasses overseas workers and Filipinas who marry foreigners. Climbers boldly seek exit from three other classes: (1) The Subsistence Class, (2) Low-End Skill Workers, and (3) Professionals. They are rational because they intuitively do the math and decide the reward is worth the risk to embark upon a radically different lifestyle, and they are climbers because they have the clear aim of improving their lives. The motivation that drives them is best summed up in the statement: "Enough of this!" For professionals, the second part of the statement might be: "I have skills and am tired of struggling along on this measly income." For a young, single woman, it might be: "It is a choice of security and money, or babies, and I want security and money." For a worker, it might be: "Canada may be a giant ice cube, but businesses there pay real money", or : "The Middle East is strange, but they have oil and gobs of cash; I'm going to go get some." How do we bring them home? Bring families back together? That would also contribute to the character of the nation.

• Professionals: Teachers, doctors, lawyers, business owners, tech workers, call center managers, government officials, higher ranked military and police officers, engineers, journalists, bank managers. They have college degrees and generally must know somebody to make the leap from sluggish career to meaningful career. Their family ties help in many ways. Funding their schooling. Opening doors. Establishing an ideal of a higher standard of living. They form a sound middle class with potential to move up. They look down on a lot of people for they know they have power over their clients, and a better education. Their professional skill levels are often, ummm rudimentary, but the country does not demand more. The professionals need to be challenged by competent competitors. They should not be able to get rich and be lazy just because they have a diploma.

• The Priests, Imams and Assorted Other Men of Cloth: This is a small, isolated class of faith-based leaders. Each faith claims to have the sole ticket to heaven, and each condemns people who won't buy that ticket. It arches over the Professional class, from priests to archbishops. The ever essential problem is, as near as I can tell, there is only one God, indivisible. So someone has to be blowing smoke. Religion is a big deal in the Philippines, even if Superstition is the master religion that overlays all other faiths. Catholic priests, Muslim imams, Protestant pastors. They have such influence in the Philippines, but I know of none that claims any responsibility for the outcome. For the condition of the land. For the poverty. For upside down values that find cheating acceptable. This class can take care of itself, for it has institutions behind it. It is best ignored.

• The Entertainers: This is another isolated class, pretenders (not meant in a disparaging sense) who are held in extraordinarily high esteem by the masses. A boxer, singers, actors. They are rich and live well. Their kids can attend the best schools and many move easily into the Connected class, spreading their wealth amongst their family and favorites. They live a life as far removed from the subsistence class as Neverland is from London. They pretend to be one of the people, for they must do this to succeed. But they are not. They are on pedestals. It is fantasy for them and it is often fantasy for their audience, a dream that people of little opportunity might also become rich and famous. Entertainment shows and advertisers leverage this dream for profit. Poor people remain poor.

• The Connected: These are the movers and shakers of the Philippines. Legislators, business owners, media executives, judges, governors, mayors, generals. They thrive on favors and somehow get rich even if their salaries are not rich. They are all well schooled and well traveled. Their kids will be, too. Some have the same names as the streets in Manila. The Connected people make sure the Philippines does not change because they would be threatened by a system that demanded capability over favor as the basis for reward. It is important to open pipelines into this group, break down the country club atmosphere and mediocrity that thrives.

• The Oligarchs: These are the parallels to the kings, queens, princes, earls, dukes, duchesses of the British monarchy. Their wealth is enormous. They are an amalgamation of historically powerful landed families and big business moguls. They own the television stations, the telephone companies, the financial institutions, the shopping malls, the beer company, and the housing subdivisions. The oligarchs fund the politicians and, under the system of favors granted and received, get laws favorable to their continued enrichment. And the public, and the well-being of the Philippines, remain stuck in place, static, years behind the rest of the world. We should do a parade for the oligarchs and ask them to wear bejeweled crowns, they are so anachronistic. Then ban nepotism.

So now the question becomes, okay, we see the different classes, what are we going to do about it? How can we build a dynamic that allows people and families to work upward based on aspiration, skill and effort?  How do we get to production based on aspiration, and wealth based on production?

• Minimum wage. This is a classic two-edged sword. If you raise the minimum wage, businesses cut jobs. Much of the Subsistence Class works at unofficial wages, unreported, untaxed, below minimum. A constructive approach is to move in small steps to implement and enforce employee welfare laws. Edge toward formal wage practices nationwide. Establish government unions for certain laboring classes such as farm workers. The goal should be substantial reduction of the underpaid subsistence class in 20 year by pushing in small steps toward formality and a higher minimum wage that can be supported by the nation's growing wealth.

