Whine Not!

The real Philippines?

Be patient. Let me have my little tantrum, then we can try to put some sense to it at the end.

We westerners tend to see the Philippines as a really whiny place, a place where face is more important than truth, and posture more important than performance.

My positive attitude lasted one day. But its not my fault. Y'all drove me to it.

Ordinarily, I am castigated for my generalizations, for looking about and drawing conclusions from what I see and read without conducting surveys or interviewing experts or compiling data.

So I will just describe two happenings, anecdotal evidence if you will, draw my generalization, explain it a bit, and then let you tell me how it is wrong. They are at opposite ends of the social spectrum, one the palace, the other the rice fields. 

My contention is that the Philippine National Anthem should be changed to the Whine. The march you have now is too confident, too military, too patriotic, too upright for the real mood of the land. 

In the Palace

Here is the headline that ran in the Inquirer on November 12. I think it warrants a Pulitzer Prize for whine.

Obama skips Philippines–again

This piece by  Amando Doronila is so deep with weep that it goes into the pile of "Classic Whines". These tear-jerkers ran in rapid succession at the beginning of the article:

1. The itinerary excluded the Philippines, a longtime strategic security ally of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region.

2. The exclusion ruffled sensitive nationalist feelings in Manila, as officials anxiously waited for signals from the second Obama administration on what is in store for the Philippines in the reordering of US foreign policy priorities following the election.

3. The question that immediately emerged was: Why Burma, Thailand and Cambodia? These countries in Southeast Asia are the least threatened by the aggressive pursuit by China 

4. Filipinos were quick to recall that during Obama’s first Southeast Asian tour early in his first term, his itinerary bypassed the Philippines.

5. As if to rub salt in the wound, White House officials revealed that Obama returned the calls of a long list of global leaders, including those of Israel and Egypt, who contacted him to congratulate him on his reelection.

6. The US president spoke to the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, India, Turkey, Brazil, Colombia and Nato’s secretary general

7. Malacañang said it had not received calls from the Obama White House, but it emphasized that President Aquino did not call President Obama and instead sent a congratulatory message by mail through the Department of Foreign Affairs.

JoeAm's response to each point is as follows:

1. The trip is four days, including the ASEAN summit. The Philippines believes it is Number 1 in importance in Asia to a president who has just been re-elected, is facing a domestic economic cliff and simmering hot spots around the globe? Give me a break! No. Give Obama a break. Truly, I think Filipinos as a sub-species are grossly deficient in walking in another man's shoes and they have a sorely limited view of the world and other nation's interests, or U.S. engagements globally. "Me first!" is the Philippine global mantra.

2. It's the same president as before the election. WHAT reordering? Secretary Clinton has held Philippine hands, the U.S. has pivoted to Asia, the boats are right over there in Subic, and it seems like there is another training exercise every few months. What do you want, contested islands delivered to your doorstep by Unc Sam? Here's an idea, get your Philippine Senator Santiago to shut her yap about the VFA for a change. THAT would help the alliance get reordered in a positive way.

3. Are you stupid, or what? The countries are in close proximity, Burma has just broken the hold of years of tight-fisted thuggery in favor of openness, and Thailand is growing in economic power but has internal unrest. President Obama decided that these were reasonable places to visit, for American interests, for global democracy. THE PHILIPPINES does not determine American interests. Got it? President Obama is not all-consumed with Filipino issues. Maybe the PHILIPPINES should deal with them, eh? Good God, the Ego of this place. A two-year old's sense of center of the earth.

4. Well, maybe they should slow their recall and think about it. Like, grow up.

5. So the Philippines thinks it is more important in the alignment of U.S. global affairs than Israel, which has been in a tiff with Obama and is the hotspot of the globe re. Iran? And is more important than Egypt, which is the emerging center of Middle East democracy, or chaos, depending on which way it turns? Maybe the U.S. thinks the Philippines is DOING FINE, eh? Maybe they listen to the President's SONA. Maybe you could take it as a matter of PRIDE that you are being skipped because you are doing HUNKY DORY! You are the good friend, well off in terms of stability and direction, who does not need to be coddled. You are not pleased with that standing? You NEED something more?

6. So frickin' what?

7. Do you know how long it takes a President to call another head of state? Do you know how many security briefings and public appearances and cabinet meetings the President has on his agenda? Stop being like Arroyo, breathlessly chasing Obama around the world. Attend to your business.

