'Mabuhay'

PINOY KASI

‘Mabuhay’
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 02:32am (Mla time) 10/27/2006

Published on Page A15 of the October 27, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

TODAY I'm going to do another two-in-one column, one on trees and the other on our Supreme Court justices. My title, “Mabuhay,” is meant to give you a hint of the drift of the articles, but before going into the topics, let me do something about “mabuhay” itself, in effect giving you a three-in-one column.

The origins of “mabuhay” are unknown. Maybe it was intended as a way of arousing public emotions and creating a sense of solidarity, as in “Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!” I suspect, too, that it was used for rulers, as in “Mabuhay ang Datu!” The Chinese “Wan sui!” and the Japanese “Banzai!” both mean “May you live ten thousand years.” (I suspect though that deep down, many subjects, chafing under the despotic rule of their emperors, probably preferred that their rulers had shorter lives.)

I digress. Adopting “mabuhay” as a greeting reflects the way we look at life. On one hand, we know how precious, and precarious, life is in the Philippines. So many Filipinos live day to day, barely surviving, so that even work is referred to as “hanapbuhay” -- a search for life. Each additional day, particularly for the very young and the very old, is a reason to be thankful. Maybe, too, that’s why birthdays, especially of children, are celebrated with much fanfare, a way of saying “Mabuhay ka, anak,” often to the point of excess.

While we see life as difficult, we do love life, so wishing someone “mabuhay,” may you live on and on and on, is intended as the ultimate in graciousness. It says something of our zest for life and more. Note how “mabuhay” is left unsaid for friends. We say it more for people we have just met, for visitors, “mabuhay” becoming an invitation to friendship, maybe for life.

Trees

I am glad the Inquirer published a letter from Sonia Mendoza of Mother Earth Foundation, in which she points out that the typhoon-damaged trees should have been saved by replanting.

I couldn’t agree more. I can understand the need to saw off fallen parts of the tree to clear the streets, but to uproot them was, well, murderous. After all, the government just launched its greening campaign and by uprooting trees, some of which are several decades old, we have to start all over again.

Trees are evolutionary wonders, with complicated structures and physiological processes that are still being unraveled by scientists. They offer us lessons for life in the way they grow, ever so slowly but surely. Each tree is a powerhouse that generates and stores all it needs to survive through the most adverse of circumstances: floods, droughts, fires.

My parents brought in two workers to clean up their garden and they certainly were as murderous as the ones who cleared the streets. They hacked away, pulled up some young saplings and would have gotten to the older trees if I hadn’t intervened. Sensing I wasn’t quite happy with what they had done, they quickly put back some of the trees they had uprooted and, for good measure, sheepishly stuck a few branches into the soil. “Bubuhay ulit” [“They will live again”], they assured me.

I knew they would. Within a few days, the saplings were on their way to recovery and the branches, goodness, were sprouting leaves almost with a vengeance.

Trees vary in their ability to thrive, but generally they’re amazingly sturdy. More appreciative humans have turned that to our advantage, finding ways to transplant tree species thousands of miles away from their original habitat, captivated by some useful aspect of the tree: food, medicine, construction material, or just plain aesthetics, the beauty of its flowers, for example.

There’s even a romantic side to the trees’ hardiness. In Southeast Asia we tend to associate the “kalatsutsi” tree (known elsewhere as plumiera or frangipani) with death because the trees are planted in cemeteries. But in Latin countries, the plumiera speaks a different language. Women would give a plumiera branch to their husbands or lovers before they set off on a long trip. The sturdy cuttings would survive long voyages and, planted in a new land, would flower and remind the men of their loved ones back home.

Next time you look at those “kalatsutsi” in your backyard (or, for students at UP, at the towering ones around Palma Hall), remember they’re probably descended from stock dating back to the Spanish colonial period, brought over by some lovesick soldier or friar. And it need not have been a woman they left behind.

Justices

The Supreme Court decision was more, much more, than what many of us expected. Just a few days before the decision, we saw one public opinion poll showing that 60 percent of the public didn’t trust the Supreme Court.

I wasn’t too sure, either. I have great respect for Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, having read his books and appreciating the breadth and depth of his wisdom. But we live in amoral, opportunistic times, where might spells right. It would have been easy for the justices to rule in favor of the gods and goddesses and taking a chance with the public, given the weary apathy we Filipinos have about public affairs.

While the 21st century ushered in new hopes for most of the world, we’ve found ourselves on a downward spiral. For many Filipinos, the solution has been disengagement, yes, a drastic uprooting. The ones who stay have become more and more apolitical, too busy trying to survive, as in “hanapbuhay,” searching for life, hopes pinned on putting children through school so they can leave.

What bothered me most about the so-called people’s initiative was the way it was riding on that despair. After robbing us blind, trampling on every sense of decency and morality, these politicians now had the gall tell us that their initiative would turn us around, get the economy going, build a strong republic.

House Speaker Jose de Venecia, the mastermind here, wailed about how the Supreme Court had dwelled on technicalities instead of so-called benefits that their initiative would bring. But the justices saw otherwise: the nation’s survival hinges on those technicalities, intricate safeguards that are products, in a sense, of a long evolution of our political system. The 1987 Constitution is not perfect, but it was a well-crafted response to dictatorship.

There will come a time when constitutional change will be appropriate. Until that happens, though, we can only hope the Supreme Court retains its integrity, given the way the executive and legislative branches have been emasculated. The justices didn’t mince words in their decision, calling the campaign a “fraud,” a “deception.” Strong words that reflect wise minds and good hearts, and I mean good in the more powerful sense of “mabait” -- being ethical and caring. We Filipinos should find reason to hope again.

The “people’s initiative” is not dead, certainly, and we can expect more storms, more challenges to the Supreme Court. You can guess the metaphor I have in mind for our justices, and how we need to wish them mabuhay.

World's best

PINOY KASI

World's best
By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:10am (Mla time) 10/25/2006

Published on Page A15 of the October 25, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

SOME time back, i rote about the ratings of Asian universities given by Asiaweek magazine. Sadly, Asiaweek has closed down, so I thought we would no longer be able to compare universities in the region.

But it turns out that there are global surveys as well, one of which was just released last Oct. 5. This is the Times Higher Education Supplement-Quacquarelli Symonds (THES-QS) World University Rankings. With thousands of universities in the world, it is an honor to make it to this list, which is based on several criteria, including faculty-to-student ratios and ratings given by more than 3,000 academicians and 700 leading international employment recruiters.

How did the Philippines fare? I'm going to keep you in suspense and just say, for now, that four of our universities did make it to the top 500 universities.

Global ranks

Let's look first at the THES-QS list of 20 leading universities. Note that there are ties so there might be occasional skipping of numbers: Harvard (1st), Cambridge (2nd), Oxford (3rd), Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale (tying for 4th), Stanford (6th), California Institute of Technology (7th), University of California in Berkeley (8th), Imperial College London (9th), Princeton (10th), University of Chicago (11th), Columbia (12th), Duke (13th), Beijing University (14th), Cornell (15th), Australian National University (16th), London School of Economics (17th), Ecole Normale Superieure (18th), National University of Singapore and Tokyo University (tying for 19th).

Most of the universities are American and British, but there is also representation from Australia, France, China, Singapore and Japan. Most of the leading American universities are private; in fact, on that top 20 list, the University of California Berkeley is the only American public institution. When I went on to the top 500 universities, I found that in
all countries of the world, with the glaring exception of the United States and one other country (which I'll name later but which you may have guessed), state universities lead in the rankings.

