Hey, who's in charge here, anyway?

As I was reading the comments from a reader the other day, it struck me that I don't know who is responsible for what in the Philippines. Not entirely, at least.

The federal government has over 20 cabinet positions for trade, customs, foreign affairs, justice, tourism, education and the like. Finance, for sure. So they are engaged everywhere.

It appears that the federal government has authority to levy income taxes, sales taxes (VAT), and those service-based poison pills that Customs and Immigration charge. I say poison pills because, consistent with the logic of reverse brains, they kill trade and tourism instead of foster it.

But I know local governments assess property taxes. Who gets to spend them? Is that how local governments fund themselves?

In the U.S., property taxes fund schools and local roads, but in the Philippines, the national government funds schools. Localities in the U.S. also claim a portion of sales taxes.

Other duties that confuse me are the roles of the respective police forces. The PNP seems to be everywhere, but they aren't doing anything but driving around. I've never seen a ticket issued for speeding or an arrest of drunks who now and then fight it out on the highway. There is nothing like PNP in the U.S. It is like a national police force.

Our town also has its own police force. The cars are not as nice but the uniforms look the same as the PNP, blue with white pinstripes. So I'm confused on that point. Who is really responsible for law and order around here? Or, more correctly, the lack of law and order?

I see traffic guys trying to get the maddening tricycle, motorcycle and car traffic in order, but they don't wear uniforms, unless you call the day-glo orange vest with fluorescent green stripes a uniform. The way they are lit up, I'd guess maybe a few have been mowed down in the past. But motorcyclists habitually ignore their waving arms and whistles to cut a turn in front of dump trucks or my Honda Civic.  I've never seen a ticket written by these guys, either. 

And why are there no women police officers? Or soldiers. Are they afraid, afraid of being teased, or are they discriminated against?

But I digress.

The PNP operates motorcycle checkpoints that pop up mysteriously now and then, inspecting for helmets and licensing. The checkpoints are rather useless, though, because the word spreads faster than bird flu in a dank hen house, and the drivers just take a different road. About 10 percent of the motorcyclists wears helmets on days when there is no checkpoint. Helmets magically appear when there is a check-point. They are made of cheap plastic that would splatter on impact, rather like brains.

I'd swear communication between motorcyclists is faster than the internet. I've seen them driving while texting. Maybe that is how they do it. They don't enforce bans on texting from motorcycles, I guess. It's more fun in the Philippines.

But let's say my town decided it wanted to become law abiding. Does it have the authority to do that?

Can it start assessing fines to the idiots who park and load in the middle of the National Highway? Or who block driveways, toss trash, or blast loud music until three in the morning on a school night?

Who is in charge of ENFORCEMENT in this country, anyway? The PNP is after murderers and drug peddlers and rebels who want the Philippines to be communistic. They don't care about noise. No macho policeman would perform a prissy, undignified act like suggest an obnoxious twit tune down his amplifier.

Who has the authority to put the ORDER in law and order?

If I were a real journalist (UST says I am not), I would do a survey of the local hospital and find out exactly why people are dropping into emergency all cut and bleeding and dead. My guess is that safety here is really lousy. My mother in law and her daughter were hurt in a motorcycle crash when a Pepsi truck used a tree branch as a marker declaring the truck stopped on the National Highway (loading), and hid a rock under the tree branch. Not a motorcycle friendly rock.

My father-in-law can no longer use a chain saw because he got dumped from his cycle by a dog, wrecking his back forever.

When my wife was giving birth, I saw a young man coming out of the operating room in tears, and with only one leg. The neighbor across the road, less than 30 years old, also only has one leg.

You catching my drift here?

If people have "more fun in the Philippines" are they doing it through death-defying thrill rides on the public highways? Do Filipinos think THEIR loud music is fun for other people who like peace and quiet?

Who in charge can step forward and say "I am responsible for this disorder and these relentlessly unsafe conditions"?

Do mayors ever dream of a clean, orderly city, and set out to make one?