I tell you, I am close to losing it.

Associative pride. Attaching one's self worth to another.

It signals insecurity with red flags blazing in the needy sinking sun.

An emotionally healthy person lets other people live their lives because others have their own rights and reasons. He, or she, takes care of that for which he, or she, is responsible. To expect validation from others is weak, weak, weak.

Like, man, stop the wallowing and pass an FOI Bill. Make YOUR nation great.

In the Provinces Where the Rice Grows

My wife and I built our home in a rural rice-growing area. We are not special people. Fairly ordinary, actually. Generally good hearted, good humored, fairly intelligent, quiet, respectful of our neighbors. Going about our business of building our home and raising our son.

But we have a huge flaw and it really upsets our neighbors.

We have money.

Now, I've never been rich before. But in the Philippines, I am rich. And my wife is married to rich.

When building our home, we paid the workers who reside in our community above market wages. My mistake: a flare of generosity and compassion for people who are poor. We were criticized by neighbors for wrecking pay scales and laughed at by the workers because they figured they "stuck it to us".

We donated the roofing material for our small church, about P12,000. We were criticized by two neighbors (one being the Captain's wife) for being foolish; we had shamed them because they cannot give that much. They tell their neighbors what foolish people we are. And the roofing guy tried to get us to buy 40% more material than was actually needed, as if I can't do the math on number of sheets of galvalum it takes to cover a given sized roof. He was going to rip off a piece of a donation, a gift. To  a Church!

The neighbors regularly ask us for money for this and that, generally small amounts, P1,000 to P3,000. They are generally asked as "loans".  Priority for giving money is: (1) you have worked for us or in some way helped us, so we can help you, (2) medical care gets high priority, and (3) kids get a high priority. We say "no" about half the time. When we say no, people are highly offended and tell their neighbors what mean people we are.

So we are wrong when we give our money away, and wrong when we don't. And our reputation in the community is trash. The stories and the backbiting are unending.

This works in a destructive cycle because we do less and less for the community every day. We have pretty much removed ourselves from it, actually. Our circle of friends has moved downtown to the parents and teachers at our son's private school. It is a different "class", one that welcomes us.

We sometimes think class structures are defined by the powerful, to suppress and use the powerless. But the masses also define the classes through their ignorance and special needs. Or neediness. When envy is the filter through which all facts are sifted, it makes for an unreal world that people take as real. And it pushes away those who could help.

It is a simple concept, no? To welcome those with the means to help. But the gap between enlightenment and the rice fields is HUGE. So don't expect Sotto to be tossed from office when he is up for election. It's not that easy to get wholesome ideas across to a population that is isolated by need from education and introspection.

In the Philippines, need turns on its head to become envy, and it drives good will into the ground.

And it does it with relentless whining, one neighbor to another.

Questions. And What I'm Thankful For

So do my two anecdotes ring true with you? Or am I missing something?

Do you see a similarity in attitude between the Palace and our neighbors?

Is whine a pronounced mood in the Philippines, a theme, a passion? What's in the middle, between the Palace and rice fields? Is it whine there, too?

If so, any idea how to break it? All I can figure is to keep writing here.

For sure I am thankful for the people who contribute to my blog site because I know there are Filipinos who are mentally healthy, mentally sharp, and who "get it". It keeps me sane against the backdrop of all the Sottos and Santiagos and jealous neighbors and whiney newspaper writers and, yes, a good but authoritarian President without a clear grasp of how liberty energizes.

The schools don't seem to be able to help much in developing psychological perspective and good health.

I rather suspect the core of good introspection and healthy thinking that is not based on emotional need is small. But it is growing. I want to believe that. The internet is the classroom, and we are both students and teachers in it.

Impeach Philip Squared!

This commentary is follow-on from the previous article about America's failure to elect Jessica Sanchez as their idol. Jessica has become a Filipino idol and her loss in the American Idol competition was a crushing defeat for the Philippine Nation. Filipinos wept openly at the unfairness of it all. They place this heartbreaking loss right alongside the time a few years ago when Colonel Doctor Congressman Manny Pacquiao got thumped by some chump boxer named Morales from Mexico. To this day, Filipinos are convinced Morales had unfairly loaded his gloves with lead pipes.

