Better Philippines

Skipping The Thinking Part

(Here’s a guest post from Filo, a regular reader of ours who also happens to be a prolific contributor to the witty, graphic-centric, political blog Utak Ng Tilapia.)

Senator Chiz Escudero’s proposals to trim down standard school requirements, like say, make geometry an elective course in high school, will keep Juan a dull boy. Not only are today’s Filipino youth shortchanged on quality of education, they’re going to be scrimped on quantity as well if Escudero had his way.

I won’t go into what the senator was thinking. Anyone with half a brain could tell that the further dumbing down of a nation serves no good purpose. Without mincing words on this piece, I’d say his was a really stupid idea. So I ask those who still buy into the eloquent senator’s pandering: You skipped the thinking part again, didn’t you? Tsk, tsk, tsk. It happens all the time, unfortunately.

Many of us have lived here long enough to know that there is a Filipino tendency to skip the thinking part and still expect to get from A to B anyway. Let’s look at a few examples how Filipinos self-sabotage themselves with this tendency.

First, there’s our long held big basket of superstitious beliefs. “Don’t do A because you might get B.” “Huwag mo titigan ang bata, baka ma-usog.” “Huwag kang umalis habang may kumakain pa, baka ka madisgrasya.” Never mind that there’s no logical explanation how B happens because of A. For you to believe, you’ll have to skip the thinking part. And why not? The superstitious always tells us “Wala namang mawawala sa iyo kung sumunod ka.”

Second, there’s the Pinoy brand of wishful thinking: Bahala Na. Quite a lot of us Filipinos make certain decisions hoping for desirable results without preparing adequately for the consequences of our actions or following through to get what we want. We’re so used to uncalculated risk-taking, from spending money we haven’t even earned, to bearing six children in a row while combined family income stays the same in those six years, to voting for a politician that we didn’t bother to adequately scrutinize. What could possibly go wrong? God won’t disappoint us, right? Funny how we leave so much to chance and call it God’s will. We skip the thinking part when we decide to limit the variables we personally control.

Also worth mentioning is the Pinoy’s propensity to believe in the words of demagogues, populists, and endorsers of all sorts. “If these individuals choose A, then so should we.” Riiiight. Letting someone else make your mind up for you means you’ve skipped the thinking part yet again. (And that applies to pretty much everything else, not just in picking your choice of shampoo and conditioner.) I thought Pinoys like to be empowered in a democracy. What gives?

Now you might be thinking, “If we Pinoys have managed to survive for so long skipping that part where we’re supposed to think, what is this guy’s problem?” Simple answer: The Filipino habit of skipping the thinking part keeps millions of Pinoys from taking personal responsibility for whatever harm they cause on every other one of their countrymen, and on themselves. What you do affects me, and vice versa. It’s that simple.

It’s high time every proud Pinoy thought his convictions through and actually admitted to everyone else that in a democracy what each of us does (or fails to do) affects everyone else. That’s not to say that in other forms of government our actions don’t affect our neighbors much; it’s just that in a democracy we’re far more empowered than if we were in a dictatorship, yet we goofy Filipinos repeatedly squander the opportunities we get to elect competent and morally upright leaders, to adopt a mindset that brings us all closer to progress rather than peril, to distinguish between what is real and what is false or contrived. It’s not that we never get a chance to do the right thing; when it presents itself, we tend not to take it and so we do the skip. I’d bet my pants we could do way better than we do now, just by thinking our choices through. Haven’t you noticed how easy we are to the politicians who do pretty much everything on the edge of the law? Doesn’t it p*ss you off to be treated like an idiot by these politicians? Starting today, let’s vow not to be too easy.

Or we could remain as pushovers and bounce around in the wind like tumbleweed, like we always have. Who’s tired of living like this anyway, right? Let’s just keep skipping the thinking part and then pasensyahan tayo. ‘You game?