It's simple, really™
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- Founded:
- 01 Aug 2000
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- Sports Fan psychology 2:24am Jul 2
- The Law of Conservation of Credibility 3:13am Jul 1
- Festive and intriguing on the inside 2:20am Jun 30
The search for “parallels”. It's almost like a sign of desperation in the face of a consistently flaccid public response to tired and increasingly trite calls for expressions of "indignation" against the Arroyo administration. Sure sure. Gloria is "evil". She cheated. She is a power Klingon. She is this, she is that. She is planning to do this, and planning to do that. Yadda yadda yadda ad infinitum.
Ok, I get that, esteemed people of the "Opposition". So show me the money.
As I wrote in a recent article,
So what do the esteemed mouthpieces of our "Opposition" do as part of their futile quests for relevance? They look overseas to scavenge for "parallels".
Earlier it was a search for inspiration from the unrest gripping Iran, that belligerent desert kingdom where an innocent bystander was murdered during a protest rally and then summarily proclaimed a "hero" of the moment. Some people then siezed upon it as an inspiring reminder of our own ten minutes of glory more than twenty years ago, unfortunately to the point of bad taste.
Having tried that to no avail, we then set our sights upon the Honduras whose president Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a recent military coup. Again, true to form, some bozo quips:
[Translated: "If [President] Gloria Arroyo read what happened in the Honduras yesterday, she should be trembling in fear now."]
Indeed, it "could serve as a stern warning" to the President and, get this folks, "perhaps an encouragement to the [Philippine] military" postulates Jun Bautista in a thinly-veiled incitement of rebellion titled "Honduras May Embolden GMA" -- an article that comes across more like a lame attempt at reverse-psychology.
Dumb and dumber.
Sad and sadder.
There is nothing more poignant than the sight of a people gripped by a crisis of relevance and meaning, trying to mitigate their pathos by identifying with or drawing parallels from success stories, champs, and heroes.
Iran? The Honduras?
Those are not parallels.
But this one is:
Sports Fan Psychology
The exploits of our sports heroes on field invoke some form of primal tribalism within us -- the kind that could be behind violent hooliganism often seen in spectators of soccer matches. We feel "emboldened" to "take control" as we gawk at that flying tackle, that double pump lay-up, that cross-field shot. We suddenly feel the urge to break away from, well, something.
And what is that something? As our thoughts come back to our immediate circumstances, we seize upon what we see -- our humdrum day job, our obscure suburban existence, the speed limit we need to observe -- things that are of our own making or are the outcomes of our own decisions (or indecisions) suddenly feel like a prison. That’s the effect that media-induced adrenaline coursing through our veins has on our minds. It messes with our perception of what is real and important.
Suddenly we cut to a commercial break where the effects of that hormonal cocktail is harvested. Someone behind the scenes is laughing all the way to the bank.
Ok, I get that, esteemed people of the "Opposition". So show me the money.
As I wrote in a recent article,
The Philippine "Opposition" has failed in the last several decades to offer an imaginative or visionary alternative to Filipinos. Instead all we continue to see is an n-th iteration of an approach to "reform".
[...]
It continues to use 1986 thinking to battle a 2009 issue.
So what do the esteemed mouthpieces of our "Opposition" do as part of their futile quests for relevance? They look overseas to scavenge for "parallels".
Earlier it was a search for inspiration from the unrest gripping Iran, that belligerent desert kingdom where an innocent bystander was murdered during a protest rally and then summarily proclaimed a "hero" of the moment. Some people then siezed upon it as an inspiring reminder of our own ten minutes of glory more than twenty years ago, unfortunately to the point of bad taste.
Having tried that to no avail, we then set our sights upon the Honduras whose president Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a recent military coup. Again, true to form, some bozo quips:
Kung nabasa ni Gloria Arroyo ang nangyari sa Honduras kahapon, dapat manginig siya sa takot.
