From: greg@brooks.async.vt.edu (Greg Foliente)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Re: The Philippines: why such an impovrished nation?(LONG)
Date: 31 Aug 92 14:36:06 GMT
Reply-To: greg@brooks.async.vt.edu OR pol2@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu

In article <1992Aug30.025357.161@u.washington.edu>  
sue@byron.u.washington.edu (Shu-Chen Eclipse) writes:
> 
> I'm soliciting opinions as to why the P.I. seems so impovrished a  
nation.
> With what appears to be a wealth of natural resources, talented,  
highly-educatedpeople, where English is almost a 2nd native language, why  
has the P.I. fallen
> so far behind other Asian countries which appear to have many more  
disadvantages? Countries as Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. What I see on  
U.S. news media is
> a bleak picture of desparate poverty, where political corruption and  
moral
> decay is an integral part of the culture, where nobody seems to have any  
ideals
> higher than materially enriching the individual or his clan, a country  
where
> everybody seems intent on leaving as fast as they can, where it's young  
women
> sell themselves as mail-order "brides", or as servants abroad.
> 
> What do you see as the future for the Phillipines? An inevitable slide  
into
> anarchy and revolution and from there to corrupt fascism, political  
fragmentation, or a brighter future?  why and how?

In the late 50's and early 60's, the Phils was second only to Japan  
economically, ahead of South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. We had the  
"brightest" president elected in the mid 60's and the rest was history.  
Now we stand at the bottom of the list in SE Asia (economically). Why?
Let me offer this analogy...

It generally takes about 3 months to build a safe and beautiful house.  
Most important are the foundations and the structural details (I know I'm  
a civil/structural engineer). How long will it take to intentionally  
destroy this house? It can be totally destroyed in less than an hour or it  
can be systematically destroyed (partially) in a year. The result of the  
former is total collapse; thus, to rebuild one starts from scratch. The  
result of the latter is an unsafe, ugly house. The renovation process does  
not only take more time but is costly and frustrating (i.e. as you change  
the floor sheathing, you find out that the supporting floor joists are  
rotten and that the connection details do not hold anymore; what do you  
do?).

The Phils was destroyed economically, politically and to some extent  
socially in a systematic manner FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS!!! What do you  
expect? The problems we have are extremely complex, there are no easy  
solutions. It is far easier to rebuild from scratch than to patch things  
here and there as in the analogy above (and the result of hasty renovation  
is normally much less satisfying). It is easy to say this in building a  
house, but how do you do this for a country?

In another light, the system is only as good as its people. In structural  
engineering, we say "the structural integrity of a building is only as  
good as its weakest point". The weakest point in a political/social system  
is its people (or more specifically, the "dark side" of man). For example,  
socialism as spoused by the communist fathers is the "best system" on  
paper but does not work in practice primarily because of the kind of  
people administering it. Democracy is good only if the majority is morally  
responsible and sensible (heard of the tyranny of the majority?)  
Selfishness and greed have mastered humanity. As Pogo said, "I have met  
the enemy, and it is us." A people with its back pushed to the wall whose  
immediate aim is survival, who is unsure of its own identity, who lacks a  
sense of integrity (which in its highest form means personal  
accountability to God) and who have a "near-sighted" vision will swim in  
troubled waters for a long, long time. The Filipinos have many things  
going for them, if we can only deal victoriously with the things that go  
against us...

Here, I offer a diagnosis of my country's lot. It may be long but  
certainly not exhaustive. No prescription is offered because it is ideal  
to have a much better understanding of the problem (what do you say  
netters?) before a solution is discussed. Of course I have my own ideas...
--
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Greg Foliente                   NeXTmail: greg@brooks.async.vt.edu 
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA                 pol2@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino