The results of a recent survey conducted by a popular social survey agency reveal that nine out of ten Filipinos look forward to the coming year with a lot of hope, not fear. Filipinos do have a sunshine disposition, I must say. More than 300 years of colonization by three huge empires make the Filipino believe that hope springs eternal in the human breast. From the usual holiday revelry that I saw around, I’d be loathe not to admit that the Filipino will weather the storm (storm of the weather kind is another thing we are so used to having, anyway).

Minor Bumps on the Road

There was shortage of rice during the year where queues of people dotted the streets for some rationing of government subsidized rice. The alarmists said that global warming will soon lead to hunger in the Philippines because the agricultural lands are simply not producing enough rice anymore. Another reason touted about was that rice fields have now been turned to housing projects and economic zones. The ever-inquisitive Pinoy investigated on the so-called food security, and just as soon discovered that rice shortage was due to the supply controls of wily rice business cartels (rice hoarders, price speculators, grain warehouses) who wanted to stage a shortage so that they can hike the price when they bring the supply out again. These economic saboteurs were conveniently riding on the double digit inflation rates that occurred briefly.

The cost per barrel of Dubai crude skyrocketed sometime during the year. While the top three companies of Shell, Petron, and Caltex used this as a reason not to keep down the cost of oil at the pump, the noisy and clamorous Pinoy asked the right questions very, very often and got the answer. The price of gas could have actually been lowered sooner by these oil cartels because their supply reserves were not affected by the soaring world price of oil all throughout the year. Again, this set of economic saboteurs took advantage of the much talked about world recession and reduced their prices in trickles.

Stepping Over the Bumps

Of course, the foreign aid granters a.k.a. foreign lending institutions stuck with the alarmist propaganda while assuring the country that loans have been ready for the taking. They averred that the Filipino is just deluding himself with what he has uncovered of the expectedly savvy (read: astute) business strategies of big corporations. These foreign institutional creditors persisted to make Filipinos believe such doomsday propaganda as climate change and peak oil.

Years of being duped by colonizers have taught the Filipino to be wary. This skeptical nature makes him survive a crisis by digging beneath the 6 o’clock news headlines. The Filipino is generally suspicious of his government and society. This healthy dose of caution makes him clamorous that the truth eventually gets uncovered. Quite uniquely, he no longer gets surprised with what he ultimately finds out.

While he is an intermittent victim of corruption, the Filipino survives a crisis not because he is inured to hardship but because nothing, but nothing, can clamp down his instinct to survive.

Major Hurdles

The presence of radical Islamists in the country, the ripples of the global economic meltdown, and the interminable existence of corrupt government officials were the three major challenges of the Philippines in 2008.

Radical Islamism

The radical Islamists in the Philippines did not get to fulfill their political agenda. Their deal with the Philippine government for an even wider land to self-rule did not prosper in the Supreme Court of the Philippines that declared the bid unconstitutional.

A layman at legalese like me can only find the logic in what I know of Philippine history. Muslims cannot claim Bangsamoro (much less an expanded version of it) because just like Spain and the US, Islam was also just a colonizer in the Philippines, unworthy of the birthright to so-called ancestral domain.

The decision of the Supreme Court did not sit well with the radical Islamists and so they continue their violent mission in the name of jihad, even as I write this.

The ordinary Filipinos (largely Catholic) accept their Muslim brothers, although the political agenda of these Islamists is more than showing at the seams. The Philippine government is able to control these Muslim guerrillas only with the able help of the rest of the Filipinos who will never buy into the Muslim militant propaganda. Radical Islamism in the Philippines will eventually be eradicated because it has run of out of possibilities to prosper, much less spread.

Global Economic Meltdown

The country’s banks have largely been spared from the aftershocks of the US financial disaster. There are enough forex reserves. The Philippine government was wise enough to put just a few eggs in the Wall Street basket. And because Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is an economist by profession, she had managed to hike taxes whose revenues are now cushioning the country from the global economic meltdown. And because US importation will surely slow down, Arroyo also managed to deftly shift the country’s exports to China. Also, the Philippines has a very strong domestic market, replete with innumerable microenterprises.
The Philippines is one of the world’s largest exporters of labor. The economic downturn is sending migrant Filipino workers back home, jobless. But industries abroad will stagnate without workers, and so, contrary to yet another alarmist propaganda, more and more jobs abroad are opening up for the Filipinos.

Filipinos are highly-skilled and educated people. They are also comfortable in the universal language of English. They will hardly run out of jobs abroad. Sure, the reason they left the country in the first place is because of the lack of employment opportunities in the Philippines, but their dollar remittances are also what’s keeping the country afloat in this time of global financial crisis. All in all, still a win-win situation.

On the local front, the Philippines is an extremely viable business outsourcing destination. The economic zones are more than thriving. Also, call centers aren’t about to close shop in the country. Where else can you find British BPO call centers where the people sound British and American BPO call centers where the people sound American – even at the water coolers and coffee stations?

Corrupt Government

A culture of patronage politics + political impunity has always been the canker sore on the backside of Philippine society. The entrenched elite has always managed to perpetuate themselves in power because elections are expensive. With this reality, I can hardly lend credence to the saying that ‘you get the government that you deserve.’

Fortunately, the Philippines is a noisy democracy and this helps stem the corruption that can otherwise go unbridled. Media in the Philippines is instinctively investigative – again, the skeptical nature of Filipinos. Media is noisy, too. The Catholic clergy is politicized and takes to the streets in protests. There is a huge middle class that has been proven to sway political opinion. Different foreign/expat communities also help create a healthy balance.

In other words, corrupt government officials cannot fully and completely do their thing because Philippine society is democratically noisy and out of the shadows. The reason why government has persisted to be corrupt is because of democracy’s intrinsic flaw of proportionate power. The more advantaged lot in the free world has bigger power. The ordinary Filipinos simply arm themselves with the empowerment that democracy equally accords to them, as well. Whistleblowing has always been a useful tactic to decimate abusive power.

Wretchedness is a Mind Thing

The Philippines is a Third World country without the Third World mindset. The Filipinos’ indomitable spirit has seen them through all the time. Even the Asian crisis towards the end of the 1990s was not able to fold up the Pinoy. He is resilient, to say the least. His instinct to survive is legendary. After all, his short sword met the cannons and rifles of the Spaniards and Americans, and eventually managed to drive these colonizers away.

The Filipino is free – unencumbered by the shackles of the attitude of helplessness and desperation that countries with hegemonic designs wish they could instill in us so as to make us needy and dependent on them. This freedom is the direct benefit of (slowly but surely) unchaining from colonization and imperialism (with all its creative strategies). Rich countries may persist to buy and bribe our corrupt government, but we, the true dyed-in-the-wool Filipinos, shall continue to call the hegemons’ bluff, and be noisy all throughout the way. The lowly Pinoy is aware of his society much to chagrin of the corrupt politicians in his government.

And oh, yes, a boxer has also managed to unify the country amidst all the political squabbles that were going on. Manny Pacquiao rewrote boxing history with three big wins in 2008. He is the current #1 pound for pound boxer in the world and a champion in four weight divisions. He was named “World Boxer of the Year” by both the WBC and Sports Illustrated Magazine. He is also ESPN’s “Champion of Champions” eclipsing India’s Sachin Tendulkar and Malaysia’s Nicol David.

As I look back at 2008, I say I am truly proud to be Pinoy!