[Translated: "If [President] Gloria Arroyo read what happened in the Honduras yesterday, she should be trembling in fear now."]
Indeed, it "could serve as a stern warning" to the President and, get this folks, "perhaps an encouragement to the [Philippine] military" postulates Jun Bautista in a thinly-veiled incitement of rebellion titled "Honduras May Embolden GMA" -- an article that comes across more like a lame attempt at reverse-psychology.
Dumb and dumber.
Sad and sadder.
There is nothing more poignant than the sight of a people gripped by a crisis of relevance and meaning, trying to mitigate their pathos by identifying with or drawing parallels from success stories, champs, and heroes.
Iran? The Honduras?
Those are not parallels.
But this one is:
Sports Fan Psychology
The exploits of our sports heroes on field invoke some form of primal tribalism within us -- the kind that could be behind violent hooliganism often seen in spectators of soccer matches. We feel "emboldened" to "take control" as we gawk at that flying tackle, that double pump lay-up, that cross-field shot. We suddenly feel the urge to break away from, well, something.
And what is that something? As our thoughts come back to our immediate circumstances, we seize upon what we see -- our humdrum day job, our obscure suburban existence, the speed limit we need to observe -- things that are of our own making or are the outcomes of our own decisions (or indecisions) suddenly feel like a prison. That’s the effect that media-induced adrenaline coursing through our veins has on our minds. It messes with our perception of what is real and important.
Suddenly we cut to a commercial break where the effects of that hormonal cocktail is harvested. Someone behind the scenes is laughing all the way to the bank.
Those on the right side of the equation live happily ever after.
Those on the wrong side go on and scrounge around for other "parallels" to fill the void where imagination should have been.
[This article is also published on FilipinoVoices.com. Make this article available to your Facebook friends by clicking on the "Share" button at the upper right hand corner of this article then select "Post to profile".]
Allow me to start off with a famous O.B.Q. (Original benign0 Quote):
As such, I cannot agree more with what Norman Sison wrote in a comment on Cocoy's brilliant piece "Missing the Point on the Road to 2010":
Yes indeed.
"Credible elections" will in principle give a more accurate reflection not only of the "people's will" but also the people's character.
So lets put a number on the qualifier "credible". Say, a 95% accurate (i.e. the remaining 5% attributable to uncertainty resulting from fraudulent activity) election result constitutes a "credible" outcome.
Thus;
A 95% accurate election outcome can be considered to be a credible reflection of "the people's will".
Now let's say, for argument's sake, that today's elections are 75% accurate. This "75% accuracy" metric can be taken to imply that the current crop of politicians sitting in comfy offices in Congress reflect the character of the Filipinos to an accuracy of "only" 75%. Given the kinds of adjectives we love to use to describe our politicians, we can further infer that these same adjectives describe the character and will of the electorate to an accuracy of 75% as well, right? That's because, in this example, we can be sure only with 75% confidence that our leaders embody the will and character of the electorate.
To digress a bit, consider this confronting question...
Who is the most feared politician today in terms of his "winnability"?
[Hint: Both his nickname and surname start with an "E".]
... and then hold that thought while we move along under the same thought experiment I introduced earlier:
Today we can find comfort in giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt to the tune of 25% uncertainty that our politicians are an evil lot and that we are all victims of an Evil Empire. Kung baga all the troubles we seem to battle in our efforts to represent our interests in Government have to do with that 25% rate of uncertainty in the legitimacy of our representatives' and executives' claim to the offices they currently hold.
Now envision a world in which a successful computerisation of elections was implemented in the Philippines along with a successful control over the non-automated processes involved in handling and encoding the vote into said systems. Presumably we'd have that 95% credibility in our elections to enjoy in such a world. Woo hoo!
Bring your thoughts back to that feared politician I mentioned earlier, and there's the rub:
Winnable politicians will still win in such a world.
The criteria for who gets to rule and who gets to legislate in our sorry society does not change.