Frankly, I suspect that a main reason why I don't know who is in charge is because no one WANTS to be in charge. That way they avoid any responsibility for anything. The national symbol should be fingers pointing the blame elsewhere.

"That's the way we do it, Joe", Proud Pinoy would say. "Stop trying to impose your imperialist American values on the Philippines. If we want to be irresponsible or slaughter our own, we are proud of it."

No, no. The way to do it is empower people to act and hold them accountable for the results of their acts.

Porn, Swearing and Other Obscenities

Obscene, according to my Humpty Dumpty New World Dictionary, is an adjective describing language, photographs, videos or acts that are socially destructive.

• Lewd photos shown to children. Obscene. Kids might start behaving lewdly and who knows what kinks that will put into their maturing minds.

• Telling another congressman from the floor of the Legislature to do something physically awkward to himself. Obscene. Conservative church-goers might have heart attacks.

• Putting a video of George Carlin on ABS-CBN before 10 at night. Obscene. The kids might learn a whole bunch of new swear words, not to mention ribald satire which can stretch the brain over new horizons, not to mention being respectful of those church folks again.

I consider Cosmopolitan Magazine, Philippine Edition, grossly obscene and am surprised that the morality police have not consigned it to the same place they consign Playboy Magazine. I have not seen one of those fine literary magazines around here since I arrived 7 years ago.

Here are the front page headlines for the January 2012 edition of Cosmopolitan:

• Sexy new You!
• Flawless Skin All Year Round
• Hot New Wardrobe Essentials
• Slim Your Waist in 6 Minutes a Day

• Rock the New Year!
• Make it Cosmo-Amazing

• 2021 Bedside Astrologer
• Juicy Month-by-Month Predictions Just for You

• Bea Alonzo
• New Bod
• New Man
• New Outlook on Life

• 10 Brilliant Shortcuts to Achieving Your Goals

• Are you an Orgasm Virgin?
• How to Go from "Um, Not Yet" to "OMG, Yes!"

• Why it pays to be a TIGER GIRLFRIEND

• Peel Off the Pounds Celebrity Style
• Channel the Diet Mantras of Bea Alonzo, Judy Ann Santos and Kate Middleton!

• Can You Change a Cheater?

Juicy predictions indeed. OMG, if you don't talk Valley Girl chat lingo, you are not cool. OMG, who the f*** are Bea, Judy Ann and Kate, and what have they done lately to reduce corruption and poverty in the Philippines?

I feel so sorry for pragmatic, socially aware women like Noemi Dado over at blogwatch.tv. She has to swim against the tide of this Ego-stuffing, trivial nonsense to get Filipinos seriously engaged about women's rights.

What is the Filipina term for macho, applied to brain-dead, sweaty tough-guy Filipino men who hang out at the cock fights and slip snide remarks to women nearby? Or grace the ads in Cosmopolitan in their briefs or open shirts, jeans tight enough to show a jelly bean in the front pocket.

Bimbo is the term used in the U.S. It means a woman who has mainly air in her head and can natter about movie stars and gossip and hair color as if they really mattered. OMG!

Christ, the seas are rising, Filipinos are being washed into them every other month, Iran is threatening to wipe out Israel, Filipinos are birthing the nation into an impending economic disaster, China is strutting across the Pacific in combat boots the size of aircraft carriers, and Cosmopolitan readers are getting a heady dose of brain-killing, Ego-inflating, breathless trash like this. With exclamation points and OMG's for emphasis.

I fear Cosmo readers could not read the Table of Contents of The New Yorker without running headlong into the blank space of social and literary ignorance that sits like a concrete wall inside their crania.

Cosmopolitan is obscene for the values it represents. For the behaviors it inspires.

What we need around here is a few more self-centered, brain dead, dysfunctional  people caring so sincerely, so passionately, about Bea, Judy Ann and Kate. Or their Bods. Or their sex life or hair.

The sadness . . . the obscenity . . . is found not in the fact that Cosmopolitan publishes this magazine. It is found in the fact that so many Filipinas buy it or read it.

The fact that a large share of the nation's women holds this material up as inspirational.