Asia's best

I decided to pull out the Asian (to include Australian) universities from the THES-QS list and found that among the world's 500 leading universities, 90 are from Asia. Japan leads with 28, followed by China (including Hong Kong) with 16, Taiwan with 8, South Korea and Thailand with 7 each, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines with 4 each, Australia with 3, Singapore with 2 and Bangladesh with one.

Do be careful with those figures since it's not just a numbers game. Australia and Singapore have few universities on the list, but they are all high up in the ranking.

Enough with the suspense. Let's look at how the Philippines did. The University of the Philippines (UP) came in 299th globally and 47th among Asian universities. I have to say that's not too bad, considering how UP has had to plod along with shrinking budgets and with the flight of so many good professors. Trailing behind UP were three private universities: De La Salle (392nd), Ateneo de Manila (484th) and, talk about a photo finish, the University of Santo Tomas at 500th.

Lessons

Instead of bombarding you with more numbers, I'm going to analyze those rankings and spell out three important implications for our own educational system.

First, you don't need to be a rich country to have good universities, India being the best example. Even before independence, Indian nationalists had formed a commission to plan out their future and early on, they sought to form a network of science and technology institutions. After independence, funds were put in to establish a whole network, with several Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses. IIT ranked 57th in the THES-QS global list.

Indonesia, a country less developed than the Philippines, is another example. It had three universities, all state-run, beating us in rankings: University of Indonesia (250th), Bandung Institute of Technology (258th) and University of Gadja Mada (270th).

Second, the other countries seem to recognize that excellence in education must be spread out throughout the country. Note that our four best universities are all in Metro Manila. In contrast, the Indian Institute of Technology has campuses in several states, all of which fared quite well when Asiaweek rated each unit back in 2000. The three Indonesian universities I just named are all on the island of Java, but at least they're found not just in the capital, Jakarta, but also in Bandung and Yogyakarta.

Thailand's best universities -- Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, Mahidol, Kasatsart, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen and Prince of Songkla -- are all state universities and they are located in different parts of the country.

Third (and I've made this point time and time again), the state needs to invest in universities. The THES list is clear in showing that, with the exception of the United States and the Philippines, the leading universities in every country are state-owned. Sure, UP is the leader in the Philippines, but in other countries, several state universities – not just one -- made it to the THES list.

Most governments in the world have the wisdom to look at education as something too important to leave to "free market forces" (read: "profit"). Unless we learn from them, we will continue to see more diploma mills, more scandals in licensure exams and more Filipinos having to work overseas as cheap labor to develop other countries. Note that the THES-QS rankings also relate to international competitiveness, meaning if you graduate from those that lead in the rankings, you also stand a better chance of getting a well-paying international job.

UP is still among the world's best, but if we worked harder on the entire educational system, we should have more reason to be proud. Ultimately, we should be able to look at these university rankings as indicators of our current development strategies, as well as predictors of the country's future.

* * *

Announcement. The Department of Anthropology of UP Diliman is co-sponsoring, with the city government of Pasig, a special exhibit at their city museum. UP has its own Anthropology Museum and we're lending some of our collections to Pasig, part of our effort to reach out to the public. The Pasig City Museum is at Plaza Rizal (in front of the
Immaculate Conception Cathedral) and the exhibit runs until Nov. 20.

Another (last-minute) announcement: UGAT, the Anthropology Association of the Philippines, is holding its annual convention at Silliman University in Dumaguete City from Oct. 26 to 28, 2006, with the theme: "The Philippines Unbound: Anthropology Critiques of Globalization." Call Monica at +63917 5336578 if you need more information.

'Utang' to finance

PINOY KASI

'Utang' to finance

By Michael Tan

InquirerLast updated 02:30am (Mla time) 10/20/2006

Published on Page A15 of the October 20, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

"UTANG" is more than just a debt. During the precolonial period, one became an "alipin" (loosely translated as slave) to pay off a debt. A copper plate found in Laguna, and dated back to the 10th century, certified that someone named Namrawan had paid off his debts and that he and his descendants had been freed of obligation.
"Utang" still has negative connotations today, almost as if we have some collective memories of that precolonial system of debt peonage, where we run the risk of a life of debt and destitution, passed on to succeeding generations.
"Utang" consists of endless cycles of lending and borrowing, one which is still played out daily in all aspects of the Filipino's life, from our $53.9-billion national debt, down to the mortgages we pay on homes, to the "5-6" usury (P5 becomes P6 in a week) and pawnshops charging 1.0 percent for a one-day loan.
Which is why this year's Nobel Peace Prize should take on special meaning for us. The prize went to a Bangladeshi economist, Muhammad Yunus, and his Grameen Bank, known for pioneering micro-finance (or microcredit) programs that have transformed the lives of millions of poor Bangladeshi. As early as 1984, our own Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation already recognized Yunus' work, giving him the award for community leadership. The Nobel committee, in awarding Yunus the peace prize, pointed out how poverty alleviation is linked to peace.
I thought of sharing some of my observations of micro-finance projects in the Philippines, many of which I saw -- successes as well as failures -- while working with NGOs. There are many lessons to pick up from Yunus' program, but we also need to be careful as we try to evolve our own versions for the Philippines, whether we work in a bank, an NGO, or an employer looking for ways to help the staff.
From $27 to $5 billion
It's worth recounting the story of Yunus' program. Back in 1974, Yunus was a professor of economics, a field where you're supposed to think macro, think big. But Yunus had been intrigued by women in a nearby village who were trying to make a living by making bamboo stools. The women were having difficulties because they were getting their credit from usurers.
He learned that all it took was $27 to start a business going, but when that money came from usurers, it would plunge the borrower into lifetime debt. The women could not borrow from the banks because, like the poor everywhere, the banks considered them to be too risky, unlikely to pay back their loans and unable to put up any kind of collateral.
Yunus is known to be adamantly against charity doles, and will not respond to beggars. Instead of alms, he developed his microcredit scheme, with very low interest, plus a support program to help the women sell their products directly, without middlemen. Within a year, the women had paid him back, and he continued to give out these small loans, almost all of which were paid back on time.
In 1983, he set up Grameen Bank, specializing in microcredit. The bank has loaned out $5.7 billion and the program has been copied throughout the world, including the United States.
Think small, dream big
Governments as well as NGOs throughout the world, including the Philippines, have since launched similar programs. The chances of the programs succeeding depend pretty much on the same principle, which can be summarized as thinking small, dreaming big. Here are some of those principles, plus some specific points for the Philippines.
First, the loans are small, as we saw with the initial $27 loan Yunus made. In the Philippines, loans have generally been a few thousand pesos, although lately it has become more difficult to think small, mainly because of the high overhead costs, mainly rent. In Metro Manila today, a loan of P50,000 may not even be enough to start a "sari-sari store" [neighborhood variety store].
Second, while the loans are given out to individuals, the borrowers must belong to a group, the members guaranteeing one another's loans. One person's failure to repay may mean the entire group being penalized.
Third, and this relates to the second point, the finance program is often tied to a community project, which helps to identify the organizations that might be worth "investing" in. The projects may be in such areas as agriculture, health or even environmental conservation.
Finally, the loans go mainly to women. The Grameen Bank currently has some 6.5 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women. Throughout the world, it seems women are better at handling micro-finance and this seems to tie in to traditional gender roles. Women handle domestic affairs, and are very conscious about budgets being stretched for the family's survival. For poor women, money earned is money to be saved, and invested in small income-generating ventures. Men are more "political" animals, more concerned about keeping smooth relations with peers and the outside world -- which means, too, that money earned is all too easily spent for peers.
A caveat here: In societies where men dominate, as in the Philippines, women are still vulnerable to pressure from their spouses or boyfriends, so it's not surprising to hear of cases where women are ready to pay back a loan, but default because the husband gets his hands on the money.
Political threats
Microcredit is really more than a loan program, which is why I prefer the term micro-finance, a kind of bootstrap to help the poor help themselves. It is a tool for community organizing and -- pardon the cliché -- empowerment.
The micro-finance institution not only provides money but support services, for example, conducting a market study, or helping to source supplies at low cost. Some of the micro-finance programs, not surprisingly, are part of gender projects, where women learn to assert their rights, which is so important if they are to say no to a husband's pleas for a conjugal "utang."
Ultimately, micro-finance depends on the group or organization that takes in the "loan." It is this group that helps to ensure repayment and to find ways to keep the money circulating, converted into productive capital.
The main threat, then, to micro-finance is when it is used as a political tool. Micro-finance then becomes a fancier term for a dole, the politician more interested in creating political debts and garnering more votes. Patronage and dependence are reinforced, defeating the purpose of micro-finance.
I think micro-finance is best left to private banks and NGOs, with government stepping in as a regulator, and creating conditions for it to work, for example, by putting up low-cost spaces for vendors.
With Yunus' Nobel Peace Prize, I hope we'll begin to hear more success stories about micro-finance in the Philippines, where people are finally able to break the vicious cycles of "utang."