It is rumored that rabid Jessica fans plan to close down Roxas Boulevard in Manila to protest in front of the American Embassy. Some are arguing that the VFA agreement should be torn up, and the Philippines should look to Japan and Italy for military backing in its little spat with China. One was quoted as saying "America, keep your damn submarines out of Subic Bay! . . . Unless it is named the USS Jessica!""

Well, JoeAm has broadened his literary portfolio to include investigative  journalism, not wishing to be out done by a couple of blogging women named Raisa and Ellen. He has dug deeply into this matter to find out exactly what went wrong. Who cheated. Who stuffed the ballot box for that white guy Phillip squared. How America went so wrong in its claim of racial diversity by failing to put Jessica on the masking tape X, mid-stage, where the winner stands when that most handsome of emcees, white guy Ryan Seacrest, crowns her. Joe set out to find out why Americans hate Filipinos so much they'd cheat an innocent 16 year old Filipino . . . oops, American with Filipino mama . . . out of her rightful title.

He first visited the Manila International Airport, and with 200 well-placed pesos, was able to get five minutes on the immigration computer to see the last time Jessica visited the Philippines. He concluded the record-keeping must be wrong, because her name was not listed.

So Mad-Dog Joe hooked up with a young niece in San Diego to get a sneak interview with a few of Jessica's friends at Chula Vista High School. His niece, an American out of Germany, 7th generation, went in disguise as an advance scout for the upcoming Charice concert tour in the US. You know, checking for places to include in the publicity rounds.

Well, that fell flat, too. It would appear that her friends had no idea who Charice was, so that was a bummer to start out with. Then it was revealed that Jessica rarely talked about the Philippines. Her friend Kirsty, an Irish American blonde chick on the cheerleading squad, stuck her megaphone in my niece's ear and shouted, "Like, she's AMERICAN, you know?" And some tall black guy behind her in CVHS athlete's jacket tossed in, "Is the Philippines one of those countries spun off from Russia?"

His buddy, a fat white Jewish guy with skull cap, thick glasses and a hard copy of Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" under his arm, whacked the jock in the arm and cried out "You stupid Doofus, the Philippines is in South America next to Argentina. That's why everybody there has Spanish names."

My niece left, quickly and quietly.

Undeterred, Joe Am booked a quick flight to meet with a highly placed source at Ateneo U in Manila, a professor of psychology who requested anonymity so as not to be dragged into the alley by rampaging students with "Jessica" tattooed on their arms. Gangs of marauders have been prowling the campus looking for anyone stupid enough to admit they liked Phillip squared over Jessica. They carried heavy metal chains and batons of very hard and illegally harvested nara wood.

The psyche professor suggested we go out onto the Plaza lawn to avoid being overheard.

"Why all this craziness in the Philippines for an AMERICAN singer?" I asked, left eyebrow arched in the way I imagine Sherlock Holmes would arch his.

"Associative pride," said the professor leaning his back against a fat tree. "The belief that if a Filipino does well, Filipinos finally get the recognition they lost when they were colonized by the States."

"Golly whiz," I uttered, censoring my irreligious tendency to exclaim "Holy Christ. That was over a century ago! The Sanchez kid is only 16! And she knows nothing about the Philippines."

The professor smiled. Or perhaps it was a wince. Or maybe just gas. "Well, things here don't change very fast. You understand this you ever try to set an appointment with a doctor or do a credit card transaction or buy a rubber. You can't. Parents feed kids the same attitudes as always, that Americans are imperialists and Filipinos are always taken advantage of and the only way to do better is to pray to the Lord for help."

"Not develop productive plans and execute them? Like, get modern or accept responsibility themselves?"

"Not in the cards, sorry. They pray, just like the Senate does when they open an impeachment trial. They don't look to the law for guidance, or their own sense of responsibility to their oath of office, but to the Lord. After all, there is no word for "responsibility" in any of our 114 dialects."

"Crazy."

"You don't know the half of it!" said the professor, his eyebrows furrowed deeply.

"Huh?"

"Think of the effort that goes into making up excuses. It's enough to make a grown shrink cry." The professor reached into the breast pocket of his tan corduroy blazer for a tissue. "Why, some Filipinos are even accusing Fox Network of rigging the voting on Idol! Evidently they discovered that Phillip squared is a Republican and Jessica belongs to the Young Democrats Society at school."

"Ah, so that's the reason for his win?"

