Psst, Don't Tell Americans about the Philippines

Keep your country secret. That is my advice.

Americans are brusque, opinionated blowhards. Especially the aging baby boomers who are looking for places to retire. They don't know a whole lot about the Philippines. If they knew, they might come here. They would likely gripe about some aspects of the culture , as it is so different from what they are used to. You don't have to put up with that. Simply don't tell them how cool it is here. Tell them about the horrors of cramming into a Jeepney full of chickens, but don't tell them of a romantic ride with their sweetie on a tricycle to the beach, of scenery so gorgeous a photograph can't do it justice, of the tax breaks they can get by leaving state income behind, and the social security income they can acquire by being old and having American- citizen kids in the Philippines. Don't tell them that they can build a palace for $100,000, and have a housekeeper and a gardener and a cook and a bodyguard and a driver, all for less than $400 a month.

Don't tell them that most people speak English. Tell them Filipinos have hated American guts since that racist McKinley pounded our butts back into order, but don't tell them America built schools and sent us a zillion teachers to give us one of the highest literacy rates on the underdeveloped part of the planet.

Tell them that this place really sucks. That's why so many Filipinos go elsewhere in the world to work. Filipino drivers are rude and the store clerks snarl as they take the money. Rebels are behind every bush looking for a way to extort some money. The seas are fished to deserts and the mountains are washing into the ocean because someone yanked all the trees out. Tell them that they might fall into an open pit mine that the Koreans forgot to return to its natural state. Wild banshee fundamentalist Muslims and Catholics stand at every corner harassing those who want their daughters educated or a condom in their wallet. And for sure warn them about Mindanao, where heads roll like so many dice in the craps pit. Let them know that most drivers are unlicensed, uninsured and drunk. They taught themselves the art of the wheel at 12 and have never read about the rules of considerate behavior.

Warn them to duck behind a bush or building every time a bus passes to avoid being hit by a bag of trash being conveniently disposed of through the window.

Don't tell them the cultural convenience of pissing on the nearest wall. Tell them not to drink the water.

Don't tell the old unmarried dudes about the beautiful Filipinas who don't mind hanging out with an ancient white guy if it gets them out of the rut that is their day-to-day empty life. A night on the town, a weekend in Borocay, a lifetime . . . those are the options for both parties. Sex is only sinful to the priests who aren't getting any. They aren't exactly good judges of the other side. They've never been there. Well, most haven't.

I think "most" is the operative adjective.

But that is beside the point.

Don't tell them this place is an adventure that enriches the spirit.

Tell them it is filled with Ego-bound maniacs who won't give them the time of day. Actually, they don't even know the time of day, which is why they arrive late for everything, or simply don't show up. Or pop in when they weren't even expected. Tell them there are more dogs than people and they are all rabid. The dogs, I'm talking about. Not the people.

Don't tell them the people are fun and funny. Tell them they are stubborn like cement and have skins so thin you can see their bones if they walk against the sunlight.

Tell them "You don't know what you are getting into", which is true, for sure.

Tell them to "stay home", or" take your money and complaints to Viet Nam. We don't need no mo' stinkin' Americans around here giving our economy a boost, hiring locals, and being weird and productive in the western ways."

Tell them "we like sitting drunk under the mango tree watching the buses fly by. We are fine with that goal for our lives. We are proud of our achievements."

Keep the Philippines secret, isolated. You know. Native. Raw. Provincial. Stone age, even. Knowledge and courtesy are too much to deal with.

Multi-culturalism is offensive. Outside money is tainted with foreign cooties. Tell them "We like it pure, we like it simple. We don't aspire to be like you because we know money can't buy happiness."

Book Burning in the Philippines

Regular readers of my articles know that I read a lot, as I drop a title now and then into a blog, usually with a quote that has important meaning. I do this in part to suggest to readers that there are great treasures to be found in books. College students will often be seen in coffee shops with a course book in hand, but as a literate society, the broader masses in the Philippines lag behind modern countries in exploring history and science and the whys and ways of heart and mind and acts.