No accident

PINOY KASI

No accident

By Michael Tan

InquirerLast updated 01:18am (Mla time) 10/18/2006

Published on Page A13 of the October 18, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

SOME of my friends cried after reading the front-page article in the Inquirer last Oct. 7 about six Muslim children who were killed in a fire in Taytay town.
Five of the six children were siblings, the parents away at the time of the fire because they had been detained on drug-related charges. The parents could not attend the burial, which by Muslim tradition has to take place on the day of death, because the authorities said there was no court order to allow the parents out.
Normally, you'd hear an outpouring of public concern, but this time around not even politicians came out with condolences or offers of assistance. I have heard nothing more about the incident, the dead children now part of the cold statistics of accidental deaths.
4,000 deaths
After reading about the Taytay accident, I checked statistics from the Department of Health's yearbooks and confirmed my suspicion: after infectious diseases, accidents are the second leading cause of death for children up to the age of 14. Among 15- to 19-year-olds, accidents become the leading cause of death.
The figures vary from year to year, but on average, about 4,000 deaths from accidents are reported annually for Filipino children. Two types of accidents account for about 70 percent of all deaths. Predictably, one group consists of motor vehicle traffic accidents. The other, which actually claims more lives than motor vehicles, are accidents described as those "caused by submersion, suffocation and foreign bodies." I suspect most of these deaths are from drowning; in fact, the 2006 DOH statistics will eventually include three deaths from that Taytay community. Only a week before the fire, three siblings had drowned during Typhoon "Milenyo."
I should mention that besides those 4,000 annual deaths, there are another 2,000 young victims of homicides, which can be accidental or intentional.
What's happening then is that we save children from infectious diseases through immunization and treatment of the sick, only to lose so many of them to accidents and to violence. Let's not forget, too, that many of those who do survive accidents may suffer from serious disabilities, sometimes for life.
Dumber?
Every time a kid darts across the street and nearly gets killed, our family driver mutters something about kids being "mas tanga" [dumber] these days. There's a paradox here since we marvel constantly at how techie-smart kids can be able to handle cell phones and the Internet and all kinds of electronic gadgets.
So why can't they cross the street properly? Why do candles become so deadly in their hands? And for a country surrounded by the sea, why is it that so many kids can't swim?
Maybe the problem isn't kids being dumber now, but adults being still in denial about the many new needs we have around child safety. Let's try to answer the questions I raised in the previous paragraph, to put those needs in context.
We think traffic accidents are inevitable because there are more vehicles, but really, the heavy traffic may have actually prevented even more deaths, given that cars can't run too fast. But yes, kids still get killed, and the problem is that they have no choice but to be out in the streets. And slow as the cars may be, they can still kill a child especially when you have a driver under the influence of alcohol or "shabu" ["crack"]. I've actually seen cars accelerating when they see a pedestrian crossing.
The fires? A toppled candle becomes deadly in a shanty, filled with combustible materials. The risks of dying in a fire are amplified because in our urban jungles, parents lock their children in when they go off to work, sometimes without any caregiver, or at best, assigning an older child to care for the younger ones. Fearful of burglars, we've alsotransformed homes -- even the poorest of households -- into virtual prisons with locks and grills so that when there's a fire, both adults and children are unable to escape.
The Taytay tragedy reminds us that the problems are compounded with migrant communities. Back in their rural hometowns, migrants can depend on the entire community to help watch the children. In the cities, even as family sizes grow (the five Taytay siblings were aged 2 to 7), the social support system shrinks.
When rural people are transplanted into the urban jungle, life becomes extremely perilous for children. With cramped living space, homes become minefields, with pesticides, kerosene and other poisons stored in soft drink bottles alongside foodstuff. And in a culture that is in love with guns, it's not unusual to have loaded guns lying around in homes. Traditional wisdom falls apart, with parents having little to pass on to their children by way of safety lessons, except to admonish them to behave.
What to do?
Safety awareness needs to be incorporated into school curricula. Even very young children need safety awareness, and can be taught simple but life-saving skills, including something as basic as handling candles. Safety awareness needs to be taught throughout the elementary and high school levels, related to practical life skills.
But beyond the schools, I hope communities will begin to think of what to do about child safety, not by further sequestering children and locking them into homes, but by transforming the environment for both children and adults.
Shortly before the Taytay tragedy, I was already thinking of doing a column about child safety, inspired by an excellent documentary on BBC featuring Unicef-supported programs in Bangladesh. There are teams that go around organizing community assemblies to discuss the most recent fatal accidents and mobilizing the community to take action. Sometimes all it takes is covering a well to prevent children from falling in. In other cases, it may take more effort, like swimming lessons for rural kids. I was amazed at how they'd improvise to turn a river into a teaching pool, with volunteers handling the swimming lessons.
We need to be comprehensive in reviewing the causes of the accidents. I'd point out that sometimes the new risks are inadvertent side effects of some very positive social changes. We complain that today's children are more "malikot" (loosely translated, unruly) but some of that might actually be due to improved nutritional status, as well as theindependence we encourage in them.
Our safety programs need to anticipate needs. With Christmas approaching, we have to begin warning the public about the market being flooded again with substandard electrical gadgets, and how children are particularly vulnerable to hazards from these gadgets.
All too often, it's no accident that accidents happen. They're almost inevitable, the result of distorted priorities. Something to think about: Every town and city in the country, down to the poorest municipalities, has at least one large cockfighting arena, but many have no safe playgrounds, no daycare centers, no sports centers for our young.

300 million Americans

PINOY KASI
300 million Americans

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:28am (Mla time) 10/13/2006

Published on Page A15 of the October 13, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

DEMOGRAPHERS estimate that some time this month, the population of the United States will reach 300 million. The demographic event is being looked at as a milestone, a time for reflection.

Among the major social developments that are being discussed, sometimes even hotly debated, are immigration, the shrinking household size, the rise of the women’s participation in the labor force and the impact of population growth on the environment.