"No, no, that's just what the lunati . . . er, Filipinos are saying. The reason for his win is that the audience of American Idol is mostly white women who dig sexy white guys. Plus that mousy Jimmy Iovine, the Idol music guy, gave Jessica a lousy song to sing at the end of three months of brilliant singing. He gave Phillip squared a cool song."

"Ah, that would explain why Jimmy Iovine fled for Iceland in the dead of night."

"Yes, it would."

I paused to think this through, chewing on my pencil eraser the way I imagined Sherlock would gum his cocaine pipe. "Well, psychologically speaking, exactly what makes the Philippines so desperate for wins by its contestants?"

The professor leaned forward in a threatening manner, snapping open a five-inch switch blade knife. "Please make sure you don't cite me as the source or I can make . ..  ummm . . . arrangements, you dig?"

"Loud and clear. Very."

He leaned back and returned the blade to the pocket of his corduroy jacket.

"First of all, consider if you were the 7th or 8th or 9th kid in a family, you simply don't get enough loving attention to build a sound base of esteem. You need more attention, more strokes. Always you need more. For the rest of your life, you need more."

"Hmmm, makes sense. I suppose the Catholic Church has not considered that."

"I'm not going there! But consider that you are one of 50 students in a school classroom. How much encouragement and nurturing do you figure you get?

"Damn little. You probably crave notice."

"Exactly. And consider that Filipinos everywhere are out seeking wins. At government offices and doctors offices you are treated as a nothing. In discussions with friends, the golden rule does not apply, and you are ridiculed for every mistake. Teachers order you about as if you were a child. Drivers in nice cars run you into the ditch. How would you feel?"

"Desperate for positive strokes. Needy, for wins."

He nodded, a slow, sad nod. "But the big need-builder is poverty. Consider if everybody seemed to have more than you. And no way could you ever catch up."

"Yeah, I see. You'd look for cheers wherever you could find them. Even in America."

The professor stood up and walked off. He paused about 10 paces away, turned, and said.

"And therapy is condemned across the land. So there is no cure." He turned and walked off.

It took a moment for all this to sink in. I turned to the fat tree and shouted. "Impeach Phillip! He stole the title from Jessica!"

And I reached for the tissues in my backpack.

Pinoy Pride: A Floppy Ball of String?

I will resist the notion of looking up what psychologists say pride represents in favor of just thinking about it. Indeed, let me fall back on the Humpty Dumpty New World Dictionary to concoct a definition of pride. It is a noun, which means it is something of itself. It is not an adjective or verb or adverb or, God forbid, preposition. My wife can't get the existing prepositions right without adding another to her list of confusions.

Prideful is an adjective. But pride itself does not automatically attach to a human being unless something happens, unless something is achieved. The Bible condemns pride as being a precursor to a fall, like in one of those self-involved people who lord it over lessers and end up eating crow. Kind of like a rooster might preen its feathers before being beheaded and served for dinner. Or put into the arena to have its eyeballs pecked out.

Why am I thinking about this Jamie Dimon character who heads  J.P. Morgan Bank right now? This arrogant dude just lost U.S. $2 billion of his shareholder's money. What is the adjective for hubris. Hubritic?

• Humpty Dumpty New World Dictionary: "Pride is a feeling of gratification associated with an accomplishment of self or others."

The two key attributes of pride: gratification and accomplishment.

I remember as a kid finding great joy in unraveling a baseball or golf ball to see what it was made of. You'd cut through the shell, leather or rubber, and get to a pile of string. The string in the golf ball in those days was rubberized, really fun to snap at an irritating little sister because it was long, but not firm enough to sting much. The string around a baseball was regular string, thin and strong, good for kites, and would go from Denver to Puerto Rico, where the ball was likely made. In other words, there was a lot of string. And in the center of both would be this little rubber ball, really cool and bouncy, and perhaps the precursor to those balls you can buy at the toy store today that bounce to the moon if you drop them hard enough.

 

Now pride is not the rubber ball in the middle. The rubber ball is self-esteem. Pride is the string we wrap around esteem as we go from incident to incident achieving things. Get an "A" on the midterm. Add a piece of string. Get a "D" and rip a piece of string off the ball and toss it into the weeds. Get a sizable amount of string and we get to something called confidence. Someone hacks at our ball with an axe, we lose that confidence.