This hypothetically credible election has the following effects:
- It reduces the credibility of our excuses for staging ocho-ocho "revolutions" from 25% to 5%; and,
- It reduces the credibility of our excuses for not taking accountability for the quality of our Government from 25% to 5%.
The trouble with wiping dust off a mirror is that we get a clearer image of ourselves.
- benign0
As such, I cannot agree more with what Norman Sison wrote in a comment on Cocoy's brilliant piece "Missing the Point on the Road to 2010":
[...] Credible elections, whether automated or not, is an expression of the people's will. Otherwise, a government ceases its reason for being, or raison d'etre, once it no longer reflects the people's will. That's how a democracy works.
Yes indeed.
"Credible elections" will in principle give a more accurate reflection not only of the "people's will" but also the people's character.
So lets put a number on the qualifier "credible". Say, a 95% accurate (i.e. the remaining 5% attributable to uncertainty resulting from fraudulent activity) election result constitutes a "credible" outcome.
Thus;
A 95% accurate election outcome can be considered to be a credible reflection of "the people's will".
Now let's say, for argument's sake, that today's elections are 75% accurate. This "75% accuracy" metric can be taken to imply that the current crop of politicians sitting in comfy offices in Congress reflect the character of the Filipinos to an accuracy of "only" 75%. Given the kinds of adjectives we love to use to describe our politicians, we can further infer that these same adjectives describe the character and will of the electorate to an accuracy of 75% as well, right? That's because, in this example, we can be sure only with 75% confidence that our leaders embody the will and character of the electorate.
To digress a bit, consider this confronting question...
Who is the most feared politician today in terms of his "winnability"?
[Hint: Both his nickname and surname start with an "E".]
... and then hold that thought while we move along under the same thought experiment I introduced earlier:
Today we can find comfort in giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt to the tune of 25% uncertainty that our politicians are an evil lot and that we are all victims of an Evil Empire. Kung baga all the troubles we seem to battle in our efforts to represent our interests in Government have to do with that 25% rate of uncertainty in the legitimacy of our representatives' and executives' claim to the offices they currently hold.
Now envision a world in which a successful computerisation of elections was implemented in the Philippines along with a successful control over the non-automated processes involved in handling and encoding the vote into said systems. Presumably we'd have that 95% credibility in our elections to enjoy in such a world. Woo hoo!
Bring your thoughts back to that feared politician I mentioned earlier, and there's the rub:
Winnable politicians will still win in such a world.
The criteria for who gets to rule and who gets to legislate in our sorry society does not change.
This hypothetically credible election has the following effects:
- It reduces the credibility of our excuses for staging ocho-ocho "revolutions" from 25% to 5%; and,
- It reduces the credibility of our excuses for not taking accountability for the quality of our Government from 25% to 5%.
Call it benign0's brilliant Law of Conservation of Credibility. Every new capability acquired changes the landscape of accountability we face. The ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in that 1986 "revolution" removed what at the time was seen as the singular excuse for our chronic failure to prosper as a nation. It took more than 20 years since that "solution" for us to appreciate the reality that Marcos alone did not account for our chronic impoverishment.
We need to apply that twenty-year lesson in the way we regard our so-called "politics" today, especially considering that the moral asendancy of today's "Opposition" is not as clear-cut as it was in 1986.
In the case of "poll automation", for example, the spin created by the pontifications of today's "Opposition" easily lead public perceptions down dead-end routes. And as such...
... that's what people who are not much into the habit of thinking are routinely led to believe. The reality is that whether or not there is an on-going initiative to "automate" elections, politics have a way of subverting even the best laid governance plans -- including one that involves a scheduled election.
And while "[...]proponents of automation have offered it as a panacea for clean election [...]", the fact is...
Modern or primitive methods applied, Philippine elections will remain essentially the same in practice. And we can find comfort in that reality in the way we will continue to remain happy in the comfy delusion that we are the righteous but hapless victims of a perceived circumstance (i.e. the "evilness" of politicians) that is way past its use-by date.