Some of those issues concern Filipinos as well because of our close ties to the United States and the fact that we have some two million Filipinos living there, mostly as US citizens and permanent residents. I looked at some 20 feature articles and editorials from different American newspapers, large and small, conservative and liberal, to see how they are thinking about their being 300 million.

White fright

Other developed countries have seen their population growth slowing down, some even registering negative rates, leading to concerns about a “demographic winter” or a large elderly population. The United States is not likely to see this demographic winter because its population is still growing rapidly, through both natural increase and immigration.

American demographers note that the United States reached 100 million in 1915. In 1967, the US population reached 200 million. That was 52 years in between milestones. To reach the 300-million mark it took a shorter interval of 39 years.

America raced to its 200-million mark mainly through a baby boom, the increase in births after World War II. Immigration had dropped, and had consisted mainly of Europeans. In the 1960s, however, immigration picked up again, with large numbers coming in from Latin America and from Asia, including the Philippines. Immigration speeded up the rate of population growth to the present 300 million. Although migration itself is not part of natural increase, once they settle in, the new migrants do have a higher birth rate than the majority white population.

The changing color of migration has led to what some American newspapers describe as “white fright,” a perception that non-whites might soon outnumber whites. Even today, whites are already a minority in California, Texas, New Mexico and Hawaii.

Minorities

A recent Pew Research Center survey showed that more than half of the US population over the age of 50 (the baby boomers) believe that immigrants are a burden because they take away jobs, and add to the burden of housing and health care.

But perceptions do not always correspond to realities. Non-white Americans are still a minority, albeit a growing one. Many take on jobs that white Americans find too menial. And new migrants tend to be ambitious and fiercely independent, working (and spending) hard to achieve the American dream.

Minorities constitute a third of the US population, the largest groups being African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians. African-Americans are growing at a rate of only 1.3 percent each year, almost all of this due to births rather than immigrants. In contrast, Asian-Americans are growing at 3 percent each year, the increase due more to new immigrants than to births alone. Among Asian migrants, Filipinos rank second in number, after the Chinese.

The largest minority group are the Hispanics, defined as anyone with ancestral connections to Spain and which includes all Latin Americans. The Hispanics are growing at a rate of 3.3 percent per year, through both natural increase and immigration. Some of the newspaper articles I read speculated that the 300 millionth American would probably be Hispanic, and that the United States would have a Hispanic-American president in the not too distant future.

Other observers say it may take a while before we see a president from among the minority groups because even if they are growing rapidly, they still have much less access to political power than white Americans.

Ecological footprint

All too often, the American press describes overpopulation as a Third World problem. For a change, this “300 millionth American” event has been used to look into what a large American population will mean for the environment, their own as well as that of the world.

This is where some debates are going on. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal by Stephen Moore calls for a celebration: “We 300 million Americans are on balance healthier and wealthier and freer than any population ever... Every natural resource we depend on -- water, food, copper, and, yes, even oil -- is far more abundant today, measured by affordability, than when our population was 100 million or even 30 million.” Moore attributes all this to the American “free market capitalist system.”

Moore is clearly a disciple of the late economist Julian Simon, whom he cites and praises. Simon, incidentally, is also frequently cited by groups in the Philippines who oppose family planning. These groups claim that a large population is good for our economy because we then have more consumers, and more people to export. Not surprisingly, American conservatives, including Filipino-Americans, have been lobbying the US government to cut support for family planning overseas, claiming that there is no population problem in America, or in the world.

Not everyone agrees with this view. Several of the articles I reviewed refer to the Americans’ “ecological footprint,” the amount of land and water needed to support an individual, in terms of resources of survival as well as space for the waste generated. One estimate is that each American’s ecological footprint is 24 acres (9.7 hectares), given current consumption patterns. Environmentalist groups call on Americans to become more socially aware and responsible, especially since the resources being consumed often involve those of other countries.

The debates are likely to continue, shaping policies that impact on many countries, including the Philippines, from the quotas we get each year for immigrants, to the level of funding given by the US government to international family planning programs and, yes, to the political situation in the Middle East.

A small newspaper from California, the Merced Sun-Star, asks Americans to think about the demographic facts and figures and to ask the questions “about who we are; what we hope to achieve; how we can improve the lives of a large, poor minority amid so much plenty; and how to improve relations with the rest of the world and with each other.”

It’s encouraging to read articles like this, as America moves on to its “400 millionth American” milestone, estimated to come in 2043. Maybe with time, we’ll hear many more such voices, especially from minority Americans, including Filipinos, who become Americans without losing memories of their roots, and of the need for global citizenship. The US demographic milestones are, after all, global ones as well.

Best, worst

PINOY KASI
Best, worst

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:27am (Mla time) 10/11/2006

Published on Page A13 of the October 11, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

A FEW years back, the University of the Philippines (UP) went into a frenzy after Asiaweek magazine released its survey results ranking Asia’s best universities. UP had ranked 32nd in the 1999 ratings, but in 2000 it dropped to 48th, still the Philippines’ best but closer to the ranks of three upstart universities: De La Salle was 71st, Ateneo de Manila 72nd and University of Santo Tomas 78th.

The UP president at that time, Dr. Francisco Nemenzo, he used the figures to good effect, lobbying for a bigger government budget and introducing all kinds of initiatives and incentives to get faculty members and students to maintain the university’s excellence.

Sadly, Asiaweek had to fold up, and the 2000 ratings became the last. The ratings could have come in handy for UP’s current president, Dr. Emerlinda Roman, who has continued the previous administration’s incentives but still has to fight an uphill battle at Congress to get UP more money.

I went back to those Asiaweek rankings over the weekend because I felt there were still lessons to pick up from them. Rather than just comparing ourselves to other Philippine universities, we should be looking at the bigger regional picture, asking what’s behind the best of the universities.

Leaders

Asiaweek’s 2000 survey had the following top 10 multidisciplinary universities (defined as offering a wide range of degree programs “from arts to business to engineering”): Kyoto University, Tohuku University, University of Hong Kong, Seoul National University, National University of Singapore, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Australian National University, University of Melbourne and University of New South Wales.

A first look suggests these universities lead because they are all based in richer countries: Japan, Australia, South Korea and China’s Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong.

It’s a good point, but I want you to note as well that except for the Hong Kong universities, all the top 10 institutions are run by government. Also, I did some research and found that even Hong Kong’s private universities are heavily subsidized by the government.

Asiaweek’s complete list of multidisciplinary universities had 77 institutions, the majority of which were state-run. Moreover, state universities generally were at the top of the list for each country. For example, Thailand had five universities listed, all state-run and coming from different Thai provinces. In contrast, for the Philippines, we had four universities, all Metro Manila-based, with UP leading, followed by three private universities.

Asiaweek had a separate listing for leading science and technology universities. The top 10 were Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, Tokyo Institute of Technology, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

Here we find that except for South Korea’s Pohang University and Singapore’s Nanyang, all the leading institutes are state-run. Not only that, we find India, a country poorer than the Philippines, dominating with their IIT units from all over the country.

Failed model

Why are we where we are today? In the 1960s about 25 percent of our national budget went into education, with neighboring countries sending their scholars to train with us. But starting with the Ferdinand Marcos era, the budget began to go more toward debt servicing. We also began to loosen the Department of Education’s supervision of tertiary education, allowing more diploma mills to emerge as long as they catered to the international labor market.

In contrast, countries like Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea continued to invest heavily in state-run institutions, in areas that they knew would be important in the long term, for example, electronics and biotechnology.

