Still, sense of country
Still, sense of country
Updated 00:44am (Mla time) Nov 10, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 10, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
LET me be clear about a few things.
To begin with, like I've been saying since I revived the question of "sense of country" in several columns (I wrote about it in a series of columns some years ago, which sparked no small amount of debate, to go by the flood of letters that came my way), I can understand why people leave this country. But I make a distinction, as Barry Gutierrez does, between overseas Filipino workers who are driven to go abroad out of necessity and the better-off residents who do so by choice. Gutierrez is the University of the Philippines assistant professor who went back to his job after studying in the United States and despite the importuning of friends and relations to stay. Gutierrez wrote to say he did not particularly feel deprived living in a small apartment and taking a jeepney to work.
It's easy to see why impoverished Filipinos would want to work abroad as maids and truck drivers. They have to survive. They don't do it, they're dead, or their families are. There's precious little work available in the country and farming no longer offers a reasonable livelihood, no small thanks to the flood of imports wreaking havoc on local production.
I can still understand why even the better-off residents want to leave the country. The better-off are getting worse off today. And with the specter of hunger and economic collapse looming in the distance, the option of living abroad becomes more tempting by the day. But compared to the OFWs, I find their reasons a little more questionable. Surely there is always the option of living simply, as Gutierrez shows, and improving your mind? Surely that's better than working your ass off day in and day out and finding meaning in consumerism?
The argument, of course, is that it is individual choice. Fair enough. But what isn't fair enough is imagining that the choice, whether made out of despair or hope, out of necessity or expectation, understandable or not, has no deleterious impact on the country. I can understand that Filipinos, rich or poor, want to leave this country for all sorts of reasons. I cannot understand why we should think that taken as a whole that will not devastate the country.
Again, the argument there is that other countries do it and are none the worse for wear. The Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Indians leave their country and live abroad too, and their countries are not devastated by it. Ah, but there's the rub. There is a monumental difference between us and them.
That difference is that their citizens' decision to live abroad is an individual choice, ours is a near-collective one. This is not without basis. Other countries are not experiencing a Diaspora, where a fifth of the population has openly expressed a desire to leave it. Which probably represents only those who can, not those who cannot but want to. We are. For us, rich or poor, leaving the country is not a last resort, it is a preferred option. That is so for the rich, who studied abroad, whose children studied abroad, and who own properties abroad. That is so for the members of the middle class who want better jobs and who want their children to become American citizens. That is so even for the poor, who as in whole towns in the provinces of Pampanga in Tarlac have sold the farms and carabaos for a crack at overseas work.
A generalization? Yes, but one amply supported by evidence. Quantitatively and qualitatively, the departure of the nationals of other Asian countries from their shores is different from ours.
The current Diaspora is not the disease itself but a symptom of the disease. The disease itself is lack of a sense of country, which has assailed this country from Independence Day, a point of demarcation redolent with irony. We have not lacked for a compelling need to live elsewhere (that is borne out by studies of the attitudes of elementary public school pupils) and become citizens of other countries (American, Japanese, Saudi, in that order, as of the early 1990s). The leaving or finding a reason to leave is just the symptom of the disease. The disease is wanting to leave and never lacking a reason for it.
The straitened circumstances today have not caused the Diaspora, they have merely exacerbated it or given it impetus. Indeed, our straitened circumstances today are the product of wanting to leave and become citizens of another country. The difference between us and our Southeast Asian neighbors, nearly all of whom have gotten far in life, is not that our neighbors have disciplinarian or heavy-handed governments. It is that they have a sense of country. Nowhere is our lack of it more patent than that our elite does not only routinely pillage this country but stashes the loot abroad. Easy to leave your country to the dogs when you have no intention of being there at the end of the day.
Nowhere moreover is the harm to the country wreaked by our collective and spontaneous physical outpouring into the world than in the near-complete erosion of national pride and the cheapening of the country's self-image. The national motto is not "The Filipino is second to none," it is "Beggars cannot be choosers." I have no problems with our impoverished folk seeking economic relief abroad by being the "toilet bowl cleaners of the world," as I put it once, to violent reactions from some sectors. But I have a monumental problem with our reconciling ourselves to the fact that that is our national destiny or mission in life. Which is becoming progressively so: The entire educational system is being reengineered to accommodate the transmogrification of the Filipino from doctor and architect to nurse and caregiver. It's the tail wagging the dog.
The way I see it, our choice is a simple one. We either discover a sense of country, or we cease to be one.