[This article is also published on FilipinoVoices.com. Make this article available to your Facebook friends by clicking on the "Share" button at the upper right hand corner of this article then select "Post to profile".]
We need to apply that twenty-year lesson in the way we regard our so-called "politics" today, especially considering that the moral asendancy of today's "Opposition" is not as clear-cut as it was in 1986.
In the case of "poll automation", for example, the spin created by the pontifications of today's "Opposition" easily lead public perceptions down dead-end routes. And as such...
Many Filipinos have held high hopes that automation would help plug opportunities for mass cheating through changing of the results when they are unduly delayed by slow counting. The withdrawal of TIM has heightened concerns that the 2010 election might not be held or that an election marred by fraud might lead to a failure in election, providing an excuse for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to declare a national emergency which would result in the extension of her term beyond 2010.
... that's what people who are not much into the habit of thinking are routinely led to believe. The reality is that whether or not there is an on-going initiative to "automate" elections, politics have a way of subverting even the best laid governance plans -- including one that involves a scheduled election.
And while "[...]proponents of automation have offered it as a panacea for clean election [...]", the fact is...
[...] It is not. The machines will be fed with returns collected by the Comelec and will be operated by technicians. A quick count system can only deliver results swiftly, but if the inputs are not honest or have been tampered with, the tabulation would not reflect the popular will. Such a system, if tampered with, could only facilitate mass cheating.
Modern or primitive methods applied, Philippine elections will remain essentially the same in practice. And we can find comfort in that reality in the way we will continue to remain happy in the comfy delusion that we are the righteous but hapless victims of a perceived circumstance (i.e. the "evilness" of politicians) that is way past its use-by date.
[This article is also published on FilipinoVoices.com. Make this article available to your Facebook friends by clicking on the "Share" button at the upper right hand corner of this article then select "Post to profile".]
A system that is closed to external input may remain dynamic and even chaotic internally but possess surfaces that are inert and featureless to the outside observer. A cadaver is kind of like that — gray and lifeless on the outside, but teeming with enough decomposition and degradation processes on the inside to keep avid students of decay entertained for decades.
Consider now the Philippines. Filipinos revel in the multitude of issues gripping our inward-looking "public awareness" and our most lettered "experts" wax verbose pomposity in the "analyses" of these rivetting topics. Indeed, the Philippine national "debate" is a curious case study that describes this paradox:
An immense void where insight should have been situated in the midst of a mind-retarding abundance of information.
I recall a previous article where I wrote how "we may be top-notch assimilators overseas but amongst ourselves and within the islands, something about the way we gel turns us into an uncoordinated mass of passive-aggressive buffoons". Although I started out by citing how closed systems tend to have inert, unchanging exteriors (and therefore are of little relevance to their environment), I have to admit that the Philippines is not a closed system. It has a porous surface, one that soaks up immense amounts of new information and ideas everyday. Our secular society, our "free press", our beholdenness to foreign entertainment, and our armies of overseas foreign workers guarantee this continuous inflow of intellectual capital.
And yet we fail to properly apply all this.
I wrote way back in 2003:
For indeed, it is a no-brainer...
Consider now the Philippines. Filipinos revel in the multitude of issues gripping our inward-looking "public awareness" and our most lettered "experts" wax verbose pomposity in the "analyses" of these rivetting topics. Indeed, the Philippine national "debate" is a curious case study that describes this paradox:
An immense void where insight should have been situated in the midst of a mind-retarding abundance of information.
I recall a previous article where I wrote how "we may be top-notch assimilators overseas but amongst ourselves and within the islands, something about the way we gel turns us into an uncoordinated mass of passive-aggressive buffoons". Although I started out by citing how closed systems tend to have inert, unchanging exteriors (and therefore are of little relevance to their environment), I have to admit that the Philippines is not a closed system. It has a porous surface, one that soaks up immense amounts of new information and ideas everyday. Our secular society, our "free press", our beholdenness to foreign entertainment, and our armies of overseas foreign workers guarantee this continuous inflow of intellectual capital.