With so many success models around us, we insist on following a failed model, that of the United States, which looks at social services as best left to the “free” market, responding to current market demands and minimal state involvement in education, whether through funding for universities or the setting of standards and regulations.

Reacting to my column, one reader sent in an angry letter last week asking why I can’t seem to find anything good in America and pointing out that the United States has many government-funded universities and community colleges.

That reader missed my point. The United States does have public universities, but its educational system is mainly driven by free enterprise. A federal Department of Education has minimal supervisory powers; accreditation is left to state and local school boards. There are public universities but funding, as that reader points out, comes from state funds, which is well and good if you live in a rich state, and sorry if you come from a poor one.

How do the public and private universities fare? The US News and World Report’s latest report, based on peer ratings, has the following at the top of the list: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, California Institute of Technology, Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Dartmouth, Columbia.

Those familiar with the American system would have picked up on the pattern: all the ones that have been named are private universities, all charging very high tuition fees.

The highest-ranking public university listed was the University of California-Berkeley, which ranked 21st.

Catching up

All the leading capitalist countries in the world, except for the United States, were founded on a strong social welfare system, meaning money put into social services to give a fighting chance to those who have less in life.

Even neighboring Singapore, often looked at as the most capitalist of Southeast Asian countries, has always kept education and health a primary government concern, seeing these services as an investment in the future. It’s not surprising that the National University of Singapore (NUS) is now rated among the world’s best, and that Asia’s elite fly off to the NUS General Hospital (the equivalent of our Philippine General Hospital) for state-of-the art medical care.

And the Philippines? Last week, there was a near-stampede at the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) as thousands of Filipinos jostled to get permits to take a Korean language proficiency exam, a requirement to work in South Korea’s factories. In a few years, we just might have similar crowds of Filipinos trying to get a job in China and India, with many turned away because they graduated from a neighborhood diploma mill operating out of some mall.

I do see a place for private sector involvement in education, and will explain this in another column. Meanwhile, we must stop trying to be more American than the Americans. Knowing what’s best in education, why must we insist on pursuing a course that threatens to make us the worst in the region?

Can Chinese-Filipinos dance?

PINOY KASI
Can Chinese-Filipinos dance?

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:24am (Mla time) 10/06/2006

Published on Page A13 of the October 6, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

ANYONE can dance, some of you will say, but what I mean here is really dance -- you know, as in gyrate and swing, glide, hop, whatever’s needed.

Now think, have you heard of any Chinese making it big in dance, whether classical ballet, ballroom dancing or plain old “American Idol”-type competitions?

Hey, some of you are thinking, is Mike Tan your relative? You know, the one who won two years ago in the “Star Struck” competitions? Now, biases aside, he was good, despite his monosyllabic surname and sometimes, when I’m asked, I joke that he’s my son.

I’m sure most of you are incredulous too, not just because you can’t imagine the columnist Mike Tan as a breeder (smile) but also because if I could transmit my genes, it just wouldn’t configure to produce someone musical. Nerdy genes yes, but dance, as in dance, dance, no.

(Pout, pout.) I understand. We all work on stereotypes, foremost of which are the ethnic ones, and the stereotypes use a lot of what social scientists call “naturalizing” or “essentializing.” We associate certain behaviors, or certain personality traits, with particular ethnic groups and eventually think those behaviors and traits are innate, coming with the genes.

“Intsik” or “Chinoy”? We think immediately of someone good in math, almost as if there are abacus-shaped blood cells flowing through our veins. As a corollary to that, we think of “Chinoys” [Chinese-Filipinos] mainly as shrewd business people. But ask an American what they think of when they hear “Chinese-American,” and they’ll say “scientists” or “doctors.”

We form our stereotypes based on people we know, and on our daily encounters. Americans see all the high-achieving Chinese-American scientists on newscasts. In the Philippines, our idea of the Chinoy math whiz comes from having classmates in college who breezed through calculus. And because we’re constantly encountering Chinoy owners of businesses, we think all Chinoys are good in business.

We’re less aware of how the Chinoy have excelled in other professions. In the last medical board exam, among the 15 topnotchers, 7 had those monosyllabic Chinese surnames. But a typical Filipino is less likely to associate medicine with the Chinoys because the Chinoy doctors tend to work in the cities, sometimes in hospitals catering mainly to other Chinoys, or migrate overseas.

Nurture

I’m going to argue now that there’s nothing “innate” about all this. If the Chinoy seems good at math, it’s because many go through Chinese schools where math is emphasized. Some Chinese schools still offer six years of high school, where students finish the whole range of math sciences -- algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus -- before they graduate.

There’s also the teaching style in many of the Chinese schools. Because Chinese doesn’t use an alphabet, you have to learn to recognize thousands of characters, each with its own specific meaning. Learning to read and write Chinese requires rote memory work, done through drills and exercises where you repeat the word over and over again.

This rote style is used as well to teach math. Long before Kumon was introduced to the Philippines, the Chinese schools were using similar drills for math. At Xavier, a Chinoy Jesuit school, we were even taught to use the abacus. I know the contraption’s obsolete now, but the exercise alone of connecting the hands (to push the beads up and down) and the brain (as we muttered the numbers represented in the beads) went a long way to get us familiar with the numbers.

Beyond pedagogical styles, there was a whole culture of schooling with very strong pressure to achieve, to excel. School never really ends in East Asian cultures. I remember being rather envious about cousins who didn’t have to go off to a Chinese school as they had classes from about 8 to 3, while I had to be in school from 7:30 to 5. And wait, there’s more: I did have piano lessons after class for several years, and then shifted to violin lessons, with my teacher coming in at 6:30 in the morning!

In a word then, the differences come from nurture, from the kind of cultural knowledge, skills and attitudes we develop, starting with very young children.

Ph.D.

I’m not saying the Chinese system is superior. It is a good system, but there’s more to learning than rote memory and drills and non-stop work. I’ve learned to appreciate the Pinoy side to my Chinoy environment, one which allows more intuitive “fun-based” learning as well.

Notice in Filipino families, when there’s a visitor, parents will often call their young kids to come out: “Oh, you sing (or dance) naman for Tita.” That’s still unthinkable in many Chinoy families, because singing and dancing are seen as coarse. No one would dream of letting a child become a dancer. No wonder then that the Chinese can’t seem to excel in these areas. Even in China, where ballroom dancing has become popular, the dancers don’t quite have it because they’re, well, too disciplined.

Now, don’t think Filipinos are the best dancers in the world. We encourage kids to sing and dance, but our dancing also sometimes becomes too self-conscious because we tend to overemphasize performance, rather than spontaneity. I’ve visited Latin-American families, and there, the children are allowed more freedom with their bodies as they dance. In a Brazilian samba place many years ago, I picked up a T-shirt with a slogan that said it all: “Not better, but different.” That reflects another type of thinking, another culture which produces the amazing dancers and musicians you see from Latin America.

I suspect “Star Struck’s” Mike Tan grew up in an environment that allowed him to sing, to dance, from a very early age.

Mike Tan the columnist, on the other hand, was always discouraged from dancing. “You’ve got three left feet,” a Chinoy relative announced one day with finality, shattering all hopes for dancing, even for fun.