• Education is fundamentally important to give young citizens the knowledge they can build on in order to move up the ladder. Broad-based schools, disciplined, with good teachers and fewer than 45 kids per classroom. The framework is there, and the budgets are generous under President Aquino. But the schools can't keep up with the birth rate. Plus, the curriculum is stale and argued anew every year.  Here's the secret. RH Bill or executive order promoting rational birthing levels. And the internet as a teaching pipeline. It can be the way pressures is released from facilities and teachers to focus on knowledge. 

• TESDA is critically important to teach skills and to open an avenue up for the subsistence class and for low-skill workers to become high skill.  Fund the department generously and hold the leadership accountable for certain standards and results. Don't ignore this "applied" piece of the educational pie. It is hugely important as a migratory path bridging classes.

• If education is a constructive plank, it is also important to do some deconstruction. The Philippines is too much a closed society of good old boys and girls plugging up opportunity and ensuring mediocrity; you see this in the family names plastered on Manila street signs and in the legislature. A Fair Employment Act that discourages hiring "friends, family and favorites" and focuses solely on capability can fix this. Anti-dynasty laws in governance can help. Anti-trust laws in business. Break the barriers to entry to the Connected Class and rebuild the commerce of the nation on the energy of capable, ambitious people. Let the oligarchs die off in favor of a new breed of honestly competitive managers.

The "Bring 'em Back Act"

 I wonder what is the truth of the matter. Do top Philippine leaders want to bring overseas workers back home, or is the revenue generated too valuable?

Do leaders set aside the knowledge that citizens face broken homes, loneliness, and dangers of harassment and discrimination, or rape, so the Philippines can gain from the remittances which help build reserves and fund the drive to a higher ratings on debt?

That is, are citizens a commodity? A product the nation willingly manufactures through high birth rates? It "markets" the commodities by giving them training and setting up official links to other nations to open the pipelines to jobs for Filipinos?

Or are they citizens whose well-being is not being well cared for?

I wonder. I wonder.

There is no question that the number of overseas workers and the value of their remittances is a competitive advantage, economically, for the Philippines. It is a revenue stream that other nations cannot match, and it is one reason why the Philippine growth rate is second in Asia only to China. It is a big reason why S&P just upped the Philippines another notch on creditworthiness.

But the notion conflicts with what you hear about "Filipino pride".  How can you remain proud, but send your citizens away to be welcomed by, and often absorbed by, other nations?

Well, I sift through all the schtick on this matter and estimate that, best case, the boom in overseas workers is a temporary phenomenon to help jump start the economy in what we hope will soon be the "post corruption era". When the economy gets going for a few years or 20, we'd expect not so many Filipinos to be forced overseas.  Some will return.

"Yeah, right, Joe." That economy better really rip given the 1.7 million new babies born last year. If that birth rate continues, people will never get to come come home.

Worst case, therefore, is that nothing changes much.

The status quo is extraordinarily damaging TO FILIPINOS AT HOME. How many doctors and engineers have been driven out? How many capable business executives? How many potentially fine legislators?

Thousands.

 I make the distinction between a "brain drain", which conveys a rather passive meaning, to DRIVING OUT talented people by social and economic conditions that the nation's leaders simply can't get a handle on. Yes, citizens are DRIVEN OUT when its President and legislators can't do what needs to be done. When excessive birthing is seen as a religious virtue rather than broad-reaching social punishment. Indeed, I fear that leaders are living in Nevernever Land. The Philippines people will never have enough to eat and the nation will never get its citizens back to their families.

If nothing changes, it remains a fundamental given that talented Filipinos simply cannot earn what their skills are worth if they stay in the Philippines. How can we ask them to stay "for pride" when their whole family is living on the edge of poverty? Or in poverty.

So, simply following the line of logic, it is natural to ask next, "Okay, well, what can we do to bring the talent back? The doctors and engineers, the business managers, the professional or trade-skilled workers? The potentially capable legislators?"

There are two barriers.

• One, the economy is so very thin here. The industrial core is not deep enough and the middle class  is not rich enough to absorb the talent. Take doctors. Clients can't pay them enough; the market of rich people is not deep enough to fund more than a few well-paid doctors. Similarly, there is not enough money around so that companies can pay people well yet remain cost-competitive. So they don't pay them well.

