Filipinos: Born to fail
Thursday, January 12, 2006 ADVERTISEMENTS
Captain's Log Supplemental Stardate -317032.78
Manuel F. Martinez of the Journal Group wrote a sad but true pathway our race is going through... read the 1st and 2nd part:
Filipinos: Born to fail (1)
FRONTLINE
Manuel F. Martinez
It is said that from Magsaysay to Garcia to Macapagal to the first years of Marcos, the Philippines was second only to Japan. Economically.
They forgot that during the Commonwealth era, when we were under the Americans, the Philippines was no. 1 in all Asia.
Even the Japanese were behind us, before the war, droves of Japanese laborers were coming to the Philippines as manual laborers to help build with human hands the Kennon Road going up to Baguio, and to Davao plantations in the south. Now we have the reverse: Filipino women go in droves to Tokyo.
During the Commonwealth era, the Americans, along with Quezon and company gave us first class political leadership.
When we were No. 1 and then later No. 2, Hongkong's pier was marked by rickshaws which dirt poor Chinese pulled; Singapore was only a swampland, Malaysia was a backwater country, Taiwan was poorer than Romblon, and nobody ever had of Korea.
We were No. 1 largely because of American presence, not because of ourselves. Not that they were benevolent. They came to rape our country. But with America we progressed.
For example, we had Asia's first airlines because of the Americans, who brought us western technology. We were the first socially sophisticated nation in the Southeast, with Quezon having the best wardrobe among Asian political leaders.
Besides our superb political leadership, owing largely to mestizos--Chinese, American, Spanish-we had a colonial military led by no less than Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower.
When the Americans left us after World War II, we dropped to No.2, then, having more and more of ourselves through the decades, we are now lagging behind practically all Asian countries.
Imagine, from No. 1 during the Commonwealth to rock bottom today. How can we be such a horrible failure?
We are the biggest collective national failure in Asia. And yet, when someone wins a cultural contest abroad, we boast that we are world class, while tens of millions of Filipinos starve.
When a Filipina was appointed chief chef of the White House, there was a pandemonium that Pinoy is world class.
Naging kusinera lang sa White House ay naghambog na. Hindi siguro alam na ang kusinera ay kusinera lang, hindi 'yan scientist or economist or artist or whatever who could really do a great good to the suffering masses of Filipinos.
We say that Pinoys are malikhain, meaning creative or artistic, but we have never had a writer who won the Nobel Prize.
We used to be no.1 in education--elementary to primary to high school to college--in all Asia. And this was due to American pressure.
Now that we have been left to ourselves, we are near the bottom, UP, La Salle and Ateneo are 56th, 62nd and 78th in the list of Asia's best universities.
And we have the dirtiest public toilets. Look at Winnie Monsod. She said on television that trying to solve our problems by changing from presidential to parliamentary system is just like a man trying to cure his diarrhea by changing kubetas-yes, she said, "going from one kubeta to another."
During last year's Gloria crisis, Monsod defended Gloria in her columns with so many reasons, saying that Gloria did not cheat on a widesale basis.
Monsod forgot that her scholarly, comprehensive, all-embracing, elongated logic in favor of Gloria could be simply refuted with just two words, "Hello, Garci.."
Filipinos can't hack it. Filipinos are born to fail.
Filipinos: Born to fail (2)
FRONTLINE
MANUEL F. MARTINEZ
People's Journal
ALTHOUGH we were ahead of all Asian countries during the Commonwealth era, and second only to Japan after World War II, we are now the most impotent.
We do not have a steel industry. We cannot by ourselves produce an airplane engine, or even the body of an airplane. We have more commodores in the Philippine Navy than ships.
The only destroyer we had, which were given to us by the United States under the Military Assistance Pact, sank off the coast of Cagayan — not during a battle but when caught in a storm.
Even dental supplies — and handcuffs — are imported from abroad because we do not have the capability to produce them.
We have a munitions factory in Bataan — a factory which manufactures bullets. But in a shootout with MILF troops in Mindanao, government forces ran out of bullets because the munitions factory was not producing enough owing to ghost delivery of component materials.
We can produce toothpicks and matchsticks, but even these are very inferior to those made in other Southeast Asian countries.
We produce firecrackers, but what is the economic benefit from that?
We produce sardines that we could buy for P30 each can. But they are so inferior that the smallest can of imported sardines, which taste much better, sells at P150 a can.
And sardine employers exploit harassed child laborers to make their product more inferior but more profitable.
China, Japan, India, Pakistan, and Taiwan are way ahead in science and mathematics. Their students are world class, while all we have are computer hackers.
South Korea at one time was No. 6 in car production. And Taiwan was No. 8 in the amount of its dollar reserves!
And we can't even produce a single car — not one, uno, isa, usa. The only thing we could do is assemble one.
It was said by a tourist lazing off in Boracay that the Philippines has the best ice cream in the world. So what, he was drunk.
Once upon a time, a remote municipality had only two policemen who had revolvers — and each of the policemen had only one bullet.
The trouble was that they had to fire one ceremonial bullet during Independence Day celebrations, so after only two years they had no more ammunition.
So they joined the Abu Sayyaf, who have armalites and fully-loaded ammunition criss-crossing their breasts.
We are the only country in the world whose Comelec, instead of preventing fraud, is the one committing fraud! And they remain in office.
In Japan, anyone caught in a scandalous situation commits suicide. In the Philippines, they do not kill themselves, they laugh all the way to the bank.
High Filipino officials discovered to have pushed anomalous contracts — and there have been so many of them in the last 20 years — have not been punished at all.
How can we be a Newly Industrialized Country — it seems everybody has forgotten this appellation, NIC — if a meeting scheduled for seven o'clock begins at nine-thirty?
We cannot even solve our traffic problems in so small area as Metro Manila.
Bangkok used to have the worst traffic situation in the world. Now, it has no problem at all. The solution? They built so many skyways for kilometers and kilometers, one up to their airport.
We can do the same. But the government does not have the money. It is riddled with crooks, saturated with thieves, perforated with highwaymen. BOT? Same. Filipinos? Born to fail.
A single thing would solve this. DISCIPLINE. If we have discipline, we could be on top within a short time... Sad. RIP PHILIPPINES.
*Computer end log*
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