But I’m going to get back yet, through my Yna. From the day she was born, she’s been encouraged to move, to gyrate, to sway, sometimes with music, sometimes to her own rhythm, sometimes to the rhythm of people carrying her, and that includes me. We dance a lot, to different kinds of music, lullabies even, and I know my Chinoy relatives would be shocked to see her dancing while I cheer her on. So I wasn’t surprised this morning when her preschool teacher gave me their semestral assessment, which included: “Her motor skills are good ... and hey, she’s good with dancing.”

Yna’ll get to dance more, but she’s going to get a healthy dose, too, of math and astronomy and botany, and when the time comes, she can choose to dance, to do a Ph.D. or, hey, why not dance and do a Ph.D.?

Yes, Chinoys can -- should -- dance.

Empowered

PINOY KASI

Empowered

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 01:22am (Mla time) 10/04/2006

Published on Page A13 of the October 4, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE morning Typhoon “Milenyo” struck, i looked for a barber for my father and then returned home, as winds blew and the electricity was cut off, to finish my column.

A few weeks back, I’d signed up with the British Meteorological Office for a free e-mail alert system (www.tropicalstormrisk.com), so I knew super-typhoon “Xangsane” (Milenyo’s international name) was about to hit, but it just shows you how we can end up underestimating our risks. The last super-typhoon we had was, according to the weather bureau, “Rosing” in 1995 and really, how many of us remember that? Let’s make sure we don’t end up disempowered again, sitting and grumbling in the dark, when the next disaster strikes.

Let me share some of the lessons I picked up dealing with Milenyo, specifically with the problem of not having electricity.

Lights please

It’s revealing how we Filipinos describe our power outages as “walang ilaw” [no lights]. We can survive the day without power, and we can cook with gas, but not having lights at night seem to represent the worst of a disaster, making the night seem so much longer (and do you notice how the squadrons of mosquitoes attack more viciously in the dark?).

Candles and kerosene lamps used to work quite well, and I guess they still have their place, but I’d avoid them if you have elderly people and very young children in the house. I prefer emergency lights with a rechargeable battery pack. I’d avoid those gadgets that try to incorporate all kinds of gadgets like a radio and a fan -- those will run out of juice within an hour or so and you’ll end up without lights, without sounds. (I’ll get back to the sounds in a while.)

But also be picky with the emergency lights. First, don’t get the ones that use regular batteries because they run out too quickly. Get one with rechargeable battery packs inside. Once you’ve charged them, they can last several hours.

The problem though with these rechargeable battery packs is that they’re still the nickel type, which has a memory effect, meaning that even if you’ve fully recharged them, they sometimes “think” they’ve run out of power. The manufacturers recommend that you fully recharge the packs and then use the lamps until they completely run out of energy, before recharging.

And that’s where we can run into problems. We tend to rush out to buy these lamps when there’s a power outage, and use them for a few hours. Once the electricity returns, we put the emergency lights in storage and forget about them. I guess we’ll just have to make it a habit to charge and discharge the emergency lamps.

One more point: It’s always tempting to buy a unit with long fluorescent lights. Here’s one instance where size does matter, and it’s the long ones that lose out. Get a lamp with one of those energy-saving, low-wattage bulbs. They’re small but last much longer.

Sounds please

Next to dark nights, what Filipinos fear most is quiet, the lack of “sounds.” And yet I was surprised to find, during Milenyo, how many of my friends didn’t have battery-operated radios at home. It seems the “transistor radio” has become a Stone-Age gadget.

I love radios and still keep several battery-operated ones. They’re important for keeping track of what’s happening, although with Milenyo, I realized that much of the AM band has been taken over by religious groups, with more sermons than news. The big networks offer news but can sometimes end up as strident as the religious broadcasts, castigating government, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and whoever else they can blame, adding to the seething frustration we all had waiting for the lights to come back. I’d advise you to tune in for a few minutes and then shift to some station with music.

You might want to invest in a radio with good short-wave reception, so you can listen to stations like the BBC. Better still, you might want to try Worldspace (www.worldspace.com) which uses satellite broadcasts to give you jazz, classical, rock, World music plus BBC, CNN and even National Public Radio (the only intelligent American radio network). I began to subscribe to Worldspace two years ago and it’s worked perfectly through many storms, including Milenyo. Worldspace does require a little antenna which has to be obstruction-free and sometimes that can be a hassle. I had an accident about two weeks ago when adjusting the antenna, literally sliding off the roof but landing, fortunately, on soft soil. Milenyo did dislodge the antenna, but this time around I got to fix it without any major incident, Tiny my dachshund fretfully running around on the ground and warning me to be careful.

Internet, please

If you can’t live without music, then make sure you have a reliable battery-operated player for cassettes (also Stone-Age?), CDs or MP3. Some of these electronic toys have long-lasting batteries.

Then, too, on the high end, you can use your laptop battery not just for sounds, but for videos. But laptop batteries are notorious for their short life, so if you’re really desperate, you might want to buy an extra battery (which could set you back a few thousand pesos).

We’re now getting to the ultimate question: Should you get a generator or not? During the “dark days” in the 1990s, when we had power outages almost daily, my father got a 5-horsepower, diesel-operated generator, but every time he tried using it, the dogs and cats would run berserk so it went into storage. My father then thought about getting a 40-horsepower silent generator, but that would have cost, prepare yourselves, a million pesos.

In the end, he got two local improvised generators that use a car battery. You charge it by plugging it into Meralco and the energy is stored in the battery. An invertor converts the energy back into regular electricity, with the gadget providing several outlets into which you can plug small appliances. The car battery generators had gone unused for some time and my father was ready to dispose of them, but when I replaced the old batteries with new batteries they worked quite well. And when Milenyo came around, the generators lasted three days with energy to spare. Each generator powered one light and one electric fan, while recharging batteries for my radios. Even better, I got to recharge my laptop three times to give me nine hours of computer use, including the Internet. I did worry about how steady the battery’s current might be, but -- knock on wood -- I don’t think it ruined the computer circuitry, considering I’m still able to do this column.

I haven’t seen these battery generators being sold lately, but I did spot some small solar generators at a hardware store in Makati City last year. I didn’t get them because I felt they weren’t cost effective; they cost from P8,000 to P30,000 each but could only power very small appliances. But in retrospect, maybe they’re worth exploring.

With or without Milenyo, we should be exploring these alternative sources of power.

Teen phobia

PINOY KASI
Teen phobia

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:48am (Mla time) 09/27/2006

Published on Page A15 of the September 27, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE cover of the latest issue of Scientific American Mind had "TEEN BRAIN" in big bold letters, showing a young man with several items orbiting his head: A cell phone, junk food, comic books, a guitar, strips of film and a pack of cigarettes. His eyes were blocked out by a Play Station control and what looked like false teeth and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

Let's face it, societies everywhere suffer from teen phobia, an irrational fear of young people. We see them as unthinking, unfeeling (in Filipino, "dedma") automatons, driven by raging sex hormones, their MP3 players and, if we are to believe the growing literature around teen brains, a confusing tangle of live wires in their skulls ready at any time to short circuit and explode.

Growing up

Many societies seemed to have recognized some kind of transition period between childhood and adulthood. As early as the 13th century, the French were using the word "adolescent" which was derived from the Latin "adolescere" (to grow up). Adolescent meant "growing up."

But most societies also saw this period as quite brief, children practically forced into adulthood after a brief interlude. I did a bit of research to prepare for a paper delivered last week to the Society of Adolescent Medicine of the Philippines and found that in the Spanish Civil Code's provisions for marriage, which we used from 1889 to 1929, the
minimum age of marriage was 14 for males and 12 for females.