"More fun . . ." Joe Am Gives it a "Like"

Marketing people do their business in front of the world. It is a thankless task because it is absolutely impossible to satisfy everyone.

We see this now with the carping and ridicule directed at the Department of Tourism for the new marketing slogan, "It's more fun in the Philippines . . ." I think the objections are always going to be strident in the Philippines where under-evolved but amazingly huge Ego's have a strange penchant for trying to raise themselves up by tearing someone else down.

Here's the example I use. We were building new home on a large 2,400 sq meter lot, but before doing that needed to build a small house for my wife's mother, as she had no permanent living arrangement.

People would visit, see the small house, and invariably ask "Why is your house so small? You have lots of money."

Later, as we were working on our own home, a two-story place of good but not lavish size, visitors would invariably ask "Why is your house so big? There are only three of you?"

You see, the questions were not really about our house. They were about the person asking them. The penchant for having a wiser view of things exists everywhere in the Philippines, for just about every subject. It is the subtle way Filipinos jack themselves up in a land where power and face ride on every interpersonal meeting.

Another quirk in marketing . . . in the Philippines or anywhere else . . . is that people generally don't see marketing as a skill. It is something anyone can do. And, indeed, you will hear people offering up better slogans, and it is difficult to understand how they figure theirs will do any better. ANY slogan has an upside and a downside, unless you invest in it relentlessly like Nike does to make the slogan mean one thing: shoes that are more prestigious and more fun. Fancy that.

So for the Tourism people, I would say you have a sound slogan so let the commentary roll off your back like so much water off an albatross's back. Or maybe a duck's is a better back to use.

I don't know if the Department of Tourism did focus group research, or any kind of testing of competing slogans. If they did, they should say so. Most slogans are not just thrown out without a great deal of thought. When I was marketing director of a major bank in the U.S., it was common practice to test different approaches to understand better how a creative pitch would strike the people to whom advertising would be directed. Slogans, logos, advertising creative . . . all pre-tested.

Indeed, I see the new slogan as having great potential as it is applied to different attractions that are unique in the Philippines. "More fun finding underwater caves . . ." "More fun climbing volcanoes . . ." "More fun finding girls . . ." More fun scuba diving . . ." "More fun making your dollar go a long way . . ."

You can't do that with "Wow, Philippines."

But I also don't know to whom the slogan is directed. If it is to Malaysians, it may ring better than if it is to Americans. Americans would claim Hong Kong Disneyland is more fun for families than anything the Philippines could put up. Americans are cynics and can read "smoke" or "sizzle" pretty well. Malls are not a great attraction for Americans, except for local shopping.

I rather think the slogan is partly directed toward Filipinos, making them proud. Making them think their country is fun. Filipino pride is always lurking behind anything going overseas. I dislike this pride because it is so anchored on showboat boxers and stars, reflecting a kind of complacency with the way things are. It is not pride in achievement. It is peacock pride, people flaring their feathers with no real substance behind the squawk.

A big problem with tourism under any slogan is that the Philippines is rather dirty and worn out, in the mainstream cities and roads . Some tourist destinations certainly have a lot more attraction. But a lot of them are frayed around the edges, too. So the slogan may be jazzy, but the product is not. And those who travel a lot are not fools. They won't take risks or just fly off somewhere because of a slogan. They will do THEIR research.

If the Philippines can put good product behind the slogan, then I would say give the slogan a lot of play. Work that baby until it is blue in the face. But if the product is what I think it is, you can't sell a sow's ear as a purse. Spend your money working on the product, not pushing smoke.

So, in conclusion, I'd say the slogan is largely irrelevant, the product is what counts, and a lot of people are only arguing for the sake of their own Egos. Maybe even people in the Palace.

It's All Greek to Filipinos

Did you hate History in school as much as I did? I detested it. Despised it. I only got "A's" (the top American grade) because I was a dippy nerd afraid to fail.

My oldest daughter, who has a memory like an HP scanner, loves the stuff, all the way back to the classics of Greek and Roman mythology. She is fluent in Latin, a dead language, so you know she digs ancient.