Bonfire of the Vanities

Grab a book, I suggest. The riches to be found there are enormous. Ignore the taunts of the lesser minds who would hang the title of "librarian" on your reputation. They are simply following the tried and true Filipino tradition of raising themselves up by tearing someone else down. Don't concede an inch to their under-nourished psyche.

Because National Bookstore stocks only a limited number of American fictional titles, I find myself going through my collection and re-reading those that have passed from clear recollection. It takes about a year to fade from memory, wedged out by other readings and my lazy ability to recall anything but what I had for breakfast two hours ago.

I just finished "The Rule of Four" by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, first published in 2004. What a wonderful book. The blurb on the back says "If Scott Fitzgerald, Umberto Eco and Dan Brown teamed up to write a novel, the result would be "The Rule of Four". That is so true. It has the heart-felt poignancy of love and friendships tested, and murder; the deep richness of renaissance history; and the intrigue of puzzles and riddles and the eternal battle between the Church and its critics.

The book is about a book, one filled with secrets to be decoded pointing to hidden treasures. The mysterious, coded book is "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili", a real book of unknown authorship. Four (fictional) Princeton students attack the book brilliantly, dealing with two murders pertaining to the book, love, and the shenanigans of college life. They find out who is the real author of the book and they unravel the secrets hidden within.

I can't go through the entire plot here, but wanted to focus on the essential historical conflict that is at the core of the book. The characters are real. Florence, Italy is the center of the art world in 1498. The powerful leader of the Church there is Savonarola, an evangelical preacher with great charisma. Opposing him is the author of the mysterious book, Francesco Colonna.

Savonarola

Savonarola believed that art and literature were undermining the Church, causing men to think wild and sinful thoughts and do wild and sinful deeds. He began the practice of annually, at Easter, burning all the sinful materials he could gather up. Paintings, sculptures, and books included. This became known as the "Bonfire of the Vanities", for Savonarola preached that those who would create such works were totally self-absorbed and not properly faithful to God.

Here is an excerpt from "The Rule of Four" that explains why Francesco Colonna hated Savonarola:

" . . . Francisco couldn't stand Savonarola. To him, Savonarola represented the worst kind of fanaticism, everything that was wrong with Christianity. He was destructive. Vengeful. He refused to let men use the gifts God gave them. Francesco was a humanist, a lover of antiquity. . . . He stood at the other end of the intellectual universe from Savonarola. To him, the greatest violence in the world was against art, against knowledge."

We live this eternal battle of faith and its rules, versus the free mind and its expressions, today in the Philippines. To the Church, education about sex is sinful because of Man's weakness and proclivity to move always to the darker side, in simple and blunt terms, fornicating their eyeballs out. To the humanists of the Philippines, a woman has a right to decide how to treat her body.

In Florence, the humanists won out, for the human spirit cannot be confined by pushing it into a cave, no matter how sin-free that cave is portrayed to be. Today Florence remains the center of the World's artistic expression.

I suggest that Filipinos resist being pushed into a cave by a Catholic Church that adheres to doctrines centuries behind the times. Specifically consider the RH Bill and the Divorce Bill. They are compassionate legal instruments that the Church would paint as sinful.

It is not sinful to be educated. It is not sinful to be kind or reasonable. The Philippine Catholic Church would have it otherwise.

It would, today, in 2011, burn certain books.

The Ignorance of Poverty

One of the problems faced by the Philippines is what I might call the ignorance of poverty. I don't mean ignorance in a negative sense, and maybe there are better words for the condition that I am trying to characterized. Uninformed, perhaps. Uneducated. An innocent lack of exposure to other ways to behave. Lack of awareness. Some would say lazy minds, but that is negative.


Here's what I am talking about. Western standards of order on the highways hold to certain rules, those cited in the regulatory codes that dictate who has the "right of way" in a given situation. A vehicle turning left must yield to a vehicle coming straight, but the turning vehicle has the right of way over a car approaching it from behind. These rules allow each driver to understand what the other will do; this prevents frequent gnashings of metal and huge hospital bills.