During the American colonial period, a new Marriage Act was passed in 1929 that raised the minimum age limit for marriage to 16 for males and 14 for females. Those provisions were in force until 1989, when we adopted a new Family Code that pegged the minimum age of marriage at 18 for both males and females.

We see in the earlier lower ages of marriage a tacit understanding that once puberty had been reached, people were practically adults. The Spanish Civil Code even allowed 14-year-olds to draw up wills!

We don't have indigenous words in the Philippines corresponding to the adolescent, "binata" and "dalaga" referring to people who have reached puberty but who are still single.

Perhaps it made some sense in the past, this brief period of "growing up" given that the world was simpler then. During the American colonial period, if you finished Grade 6, you could teach one of the lower grades. These days I wouldn't trust some of our doctorate holders with a Grade 1 class.

I've been reviewing folklore anthologies from the Summer Institute of Linguistics and am amazed at all the advice given by older people in communities to the young ones, before and after marriage. What's striking is that the communication lines were there, adults exhorting adolescents to pick up practical skills and attitudes.

Teenager

Where are we today? The English word "teener" dates back to the late 19th century, but "teenage" and "teenager" come into use only after World War II, referring to the ages thir-teen to eight-teen. Western society had created a very specific period that recognized puberty as a coming of age, but also imposing a prolonged period for social learning, mainly in terms of college.

While wary and even fearful of the teenager, Western societies have generally been more liberal, pushing their young to become independent and assertive. The baby boom after World War II meant millions of teenagers coming of age in the 1960s, a chance for businesses to cash in, urging teenagers to spend for their own distinct fashions, music, even food.

More traditional societies, like our own, have had more difficulties dealing with this new human subspecies. It doesn't help that they're maturing more rapidly now, in physical terms. One of my friends wept while telling me "daddy's little girl" was now menstruating at the age of 9.

Rightly so, we've raised the minimum age limit for marriage knowing it takes much more now to become a spouse and a parent. But we sometimes end up being overprotective. We want teenagers to become independent, but continue to decide for them, from their clothes to their choices of college courses. We want them to be assertive, but reprimand them when they speak their minds. And on matters of courtship, marriage and sex, we
impose a culture of silence, terrified that they might "do it."

This ambivalence is dangerous, given that the world has become so much more complicated. Large numbers of young teenagers, girls in particular, are moving from small rural villages to the big cities to become domestic helpers, factory workers. City-wise kids know many of them are being prepared to be exported overseas. Thousands have already joined the armies of the night as call center employees dealing with the woes of the world.

It's a highly sexualized, highly competitive, highly commercialized world out there, and what do we have to offer? Moralistic advice, a list of prohibitions and their weekly allowance, thank you, but sorry, mom and dad will have to leave and work overseas so listen to your "lolo" [grandfather] and "lola" [grandmother].

I'd like to return to Philippine laws to show how our views of the young are changing. Until recently, a young person who violated the law was thrown into jail with hardened adult criminals. At one point, we even had minors in death row. It was a major scandal, yet it spoke of the harsh realities of adolescence in the Philippines.

A few weeks back, we passed a new Juvenile Justice Law that reflects a more modern view of adolescence. Sen. Francis Pangilinan, the principal author of the new law, sent me a note recently noting, with alarm, that there have been rumors going around to the effect that anyone below 15 would not be held liable for any offense. He emphasized that the young, no matter what their age is, will still be responsible for whatever offense
they've committed, and may even be required to make amends to their victims.

At the same time, the new law recognizes that the adolescent, the teenager, is still growing up and should not be thrown into jail with adults. There will be youth rehabilitation centers, giving young offenders a new chance at life.

Our laws are actually quite progressive, changing in response to new times and new needs. The question now is whether our educators, our physicians, our religious, and, most importantly, our parents can keep pace, too.

I am sure that in the past, parents and elders also harbored many of the uncertainties and doubts we have today about our young, but they did seem to have more trust in the ability of young people to face up to life. We might do well to follow those models, waiting at the sides and watching from a distance, yet assuring the young that we're always ready to come to their side, with a listening ear, an open mind and a generous heart.

Night of the generals

PINOY KASI
Night of the generals

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:25am (Mla time) 09/22/2006

Published on Page A13 of the September 22, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

A FEW months back, Filipinos asked why Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo could not do a “Thaksin.” Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had just resigned, following massive public protests around allegations of corruption, and Filipinos were hoping Arroyo could do something similar.

Alas, Thaksin (in Thailand, first names are used rather than the surname) quickly turned around and resumed his post. There were a few more protest actions in Thailand but the political tensions eventually went into low simmer, just as they have in the Philippines.

So, the Thai coup Tuesday night came as a real surprise to the world. Perhaps, most aghast was Thaksin himself, who had confidently flown off to New York to address the UN General Assembly. When the tanks rolled into Bangkok, Thaksin quickly declared, long-distance, a state of emergency, but within a few hours it became clear he had been ousted. He has since flown into exile in England.

I don’t think that’s the last we’ll hear of Thaksin. In many ways, he was like our own President Joseph Estrada, popular with the masses with his dole-out programs. Unlike Estrada however, he was overseas when ousted, and therefore escaped arrest. A billionaire, he can easily make a political comeback in the future.

‘Thaksined’

Meantime, the Thais -- and the world -- wonder about Thailand’s future. Governments have reacted cautiously, mostly urging a peaceful resolution of problems and an early return to civilian rule.

My Thai friends are ambivalent. Many didn’t like Thaksin, but are nervous about the new military junta.

Here in the Philippines, people are no longer asking if Arroyo can do a Thaksin, but if Arroyo shouldn’t be “Thaksined,” the new Filipino-Thai verb ominously sounding like the Filipino word for betrayal.

I’ve always felt Thailand is our political twin. Like Filipinos, Thais are passionate about politics, constantly complaining about feudal and corrupt leaders.

Like the Philippines, Thailand has experienced many coups but the Thai military has been far more active in politics. It was a 1932 coup that forced Thailand to move from an absolute to constitutional monarchy. There have been 17 coups since then, and some of the military regimes that were established following the coups ended up as brutal dictatorships, which is why the Thais are nervous about this new junta.

The current coup leaders have formed a Democratic Reform Council, ruling through martial law. Foreign TV stations such as CNN have been temporarily blocked, and the Information Ministry has been vested the right to censor news. The junta is likely to dissolve the Thai constitution soon and then appoint a new prime minister. Elections have been promised before October 2007, which is a long way off, probably intended to buy time to neutralize Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party (reflecting Thaksin’s populism, his party name means Thai Love Thai).

But it’s possible this junta will be benign. The Democratic Reform Council is headed by General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, whom Bangkok Post has described as a “soldier’s soldier,” a professional who rose through the ranks to become chief of the army, without being tainted by any charges of corruption.

General Sonthi is a Muslim, the first ever to reach such a high position in the Thai armed forces. He was appointed by Thaksin, but was believed to be on his way out. He had been critical of Thaksin’s iron fist policies in fighting the Muslim insurgency in the south, and had instead called for a dialogue with Muslim leaders.

Born-again democrats

There are similarities and differences in the Filipino and Thai experiences with the military. We like to think we have a strong tradition of civilian governance but we forget that the first short-lived Filipino republic was headed by General Emilio Aguinaldo. The period after 1946 was marked by civilian supremacy, at least until President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. Marcos was a bit of a schizophrenic, shuttling between the roles of a civilian president and the commander in chief of the military, but his dictatorship did leave a much more powerful military.