• Subordinate to this is the ridiculous level of birthing, a condition resting squarely at the feet of the Catholic Church with it's stealth "doctrine of devastation". In the name of the pro-life movement, millions of lives are destroyed in slow motion under the cover of blindness to the effect doctrine has on real people. Think of kids digging through trash piles for food and the picture will slam home. Just connect the dots. Doctrine . . . starvation.

• But also subordinate to the thin economy is the fact that overseas many doctors step back to become nurses and many professionals step back to do service work (in restaurants, for example). Perhaps doctors and professionals don't have to make full western-scale wages to find returning the Philippines attractive. Maybe they just need the opportunity for a decent wage and the satisfaction that comes with being employed in the job for which they were trained.

• The third subordinate matter is that, as the peso strengthens, overseas workers are not able to send as much dollar-wealth back. For many, it will make less sense to stay overseas to work. So once the economy gets ripping, there will be a natural drift back to the Philippines.

• Two, the social framework in the Philippines does not nurture talent. It nurtures friends, family and favorites. And the whole social structure, the employment structure, is autocratic, not motivational. It does not recognize and promote talent. It doesn't excite and challenge good people with a steady upward track. It isolates them in a desert of no promise.

Well, let us presume that the Philippines is changing dramatically. The economic foundation is sound and getting more sound as tax leakages are stopped, the drains of corruption end, the offshore worker base expands and sends back billions each month, and some valuable commercial anchors are developed: agribusiness (e.g., rice as an export rather than import), gaming (casinos), call centers and more active tourism. Maybe the disjointed government effort to provide condoms and counseling, over the howls of the Catholic Church, will bring some reduction in the destructive over-birthing.

This is good. The economic half of the picture is moving the right direction. Just keep it cooking.

But what about the social half? The part that provides no hope, no promise for aspiring, capable workers to grow richer in job title and pay?

I have previously proposed that a "Fair Employment Act" be passed to end the hiring of people by government offices and big business on any basis but competency to do the job. People's eyes glaze over at the notion. This SOUNDS like so much Polly Anna gibberish. It's hard to relate to the dynamics of productivity that exist in the United States unless you have worked in the United States. The idea of a "Fair Employment Act" fizzles and falls flat.

So I propose re-naming the law. Giving it a decidedly Filipino twist. Call it the "Bring 'em Back Act". Establish something that is called a "career in the Philippines" that means something to those capable people overseas. Give them something to come back TO:  opportunity, for example. The chance to grow and have a career and get richer over the years. The same thing they left the Philippines to find.

Turn the tables. Flip the flapjack. Present them with "opportunity" in the Philippines.

Under this act, restrict the hiring of friends, family and favorites in government and large businesses. There should be only one criterion for hiring and promotions. Competency. The ability to do the job better than anyone else. When this is the law, companies and government officials will see the advantage of nurturing its own capable people, because they are the best pool of resources to draw from. They will see the advantage of looking overseas to find Filipino talent they can bring back to the Philippines. They will learn to be less autocratic because they will quickly see that they lose good people when they do not properly motivate them.

Both workers and employers gain by an individual's hard, productive work, and his promotion to greater and greater responsibility.

That's what we want to bring overseas workers back to.

The opportunity to grow. To know that good work returns a reasonable wage and, beyond that, recognition and promotion, prestige and wealth.

One simple step can be taken by the legislature to compliment the natural progression of the economy:

Pass the "BRING 'EM BACK ACT!"

Fire in the Belly: "Filipinos for Filipinos"

Let us assume that most Filipinos accept that people in power have advantages. The powerful can appoint sons, daughters, wives and nephews to important government jobs, whether qualified or not. They can squeeze out a little cash from awards to favored contractors for the building of roads and bridges. Their position gets them cars, staff, expense accounts and nice travel arrangements. They live the good life.

The powerful can do this because they are "winners" in Philippine society, even if their values by Christian standards are pretty oily, or even downright disgusting. In the Philippines, power is respected, no matter how it is used. Even the Ampatuans are respected in some places.

So Senator Enrile can stage a coup and get elected to the Senate. Imelda Marcos can be the husband of a failed dictator and gain election to Congress. Manny Pacquiao can be a superb boxer and thereby qualify for a seat in the House; one he seldom sits in.

They are the "winners". They have power and they have a following, a loud one. People EXPECT those in power to use their position for gain. It is what anyone would do if they had the chance.

Well, that is one way to run a country, and it is not for this transplant to say his nation does any better. After all, politicians in the U.S. are for the most part undiplomatic, narrow-principled manipulators with little real regard for the public well-being. Somehow they get re-elected.

But I have this naïve idea that there is a more rewarding way to run a country.