It helps if you can automatically recall dates and related them to things that mattered. History was all irrelevant memory work to me. I didn't get it. At age 13, I couldn't relate to a World War, much less Teddy Roosevelt leading the charge up some Spanish hill on some island in the Caribbean, or one of the other oceans. I was more interested in trying to peer down Ms. Perrine's blouse . . .

Speaking of oceans, here's something interesting I read today (bear with me, I'll get to the Philippines shortly). "Ocean" was one of the early Greek gods. He was one of the Titans who were later merged into a scheme under 12 great Olympian gods. He must have had a sex change operation, too, because today we refer to the oceans as "she". The Greek gods all had Roman counterparts. Romans were like the Chinese, I guess, copying everything instead of concocting their own.

Ocean was the god of the river that encircled the earth. He had a wife named Tethys, but you don't have to remember that name if you can't pronounce it.

So now you know that you use one Greek word regularly. And you know where the word came from. It came from people who were humanizing that which they did not understand. This was 1000 B.C., before Jesus decided the Greek and Roman saviors needed some competition.

I was once accused of being an "intellectual" during a blog argument on Filipino Voices (speaking of dead languages . . . )

Well, I'm not. I just read a lot and can upchuck words in strange and occasionally entertaining ways. My eldest daughter is an intellectual. So is Edith Hamilton, who wrote the book I am now reading, entitled "Mythology".

Greek Gods

Filipinos are neither intellectual nor interested in reading. (Sweeping generality meant to drive GabbyD up the Jackfruit Tree). I've actually met one exception.

That is the connection of this article to the Philippines. But I would like to think that my readership is a cut above the great unread masses. I mean, they have to be to "stick with Joe" and his offbeat perspectives.

So today I shall give you well-brained Filipinos(and non-Filipinos) a lesson in Greek, courtesy of some excerpts from Ms. Hamilton. Stretch yourself on this . . .

The Greeks did not believe that the gods created the universe. It was the other way about: the universe created the gods. Before there were gods heaven and earth had been formed. They were the first parents. The Titans were their children and the gods were their grandchildren.

Now that is a mind-bender, eh? Who created the universe then? But not to worry. The Greeks were unerringly practical. Their gods were not even religious. They just explained the undiscovered science that surrounded the Greeks. The sky, lightning, oceans, the sun, fire . . . The actual scientific discoveries would come later.

This recitation by Ms. Hamilton puts religion in its proper place by giving the Greek mythological view on priests:

The priest is rarely seen and is never of importance. In the Odyssey when a priest and a poet fall on their knees before Odysseus, praying him to spare their lives, the hero kills the priest without a thought, but saves the poet. Homer (who is writing the story) says that he (Odysseus) felt awe to slay a man who had been taught his divine art by the gods. Not the priest, but the poet, had influence with heaven . . .

I'm going to become a Greek mythologist, for sure. It's older than Catholicism, so must be more historically accurate than the wild stories the Church would have us believe. Noah on a huge dung-stinkin' boat and Jonah in the belly of a swimming mammal whose digestive juices must have given him quite a case of acne. Deny the stories, however, and you go to Hell quicker than Ms. Arroyo can say "vindictive".

Here's the list of Titan gods, your last bit of scholarly knowledge to glean from this reading:

The Titans, often called the Elder Gods, were for untold ages supreme in the universe. They were of enormous size and of incredible strength. There were many of them, but only a few appear in the stories of mythology. The most important was Cronus, . . . He ruled over the other Titans until his son Zeus dethroned him and seized the power for himself . . .

The other notable Titans were Ocean, the river that was supposed to encircle the earth; his wife Tethys; Hyperion, the father of the sun, the moon and the dawn; Mnemosyne, which means Memory; Themis, usually translated by Justice; and Iapetus, important because of his sons, Atlas, who bore the world on his shoulders, and Prometheus, who was the savior of mankind . . .

So we can safely say Filipinos would admire Zeus for his supreme skill at carrying out a coup.