Our military has slowly become more professional, but I wonder if we have generals who might have views -- and a clean background -- similar to those of General Sonthi. We could point to Marcos’ defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos, whose decision to turn against Marcos in 1986 sparked off the Edsa revolt. “Born-again democrats,” is how these two are sometimes described.

Enrile has been senator several times but seems more keen on defending personal business interests than the nation’s fragile democracy. Ramos eventually became president and fears that he would revert to his martial law persona turned out to be unfounded. In the past two years, Ramos has tried to play the role of the elderly statesman, he has lost credibility because of his constant flip-flopping in relation to Arroyo.

I’m skeptical about the ones who have launched coup attempts against Arroyo -- their political views were never really clear and we’ve seen how some of them have since sold out. But I’m even more cynical about the ones who, for now at least, still support Arroyo. She has favored those like herself, disdainful of human rights and democratic processes. Even under her nominally civilian government, they’ve already been able to get away with repressive policies that we normally associate with martial law. If these hawks ever turned against her -- and this is still possible -- they would become even more ruthless, and plunge the country into total chaos.

Kings and bishops

We need to consider one sharp difference between Thai and Filipino politics -- this is the continuing presence of the Thai king. Although Thailand is a constitutional monarchy, the king continues to wield considerable power as a moral leader. The current king has been a master at dealing with the soldiers, to the point where coup leaders would not be able to hold their ground without getting an endorsement from the king.

It’s not surprising that the current junta has been endorsed by the king. An editorial in the Bangkok Post speculates that General Sonthi may have even led the coup because of his loyalty to the king. Thaksin’s initial resignation was believed to have followed a reprimand from the king; so when he returned to power, this was seen as a form of lèse majesté, gross disrespect for the king.

In some ways, our Catholic bishops played similar roles to the Thai king, potentially powerful as moral leaders. But we’ve seen how the bishops have played politics lately. If a military junta ever came to power, I seriously wonder if the bishops would be there to keep the military in check.

Arroyo “Thaksined”? It could turn out to be a long, bloody night of the generals. Thanks, but no thanks.

His shadow

PINOY KASI
His shadow

By Michael Tan
Inquirer
Last updated 00:22am (Mla time) 09/20/2006

Published on Page A13 of the September 20, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

ANNIVERSARIES like September 21 tend to narrow people’s attention to some event. So, 9/21, like 9/11, is remembered as a dark day, but with much too little discussion of the events and circumstances that led to the fateful day. In the case of martial law, we reduce history to a presidential proclamation, and then forget how much was still to unfold in the days and years that followed.

Surfing the Internet for materials on martial law, I stumbled on a Time article dated Jan. 22, 1973, describing how within the first 100 days of martial law, Marcos had vacillated between allowing more freedom or more repression, even as he plotted constitutional change.

We need to remember how martial law was really just a last desperate act on Marcos’ part to keep himself in power. Under the 1935 Constitution, Marcos could be president only for two four-year terms. Into his second term, he had a constitutional convention (ConCon) organized in 1971 to revise that Constitution and move the country into a parliamentary system that would allow him to remain as head of government. It was an unpopular move, even among delegates to the Constitutional Convention, and there were exposés of how the delegates were being bribed to toe Marcos’ line.

By declaring martial law in 1972, Marcos could find other ways to revise the Constitution. “Citizens’ assemblies” were hastily convened to discuss the proposed new constitution in preparation for a plebiscite. Marcos promised free discussions, but quickly took all that back, accusing politicians of using the citizens’ assemblies to return to the ways of the pre-martial law era. He issued a presidential decree declaring rumor-mongering a subversive crime.

Martial-law babies

Thirty-four years have passed since that fateful declaration of martial law. When I first began teaching at UP in 1985, I had martial law babies, students who had known no other president except Marcos.

Today, we have the Edsa babies -- those born after the Marcos era. Sometimes though, I wonder if they are more properly called the grandchildren of the Marcos era, given how they still live, as we all do, in his shadow.

Let me share a story to make my point. Just last week, I got a call from someone in an urban poor community in Quezon City. Mang Ramon (not his real name) had been picked up by the police following a complaint from a neighbor who claimed Mang Ramon had vandalized his van. Within an hour, he was transferred first to a station precinct and then to a jail in Quezon City, all without any papers served or formal charges filed. The policemen advised him to just pay up -- even a few hundred pesos -- so they could close the case.

Filipino kibitzing became useful here. Several of his relatives, including two young children and neighbors accompanied him to the precinct and later to the bigger police station, and refused to leave. One of them eventually called me to ask for help, but since it was at night, I had difficulty contacting lawyers. I advised them to just keep on with their vigil, and not to agree to any of the police demands. I could tell this was another instance of hulidap, policemen in cahoots with some cheap racketeer to extort money.

The next day, I brought one of Mang Ramon’s neighbors to UP’s Office of Legal Assistance and the lawyer agreed that the policemen had no business detaining Mang Ramon. He was eventually released and his case was referred to the barangay captain, but the complainant apparently sensed he wasn’t going to get away with his scam and never showed up for the hearings.

The policemen and the complainant are lucky. Mang Ramon thought of filing counter-charges but decided it might not be worth the hassle. But he and his neighbors are more confident now that they can protect themselves in the future. They were aware of the rackets and scams involving the police, but they didn’t know that the police couldn’t just barge into their homes, much less drag them to jail, without proper papers.

Too democratic?

“They violated my human rights,” Mang Ramon told me in Filipino. I was struck by his use of the formal “karapatang pantao,” reminding me of the lectures human rights groups would conduct during martial law. In a way, Mang Ramon was benefiting from the human rights consciousness and networks that emerged during the dictatorship. At the same time, his feeling of helplessness and resignation also reminded me how little has changed, how terribly vulnerable people are.

Worse, I hear people rationalizing that it wasn’t really that bad under Marcos, that his dictatorship was benevolent, that we had a “smiling martial law.” There’s even a yearning for another authoritarian ruler, with people arguing that our problems today are rooted in our being “too democratic” and that we have “too many rights.”

Marcos’ “smiling martial law” came about not so much because of his benevolence but because of how the nation responded. His first 100 days of martial law, as reported in Time, showed how he would test the waters, and I believe he would have been far more brutal if civil society -- human rights groups, people’s organizations -- had not kept him on the defensive.

This 9/21 anniversary, we should be reflecting on the parallels between Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Marcos, especially her determination to perpetuate herself in power. What worries me is that the tactics Marcos resorted to -- a citizens’ assembly and a plebiscite, political assassinations, arrests without warrants, illegal detention -- are all taking place under Arroyo even without martial law.

We still live in Marcos’ shadow because his dictatorship unleashed the worst in the Filipino. He politicized the military, giving it unprecedented power without an understanding of how that power must come with responsibility and a respect for human rights. He showed how the Constitution and constitutional processes could be so easily manipulated and mangled, how constitutional bodies like Congress could be turned into an auction house, the members themselves available to the highest bidder.

Marcos showed, too, how public service could become a venue for legalized extortion. Oh, but how Marcos would be so delighted if he could see how the Presidential Commission on Good Government, set up to investigate his kleptocracy, has so deteriorated.

And if Marcos were alive today, he’d be amazed at how one of his initiatives, the systematic export of Filipino workers, could bring so much “peace” to the nation in terms of a complacent citizenry, content to live off the overseas workers’ remittances and balikbayan boxes, even as Arroyo claims the credit for the nation’s economic survival.

The Marcos dictatorship casts a long shadow, but only because we have short memories.