The Philippines has essentially the same written codes, but a very different, unwritten interpretation of them. The bigger vehicle is generally acceded the right of way, a truck over a car, a car over a motorcycle, a motorcycle over a human powered tricycle. That is not written anywhere, but that is what happens. Some Filipinos claim the right of way by driving fast, careening about so that any sane opposing driver would head for the rice field rather than try to claim his rightful side of the road. Others flash their lights, essentially telling other drivers, "I'm coming, stay out of my way." And pedestrians know never, never trust that the painted crosswalk will afford any protection unless a traffic official is there to stand up for you.

The interesting thing is, these unwritten rules of the road keep traffic moving here, where traffic lights are few, lines on roads are scarce, police are snoozing, and vehicles of many types swarm for the same space. I've learned not to give way to pedestrians under risk of getting the pedestrian hit by someone behind me without the same sense of consideration. I've learned to be aggressive at busy crossroads, granting no mercy lest I bring traffic to a confusing halt. It is rather a rock and roll dance, circulating in and through the madcap flows of traffic. Or, as I have characterized it elsewhere, akin to Disney's ancient thrill for kids, "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride".

But the aggressiveness is a part of what I call the Ego-bound model of Filipino behavior. It is every driver for himself; other vehicles are just pieces of metal to dodge. There are no PEOPLE with personalities and mothers and kids in them. So who cares about their welfare? And this attitude is prominent in everyday life, too. Cutting in front of others in line is a natural. Playing loud music until the wee hours of the morning even though the neighbor has kids in school the next day. Pitching trash out the bus window, as if it disappears from earth when it is out of sight.

And the greater part of the Philippines is exposed to no order but this inconsiderate order.

"Who cares? It is our society", some Filipinos argue. "You Americans are wasteful hogs who don't care a whit about others."

Ouch. Worthy argument. Score 2.


But this relentless self-engagement is what prevents the Philippines from being productive, from having jobs, from gaining wealth and the safety and security that wealth provides. Western business people recognize that people are "markets" because they have needs. A business fares better by serving those needs than by being brusque or autocratic. The number of autocrats in business in the Philippines is simply astounding. And this self-engagement precludes certain aspects of efficiency, such as the understanding that appointments make things operate better for all parties. Again, like a broken record, or scratched CD . . . from efficiency . . . Comes productivity, profits and jobs. The Filipino merchant seems unaware that a smile brings a customer back. Jolibee is the exception; cheerful staff.

But as I drove through the Tacloban Zoo yesterday, known locally as downtown, it struck me as I was being swarmed by rude, pushy red motorcycle cabs that it would be impossible to get the drivers to understand the connection between their behavior and the number of jobs the Philippines can produce. It would be simply impossible to get past the rationalizations they would throw up. The blank stares. And however you say "Huh?" in Visayan.

Indeed, it is even difficult to get intelligent people to understand that rude is not productive.

Neither schools nor television nor blogs nor priests are capable of providing the kind of life's perspective that is necessary for people to grasp the connection. Thus, ignorance prevails.

So I guess it is written in stone somewhere that Filipinos are destined to be blind, and destined to go about not knowing where they aim, ever again shooting themselves in the foot. And . . . Hahahaha . . . with no idea who pulled the trigger. Not even the educators know.

Joe do, though. Joe do.

Houses in the Sand

Most of us are confident of what we know and our ability to figure out what we don’t know. But it is astounding how much we act based on understandings that reside outside of our knowledge. It is astounding how much we live a lie, or at least a big bluff. It is astounding how we delude ourselves so elegantly.

I realized this as I re-read Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear”. The book is a masterful if tad excessive tale of intrigue that does not exactly debunk global warming, but debunks the motives and objectivity of many who endorse global warming. Crichton documents his book with footnotes so those wanting to dig into the facts have a fine bibliography, now a few years stale, but thought provoking nonetheless.

Crichton’s wealthy fictional philanthropist, George Morton, offers up this pearl of wisdom in a speech he makes to withdraw his funding for a global warming charity: “But as Montaigne said three hundred years ago, ‘Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known.’”

I asked myself, “is this true? What are some circumstances in which people act on what they BELIEVE rather than what they KNOW.

I’m sure it is not exhaustive, but it was easy to compile examples. Here is my checklist of ways we routinely act without knowledge:

· When we embrace a religious faith and trust that what the church tells us is true. Faith is perhaps the biggest pile of sand in the universe.