And I wonder what happened to Themis in the Philippines. Justice here is rather like a thief in the night . . .

Prometheus and Jesus were both saviors. Figure that one out for yourself. The Greeks are still here, not running track meets naked like they used to, and financially on the ropes, but definitively here. I'm rooting for them. They are very old and their gods have character . . .

JoeAm's Lonely, Rich Vigil

I have on a number of occasions recommended a Fair Employment Act to build more competitive zeal and aspiration into the Philippine job market. The idea is to build a concept of careers so that workers don't get dead-ended by the favorites brought in above them. And to energize the entire country by pointing workers toward excellence in work result.

I can't get much traction with the idea because hiring favorites is a way of life in the Philippines. Trying to break through that is virtually impossible. No government official, legislator, business leader or citizen's group advocates this. My readers say simply "good idea, Joe; lots of luck; it will never happen".

That is fine by me, as I'm retired. But if I were a young person, I would be frustrated and angry that my nation doesn't give me the same kind of opportunity to excel that Americans have. I can't invest personal equity in a career, grow, and get rich without some unqualified favorite cutting short my dreams. I have to leave the Philippines to realize my dreams. To get a straight shot at being rewarded for my skill.

This is the basis for that vaunted Filipino pride? To make top-skill people leave? To drain the brains, export the talent, eradicate the foundations of achievement?

Let me share with you how American employment practices work, and why they motivate workers to excel.

First of all, a well-run corporation has a written job description for each position in the company. The description cites the work to be done and the skills needed to perform it. It is the analytical basis for evaluating prospective hires. It is also the basis for performance reviews: informal counseling during the year and a formal year-end meeting to convey the merit raise, any bonuses earned and discuss the next year's goals.

Almost all employees get a cost-of-living increase. Added to that is a merit increase to a higher pay scale if they are doing particularly well. And many firms pay out bonuses keyed to specific achievements. For capable, hard-working people, the ladder up is right in front of them. The company takes care of them because it knows they take care of the company's future.

The goal in establishing such discipline is to achieve complete clarity between employee and supervisor as to what is needed. This forms a contract, a statement of specific responsibilities and expectations.

Indeed, well-run corporations are a tightly woven interlacing of corporate, unit and individual aspirations, all pointed the same direction, all measurable, all rewarded or punished based on the results. Well, alas, humans are not so perfect, sometimes screwing up the understanding or the communication or even the results. So things are never perfect. The best a CEO can hope for is a strong combined effort that drives the company to achieve its goals with a minimum of humanesque blow-back.

It is this structured drive for success that underpins the generation of profits that ensures investors remain willing to put their money behind the company. It also says to employees, "perform well and you will be rewarded." It binds employees to performance.

When President Aquino seeks to get rating agency upgrades to "investment" status for the Philippines, he wants investors to put their money into the product he and his government are producing.  That product is the wealth being created by the economy.

However, I rather sense that he wants the upgrade as a gift to reward effort. But effort is different than result. The Philippines needs to EARN the upgrade, not expect to receive it as a favor.

That is my point in advocating a Fair Employment Act. The Philippines only creates value if its workers are committed to hard, disciplined work that generates more wealth.

This historically what is missing in the Philippines. Rating agencies understand that output can only be mediocre, at best, as long as the cultural environment does not promote the competition that builds quality and productivity into commercial processes.

Play the game of favorites and you get a consistent result. Poor product. In the Philippines, you get it across the economic spectrum, from tourism to management of forests to Manila traffic to ferries that tip over to mines that rape the landscape and seas that are barren wastelands, bombed to sand. You get a level of poverty that ought to shame someone, but apparently does not.

As long as no one advocates a change, I am quite confident the Philippines will shuffle along in mediocrity, reluctant to own up to certain truths. The biggest truth is that the trade of favors does not reward excellence. It only rewards the privileged few.

As long as the masses understand it, and accept it, I have absolutely no problem with it. It keeps the peso cheap and I, too, can realize great personal gain, at the expense of the complacent.