Disillusioned or delusional?

Renato Tibon .

“Unfortunately for its people, the Philippines illustrates the contrary: that culture can make a naturally rich country poor.” (James Fallows, A Damaged Culture, The Atlantic 1987)

UNLIKE most of the countries in Asia, our culture is marked with external influences although we can own up to some as uniquely our own. The concept of hospitality and shame is strong so that we feel compelled to borrow money to spend lavishly for fiestas or any other celebration because we’re afraid what others would say.

In the same vein however, we don’t particularly take heed of creditors coming back tenaciously calling attention to our debts insisting we’ll pay it soon enough when the money comes. Unless of course they make good their threat to hail us in court and make us pay soonest and only then.

We don’t give much importance to coming early in any gathering, dismissing the idea of punctuality or time as “American” and we’re not.

We value religion and family, yet we don’t have a “Catholic vote” and can’t expect votes from family members who are as divided as the amount of largesse or vote-money they received from politicians. Our values have indeed gone askew.

Did we ever regret losing a P5,000-bet in a basketball championship game while a “power disconnection notice” is tacked on our ref? We just shrugged our shoulders matter-of-factly.

Did we feel guilty having bought five slots worth P50,000 in a “legitimate” binary networking operation only to find we were among the last fleeced, and the syndicate along with their leaders vanishing in thin air? Yet we didn’t learn the lesson well and fall yet again to a scheme where we invest (masquerading as “donation”) money and expect interests (passed off as “blessings”) because others swore it’s legit, even displaying their sudden wealth for all to see. Then the money flow is forcibly stopped and with the many who came late to the “investment gimmick” which we refused to consider as scam, we cried “foul” and blame the government and everyone but ourselves.

Curiously, some of us would choose to watch passively from the sidelines and keep our peace, accept it as another possible loss and wait for favorable times having decided that in life, everything is a gamble, that “we win some, we lose some” even if we stand to lose more.

How can we describe this folly if not absolutely delusional?

Did we feel remorse having elected uncouth and incompetent public officials and despite the charges filed, find no compelling reason to join calls for their removal as it’s just a waste of time? A perception of supercilious acceptance and abject surrender to the inevitable? The worst thing is the loss of the sense of regret or guilt. A culture of contemptuousness instead, has swamped over.

This sense of despondency has permeated Philippine society grown accustomed to “social anomaly,” a belief system gone awry yet described as mainstream normal, or so it seems. It is no comfort that the Filipino psyche has been characterized as generous albeit infused with crab mentality, selfish yet hospitable to a fault, contrasting traits that perplexed western ideas in social interaction.

We refuse to learn when the subject or issue touches on our nerve and ego while we become accommodating when the act elicits praise and fetches potential reward. This predilection to choose as we please are reflective of a culture that has been greatly influenced by an admixture of foreign values learned through centuries of subjugation.

Do we not worry that people who are not immersed in our belief systems unfairly describe us in their writings and commentaries as a people with “damaged culture,” a dubious distinction perceived as cause of our poverty and lack of progress among nations which used to envy our economic success in the past?

Are we so disillusioned with our present situation that we throw caution to the wind with our “bahala na” habit, are shameless with our “ningas kogon” attitude, dismissing these and our fatalist nature as unavoidable cultural adjuncts? Or are we really a delusional people, confused with our real worth, with unrealistic expectations and ultimately blaming government and all others for our infirmities? 

Whoever said we’re a rich country pretending to be poor could be himself delusional in his assessment. Our country is naturally gifted with resources and people who only need to appreciate our religious, family and cultural values with more circumspection, attentiveness and foresight in order to rise up to our disillusionment and overcome our fear and fallacious self-worth.

(Renato Gica Tibon is a fellow of the Fellowship of the 300, an elite organization under Centrist Democracy Political Institute with focus on political technocracy. He  holds both position as political action officer and program manager of the Institute. He is the former regional chairman for Region 10 and vice president for Mindanao of the Centrist Democratic Party of the Philippines.)