· When we assess risks to make decisions (should I become a farmer or a soldier; should I invest in stocks or bonds) but are not able to read the future well.

· That is related to when we guess about what to do, for instance, taking a pot shot as to which road actually leads to our destination.

· When we make an honest mistake, like thinking that a brother said to meet on Tuesday when he actually said Thursday, or we thought a quote was from Dolly Parton instead of Abe Lincoln. How much of our behavior is anchored on mistakes or an incorrect reading of things? Lots.

· When we are prejudiced and think other races are sub-par, or democrats have all the answers, or teens are sex mad, or old people are stupid.

· When we ascribe authority to others, like believing the Cosmopolitan Magazine list of10 ways to make your sweetie horny, or when President Barak Obama says joining the NATO coalition on Libya is a good thing, or when John McCain says Arizona needs high fences to keep the Mexicans out, or when a university professor pretends to know what he is talking about.

· When we deduce or infer, leaping from that which is known to a new belief whilst passing over a huge chasm to get there. Global warming is real because we are having some bad storms.

· When we engage in gossip, enjoying the richness to be found in other people’s failings, whether true or not.

· When we engage in superstition, which circles back to religious faith; thinking a broken mirror means seven years bad luck is rather like thinking eating pigs will send you to hell or using a condom is the same as killing some one.

When you consider how prominent these forms of behavior are in our daily lives, you realize we are not operating on a sound foundation most of the time. It is sandy, it is muddy. We are winging it. Often times we know this, but we are confident that we can deal with any negative fall-out. We do this by blaming someone or some thing, or making an excuse, or lying about what we said or intended.

Owning up is not a typical outcome of the fall-out from winging it.

As Michael Crichton puts it: “I believe people are well intentioned. But I have great respect for the corrosive influence of bias, systematic distortions of thought, the power of rationalization, the guises of self-interest, and the inevitability of unintended consequences.”

What a piece of work we are, eh? And ever so pompous about the deceits we live and the manipulations we advance.

Self-confidence is great, but we ought to carry a little humility about how much we simply do not know or understand.

Who knows. Maybe some day critics will discover that President Aquino is actually trying hard, learning on the job, and doing good things for the Philippines. Or maybe I will discover that he is really just an empty yellow shirt. Odds are that we are all off base on many of our assessments, but can't see it for the rigidity of our thinking and the knowledge that simply is not ours to hold.

The Biggest Corruption of Them All

It is good to see the Philippine government working to protect women with the Reproductive Health and Divorce bills. Hopefully the Catholic Church won’t be allowed to pull the Philippines back into the Dark Ages. These are steps toward modernization and away from being a nation out of step with kindness and common sense.

It’s good to see corruption under attack on a wide scale. If this continues, it will have a profound impact on the nation’s values.

Another issue that needs to be addressed by the legislature is horrendously weak application of consumer protection laws. By modern standards of RESPECT, Filipino consumers are abused, over and over again, every day.

The modern idea that governments should make sure consumers are not deceived or cheated originated in the US during the Kennedy Administration in the 1960’s. Laws were subsequently perfected, enacted and enforced with the result that product quality and fair-dealing are virtually guaranteed in the US. In 1985, the United Nations adopted “Guidelines for Consumer Protection” for all member nations. Here are the eight basic rights that nations are urged to enforce, in Joe Am’s short-form words:

1. The Right to Safety. Products must be safe and consumers must be warned of dangers in use. Providers must advise consumers of defects and offer provisions for recall.

2. The Right to Be Informed. Providers must provide information so that consumer can make informed product choices.

3. The Right to Choose. Consumers should have a variety of options from which to choose. Competition is encouraged and monopolistic practices and price gouging are banned.

4. The Right to Be Heard. Consumers are permitted to voice complaints and have them dealt with forthrightly.

5. The Right to Satisfaction of Basic Needs. Consumers must have access to essential goods and services: adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, public utilities, water and sanitation.

6. The Right to Redress. Consumers are entitled to a fair settlement of claims, including compensation for misrepresentation, shoddy goods, or unsatisfactory services.

7. The Right to Consumer Education. Consumers must be able to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to make informed choices about goods and services, while being aware of their own responsibilities.