So pride is important because it accumulates. And the odd thing is, we can add to our string based on what Manny Pacquiao does, or Miss Philippines, or Jessica Sanchez on American Idol. And the good thing about this kind of "associative pride" is that we don't lose any string if Manny gets clubbed by some Mexican boxer named Morales. He just had a bad day. But also, the associative string is not very long, not so very strong. It makes us happy, but not confident in ourselves.

Now if we ourselves were to club a Mexican boxer named Morales, our pride would be enormous. That would be a personal achievement and build our confidence immeasurably. That would be why Jessica Sanchez cries when she puts her entire being into a killer note and nails it. We all should have that opportunity in life. To lay everything we have on the line and hit a killer note.

Screw the 15 minutes of fame. Let's just all have a moment when we reveal every thing we are to the world, and come out a winner. To ourselves.

That is pride.

Now the kind of pride the Bible refers to as bad is when you have all string and no rubber ball in the middle, or a rubber ball the size of a pea surrounded by a lot of ratty yarn. I prefer the word "hubris" to pride in that instance. It is patchwork pride aimed at proving oneself worthwhile.

Natural pride is quieter, something you don't have to show to others all the time. Because it is personal.

That's where we get to the Philippines.

I know Filipinos have a lot of pride because they keep telling me so. Pinoy pride. It can be seen every time Manny Pacquiao fights or the President meets with U.S. President Obama and stands equal in that space in that time. I'm guessing Jessica Sanchez is assured of winning American Idol because: (1) she is spectacularly talented, and (2) about 300,000 prideful U.S. Filipinos will be texting votes for two hours after her performances.

But I don't know how deep the ball of string called Pinoy pride runs or why so much of it seems to be so loud.

Pride = gratification from accomplishment.

If your nation is routinely the last horse finishing the race, where do you find your pride?

When your country does not seem to prize personal achievement, but rather rewards acquaintanceship or even cheating, where do you find your pride? I suppose attached to what SOMEONE ELSE can do, or do for you. Or what you can get away with.

I repeat. What someone else does . . . or does for you. Or what you can get away with.

It seems to me the missing dynamic, or underdeveloped dynamic, in the Philippines is the pride of personal accomplishment. It is not nurtured here. It is not taught in the schools, where "obey" takes precedence over "innovate and achieve". It is not instilled in the workplace, where opportunity for the highly capable is blocked by some twit's uncle. It is not injected into everyday conversation where the main interpersonal dynamic is to criticize, insult and blame rather than praise, be courteous and raise up others.

I'd personally like to see emerging in the Philippines a quieter kind of pride producing a quieter kind of leader. One who does not have to boast about how good he is, but merely energizes himself and the nation by getting good things done. And sets an example in his determined approach to things.

I'd like to see that in the workplace, country-wide. Capability being the reason people get ahead. Not friendship or favor.

I'd like to see it taught in the schools. The VALUES of aspiration, good-sportsmanship in competition, and achievement.

The ball of string here is too thin, made of weak associative threads instead of strong twine arising from determined personal accomplishment.

The government's job ought to be to create more opportunities for individual Filipinos to achieve and feel good about how they are growing. Beyond that, to see opportunity on the horizon. Not achieve in the sense of obey and follow rote instruction to get a good grade, the grade being the reason for the pride. But to innovate, be responsible, to find personal gratification in what one does for oneself, and for others.

I love the term "to aspire".  It is a fresh idea, clean and powerful. To me, aspiration is the process of developing oneself and finding pride in the way we achieve something meaningful.

That's why I speak frequently of a fair employment law that ends patronization as the basis for hiring and replaces it with capability. To generate pride, not just profit. And why I argue for a revamping of school curricula and the method of teaching to put innovation, fair play and achievement front and center. Then real pride will grow in our young people and the partnership of confidence and determination will drive the nation forward. With a base of confidence and ambition to leverage, the rest of the things kids learn in school will mean more.

The Philippines today seems to be a nation that does not comprehend the "accomplishment" part of pride.

So the floppy ball of Pinoy string does not always fly straight and true, or for distance.

So I ask again: If your nation is routinely the last horse finishing the race, where do you find your pride?

Well, I have a better answer than latching onto the accomplishments of others or cheating. Or making excuses or casting blames.

It's found in loyalty to the good people and resource-rich homeland, in the vast opportunities ahead, in the determination to come from behind, in the recognition that it is easy to gloat and hard, but intensely rewarding, to truck through a struggle.

For sure, I am proud to live in the Philippines.