Updated 00:44am (Mla time) Nov 10, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 10, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
LET me be clear about a few things.
To begin with, like I've been saying since I revived the question of "sense of country" in several columns (I wrote about it in a series of columns some years ago, which sparked no small amount of debate, to go by the flood of letters that came my way), I can understand why people leave this country. But I make a distinction, as Barry Gutierrez does, between overseas Filipino workers who are driven to go abroad out of necessity and the better-off residents who do so by choice. Gutierrez is the University of the Philippines assistant professor who went back to his job after studying in the United States and despite the importuning of friends and relations to stay. Gutierrez wrote to say he did not particularly feel deprived living in a small apartment and taking a jeepney to work.
It's easy to see why impoverished Filipinos would want to work abroad as maids and truck drivers. They have to survive. They don't do it, they're dead, or their families are. There's precious little work available in the country and farming no longer offers a reasonable livelihood, no small thanks to the flood of imports wreaking havoc on local production.
I can still understand why even the better-off residents want to leave the country. The better-off are getting worse off today. And with the specter of hunger and economic collapse looming in the distance, the option of living abroad becomes more tempting by the day. But compared to the OFWs, I find their reasons a little more questionable. Surely there is always the option of living simply, as Gutierrez shows, and improving your mind? Surely that's better than working your ass off day in and day out and finding meaning in consumerism?
The argument, of course, is that it is individual choice. Fair enough. But what isn't fair enough is imagining that the choice, whether made out of despair or hope, out of necessity or expectation, understandable or not, has no deleterious impact on the country. I can understand that Filipinos, rich or poor, want to leave this country for all sorts of reasons. I cannot understand why we should think that taken as a whole that will not devastate the country.
Again, the argument there is that other countries do it and are none the worse for wear. The Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Indians leave their country and live abroad too, and their countries are not devastated by it. Ah, but there's the rub. There is a monumental difference between us and them.
That difference is that their citizens' decision to live abroad is an individual choice, ours is a near-collective one. This is not without basis. Other countries are not experiencing a Diaspora, where a fifth of the population has openly expressed a desire to leave it. Which probably represents only those who can, not those who cannot but want to. We are. For us, rich or poor, leaving the country is not a last resort, it is a preferred option. That is so for the rich, who studied abroad, whose children studied abroad, and who own properties abroad. That is so for the members of the middle class who want better jobs and who want their children to become American citizens. That is so even for the poor, who as in whole towns in the provinces of Pampanga in Tarlac have sold the farms and carabaos for a crack at overseas work.
A generalization? Yes, but one amply supported by evidence. Quantitatively and qualitatively, the departure of the nationals of other Asian countries from their shores is different from ours.
The current Diaspora is not the disease itself but a symptom of the disease. The disease itself is lack of a sense of country, which has assailed this country from Independence Day, a point of demarcation redolent with irony. We have not lacked for a compelling need to live elsewhere (that is borne out by studies of the attitudes of elementary public school pupils) and become citizens of other countries (American, Japanese, Saudi, in that order, as of the early 1990s). The leaving or finding a reason to leave is just the symptom of the disease. The disease is wanting to leave and never lacking a reason for it.
The straitened circumstances today have not caused the Diaspora, they have merely exacerbated it or given it impetus. Indeed, our straitened circumstances today are the product of wanting to leave and become citizens of another country. The difference between us and our Southeast Asian neighbors, nearly all of whom have gotten far in life, is not that our neighbors have disciplinarian or heavy-handed governments. It is that they have a sense of country. Nowhere is our lack of it more patent than that our elite does not only routinely pillage this country but stashes the loot abroad. Easy to leave your country to the dogs when you have no intention of being there at the end of the day.
Nowhere moreover is the harm to the country wreaked by our collective and spontaneous physical outpouring into the world than in the near-complete erosion of national pride and the cheapening of the country's self-image. The national motto is not "The Filipino is second to none," it is "Beggars cannot be choosers." I have no problems with our impoverished folk seeking economic relief abroad by being the "toilet bowl cleaners of the world," as I put it once, to violent reactions from some sectors. But I have a monumental problem with our reconciling ourselves to the fact that that is our national destiny or mission in life. Which is becoming progressively so: The entire educational system is being reengineered to accommodate the transmogrification of the Filipino from doctor and architect to nurse and caregiver. It's the tail wagging the dog.
The way I see it, our choice is a simple one. We either discover a sense of country, or we cease to be one.
posted by Dante at 10:00 AM
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