In the 1950s and early 1960s, the Philippine economy was ranked as the second most progressive in Asia, next to that of Japan. Back then, South Korea after the Korean War was as battered and poor as Manila was after the Second World War – but look at Korea now. In the Fifties, the traffic in Taipei can be attributed to the bicycles and army trucks clogging the roads, the streets flanked by tile-roofed low buildings. Kuala Lumpur was a small village surrounded by a jungle and hectares of rubber plantations. Bangkok was criss-crossed with canals, with only Wat Arun dominating the city’s skyline. Visit these cities today and weep — for they are more beautiful, cleaner and prosperous than Manila. In the Fifties and Sixties we were the most envied country in Southeast Asia. Why is it then that we were left behind? Why is it that we are somewhat stuck in a warp where we are to be held helpless for the coming years? Why is the Philippines poor?
But what does it mean to be poor exactly? As Edilberto Alegre describes it, to the common tao (ordinary people) it means the “condemnation to life-long hunger-never enough rice, never enough corn, never enough kamote, never enough kamoteng kahoy and bagoong and leaves. It means wearing torn clothes and going barefoot. It means schooling, if at all, stops at Grave IV. It means bearing pain because medicine is expensive. It means working in the rain, in the heat of the sun, in the mud, in the refuse of the rich, in the offal of the middle class. They are Other. They look different. They are dressed differently. They smell differently. They move differently. They speak differently. They are totally unlike us. At most, they are an abstract-a hazily floating ephemeral image. They are just a mass, a conglomerate of bad smelling offal, a percentage of our total population, poverty similar to the cockroaches and ants which are always there in the dark — a given, a condition, a presence which we need not deal with.” Replace every single “they” I have said, and I just described the Filipinos and the country in general.
So why then are we poor? F. Sionil Jose emphasizes on the following reasons:
1. Social and moral malaise on colonialism is partly to blame, as we inherited from Spain a social system and elite that, on purpose, exploited the masses.
2. We are poor because our nationalism is inward looking. Under its guise we protect inefficient industries and monopolies. We did not pursue agrarian reform like Japan and Taiwan. It is not so much the development of the rural sector, making it productive and a good market as well. Our nationalist icons like Claro M. Recto and Lorenzo Tanada opposed agrarian reform, the single most important factor that would have altered the rural areas and lifted the peasant from poverty.
3. We are poor because we have lost our ethical moorings. We condone cronyism and corruption and we don’t ostracize or punish the crooks in our midst. Both cronyism and corruption are wasteful but we allow their practice because our loyalty is to family or friend, not to the larger good.
We can tackle our poverty in two very distinct ways. The first choice: a nationalist revolution, a continuation of the revolution in 1896. But even before we can use violence to change inequities in our society, we must first have a profound change in our way of thinking, in our culture.
The second is through education, perhaps a longer and more complex process. The only problem is that it may take so long and by the time conditions have changed, we may be back where we were, caught up with this tremendous population explosion which the Catholic Church (I am using the term Catholic Church loosely here, as I may refer it to religions in general) exacerbates in its conformity with doctrinal purity. We have developed a fatalistic attitude as expressed in statements such as “bahala na ang Diyos”, “ginusto ng Diyos”, “oras na”, etc. This fatalistic attitude pervades our poor countrymen and even the so-called educated. We are afraid to question such long-held beliefs since we think that it is tantamount to committing sin. We need to outgrow these childish beliefs which are destructive to ourselves and society and have to learn and understand more deeply our inherited religion and thus develop a more mature faith. The aggregate and adverse impact of fatalism are for a populace to throw out their hands in despair, helplessness, inaction and to seek solace in wishful prayers which in effect only gives credence to the oft-quoted remark by Karl Marx that “religion is the opium of the people.”
We are a rich country, resources-wise and manpower-wise. We are a society of a hundred-million, and it is taking us forever to look at the fact that we are a hundred-million strong! We are a country with vast natural resources, and we are all using and abusing them for all the wrong reasons! It all boils down to us. We are our own enemy. And we must have the courage, the will, to change ourselves.
References:
Alegre, Edilberto (2001). What Does It Mean To be Poor? Retrieved from http://pimephilippines.wordpress.com/2001/03/11/what-does-it-mean-to-be-poor/
Constantino, Leticia (2003). What is Filipino Nationalism? Retrieved from http://sundalo.bravehost.com/What%20Nationalism.htm
Jose, F. Sionil (2006). Why Are The Filipinos So Poor? Retrieved from http://liberaleconomy.wordpress.com/2006/11/23/fsionil-joses-why-are-filipinos-so-poor/
Scott, William Henry (1994). Barangay : sixteenth-century Philippine culture and society. Quezon City : Ateneo De Manila University Press, ix, 306 p. : ill.
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