It goes back to Jeffersonian principles of rights and responsibilities. Not just rights. And certainly not rights only for the powerful.

What do civic responsibilities entail? That is, what should you and I be doing to contribute to the development of a strong community of fellow islanders, our nation.

In the United States, we have some basic obligations to take care of: pay taxes, obey laws, respect authority (while maintaining rights of free speech), serve in the military or other ways. Some times sacrifice of oneself for the good of others is requested, but the desire and need for that is diminishing (the military uses drones instead of soldiers). Vote. And to vote, we should be reasonably well informed on important issues.

That's the minimum. Anything we do beyond that is fine, too, and would put us into the category of an "activist". Attending rallies and marches, organizing rallies, making dollar contributions, volunteering to work on candidate campaigns, getting involved in issues-based organizations, NRA, NAACP, NOW and the like. Running for office. A lot of people get involved.

I think the minimum responsibilities also apply in the Philippines. But there is a lesser motivation, lesser opportunity here to go beyond that to become an "activist". For one thing, when one becomes an activist in the Philippines, one creates enemies. This has something to do with loss of face for whomever one is active against. For many people, the personal affront of someone coming at them with criticism is too much to bear. Ampatuan is the extreme example of that. Rampant violence during campaigns illustrates the problem.

For another thing, too many people simply don't care very much.

So activism in the Philippines is not so widespread.

Okay then, what's a Filipino citizen to do, really, if he sees his country falling short? And he CARES?

I know there are high-moral people in the Philippines. Lots of them. They swim upriver, though. They  shake their heads at the gullibility of their fellow Filipinos who elect people with such deficient character to important positions. They see the abuses but can't do much about it. They have no power.

I wonder. Is that true?

Thinking here. Pause for thinking . . .

They have no power. Hmmmmm . . .

Right thinking people, silent because they have no power . . .

In the age of the internet? Hmmmm . . .

Perhaps the REAL situation is they have simply not figured out how to organize. Or they have the MENTAL CONCEPT of what it takes to wield civic power, but not the FIRE IN THE BELLY to step outside themselves and actually DO something.

Or perhaps they are afraid of the consequences. Consequences they cannot anticipate. And which experience suggests may be angry.

Do you consider yourself to be a regular person? A small person, really, of no particular stature in the Philippines? A powerless person?

What if there were two of you working together, would you have a little more power?

What if five?

What if 500?

What if 2 million?

Do you think you might get a newspaper editor to look up?

Do you think you might get a candidate interested in your support?

Do you think you might be powerful enough to influence a bill?

The U.S. is rich with institutions that gather the power of many "little" people and unify them into one big force. NOW (women). NAACP (blacks). Tea Party (conservative Christians). NRA (gun owners). AARP (seniors). And many more. Most have a band of attorneys fighting for their cause in the courts. And publicity specialists to articulate their positions. And fund-raising experts.

What does the Philippines have? An occasional protest by this group or that, generally a march down Roxas. Somehow throwing their cause in the face of the United States gives it added meaning. Like a couple of weeks ago when several hundred leftists were blocked by riot police from going to Roxas to protest the poor treatment of farmers and the presence of the US in the Philippines, as if the two were somehow connected. Nothing like a good shout at the US regarding the plight of farmers in the Philippines.

The newspapers, always interested in a sensationalist angle, put small-time, loud, controversial protests such as this on the front page. As if half the nation were behind the rabble-rousers.

Half the nation is taking their nap, sorry. The other half is out working.

I personally think the lack of "power to the little people" comes from a lack of "fire in the belly". A lack of passion. An inability to get past lethargy or apathy or fear or whatever this drag is that makes Filipinos far and wide complacent, subsistent, or downright subservient.

Those who see, stand back. Those who understand, turn away.

The accumulation of power by the common Filipino merely lacks organization. It lacks someone with the courage and ability to organize.

I'd do it but it is not my job.

I'd find two smart, aggressive people to join me and we'd put together a cause and an organization.

Mine would be aimed at getting a Fair Employment Law passed to end nepotistic hiring and to energize careers. And it would be aimed at getting a divorce law passed to end the ridiculous human bondage of women to abusive, useless men. And it would be aimed at privatizing education.

The name would be something like "Filipinos for Filipinos".

But, as I said, that is not my job . . .

I've got the fire in the belly, but no platform to stand on . . .

What are you standing on?

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Look for JoeAm's blockbuster article "Principles for Organizing Insurrection", coming soon to a blog site near you  . . .