8. The Right to a Healthy Environment. Consumers have a right to live and work in an environment which is non-threatening to the well-being of present and future generations.

The Philippines, by permitting relentless violations of these rights, confirms itself to be out of touch with kindness and fairness toward its own citizens. It is corruption in a different form, cheating for sure.

The only things standing in the way of a very different consumer experience are: (1) lack of a crystal clear endorsement of the United Nations principles by the Philippine government, and (2) lack of aggressive public advocacy lawyers. There is no doubt consumers are being cheated or provided with poor care by manipulative or authoritarian government, professional, corporate and retail organizations.

Examples of violations:

• Cellular telephone providers offer internet services and various call and text promotions, but do not provide sufficient carrying capacity to allow the services to work trouble-free. Consumers face slow service, poor access, or interrupted service and do not get the value for which they pay.

• Television stations increase the loudness of commercials and overload popular programming with so many advertisements that consumers are denied reasonable access to the programs they seek to watch. These are intrusive, abusive uses of a valuable and scarce resource that should be dedicated to public benefit.

• Consumers are generally not permitted to make appointments with doctors, dentists and government offices. Therefore, they must wait for long periods, frequently in crowded, germ-laden offices without sufficient seating arrangements or toilet facilities, in order to obtain important services.

• Pollution is a major problem. Trash disposal and sewerage facilities are lacking in many cities and municipalities, and open-air burning of plastics and chemicals persists, representing a severe health threat. Noise pollution is rampant.

• Public education is not free. Poor families are at a disadvantage and frequently cannot afford to send their children to school.

• Hospitals admit ill or injured people but will not release them until bills are paid. This authoritarian practice runs up additional daily charges for the poorest patients who are not only injured or ill, but desperate due to hospital policies. Furthermore, patients must acquire their own drugs and materials for vital medical treatment and operations, resulting in delays of service and the risk that proper medicines and supplies will not be available at critical times.

• Electrical service is unreliable. Brownouts and blackouts are routine. People with medical equipment must buy generators to assure themselves of life-preserving service. Refrigerated products perish and consumers bear the cost of replacement. Consumers cannot avail themselves of internet or other vital electronic services.

• Government offices are run with little courtesy. Citizens are treated as if they were irritants rather than as people who pay for government services with their taxes, and who are entitled to reasonable and polite service. Waits and paperwork remain onerous burdens.

• Consumers are forced to wait as retail merchants inspect goods in the store to make sure all parts are in working order. Then consumers are not allowed to return goods later found to be defective, or which are damaged from poor re-packing.

• No common information systems exist to alert consumers to shortages of products and goods, advising them of alternative resources or steps to take to moderate demand. Responses to shortages are haphazard and often result in panic buying or anger. Similarly, there are no broad recall protections in the case of product deficiencies.

• Product information is available on food and goods packaged overseas, but many local products lack sanitary treatment, government inspection or proper information for consumers.

• Consumers are endangered by poor enforcement of basic traffic and pedestrian regulations. Vehicles don’t stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. Commercial vehicles load in the roadway. Retail displays and parking block pedestrian access to sidewalks.

• Consumers do not have ready access to the courts because of the high cost of court fees and attorneys, and the slow, inefficient processing of cases. Efforts to rectify wrongs lose steam, and evidence grows stale, as plaintiffs face delay after delay.

Litigation is the best cure. It serves as a hammer to the head of businesses, governments and organizations that operate in a way punitive to consumers. The first case should be against the government for failure to provide prompt, and therefore fair, judicial renderings. Consumers pay a heavy price by not having a means to litigate for fair and considerate treatment.

There is an additional “spiritual benefit” to an intense effort to right these wrongs. When violators realize it is in their best interest to be kind and responsible to consumers, Filipinos will finally feel like they amount to something. They can stop overlaying their acts with Ego-bluster aimed at proving to others they are worthwhile.

All the legislature needs to do is endorse United Nation standards as law to give attorneys a sound basis for litigation. Given the pressures on private attorneys to bow to large corporations and powerful people, it would be advisable to set up a government Consumer Protection Agency staffed by capable, aggressive litigators.