And yet we fail to properly apply all this.
I wrote way back in 2003:
Take a moment to wonder: What happens to all the collective experience, skills, insights, and philosophies accumulated by our countrymen from the work they did overseas?
You'd think with all that knowledge, some of it is bound to be properly applied to the Philippine setting. This glaring lack of a nation's capability to tap the vast knowledgebase residing in the minds of its returning overseas workers further re-enforces the issue of our country not being an environment that rewards innovation and doing things properly.
For indeed, it is a no-brainer...
We are a highly-politicised culture. One fourth of Lee Kuan Yew's memoirs From Third World to First World -- The Singapore Story, was devoted to describing the innovation and thinking that went into the development of its winning administrative infrastructure and development policies. Filipino historians will be hard-pressed to come up with even one page that falls outside of the political arena for a similar book.
These sad facts about the Filipino make it all the more amusing that esteemed political and business "pundit" Manuel Buencamino fails to see the irony in what he says here:
But, at least, I have a right to rant and rave. I live and work here [in the Philippines]. I invested my life here. I have vested interests, just like anyone who lives here, rich or poor. I am not a loud-mouth miron who can walk away whenever I feel like.
Focus on your adopted country [referring to a Filipino-born commentor residing overseas]. We can manage without you.
Reminds me a bit of a little lesson Filipinos failed to learn back in 1991 when we gave America's Armed Forces the boot, an act seemingly motivated by a national psychosis, one centred around a bizarre aversion to being given a bit of hand-holding by a foreign power with a vast track record of world-class achievement...
[...] lawmakers asserted that the deal [to extend the lease term for the U.S. bases] would perpetuate the country’s image as an American lackey [...]
Indeed, image is everything in a society driven by hiya. And yet in that all-too-familiar tapewormic way that we think, we'd take such quaint offense over a perceived "snub" by Hillary Clinton back in early 2009 when she decided to bypass the Philippines in her first visit to the region as U.S. Secretary of State. I wrote back then how...
[...] this "snub" (boo hoo) is a sign of the Philippines's omni-obvious slide down the slope of reverse-progress to utter irrelevance that even the most desperate flailing of our talangka claws had so far failed to arrest.
Worse than being irrelevant as a people is being a limpdick of a people. In my other seminal piece "We cannot keep what we cannot defend", I quote an esteemed colleague who makes this insightful assertion:
[...] in the final analysis, we cannot keep what we cannot defend. laws, rights, fairness, justice, ethics, are mere words and ideas. they have to be enforced. there’s no authority without the backing of obligatory force. that’s why we need a strong, effective law enforcement and defense forces. we need international alliances with countries whose beliefs and practices are compatible with ours.
You just gotta take all that in in the context of our sorry inability to enforce even the simplest of traffic ordinances. Kinda puts into proper perspective our ha-ha obssession with an effort to change that other charter of recommended codes of soveriegn conduct we rather cluelessly call our "Constitution".
So yes indeed;
We can manage without you, Mr. Big Bad foreigner.
Leave us to run our country like hell.
And apparently for the esteemed Buencamino, that sentiment extends to members of the Filipino overseas community as well who have something to say about their country of birth:
I pity the know-it-all immigrant who is ignored in his adopted country and, at the same time, has no business getting involved in the affairs of the country he left behind. He is neither here nor there.
He is seen as an alien despite having lived there for decades. He tries to blend in but he sticks out like a sore thumb.
The above addressed to another commentor but presumably where he might be coming from in issuing this query as well...
Benigno,
Do the Aussies ignore you?
... to which I shall respond in my usual brilliantly simple form:
Between the Philippines and Australia, where do you think the average citizen will get fair and/or just service from a government agency, sir?
In the Philippines, you will most likely need to personally know a general to get the cops -- or any emergency service for that matter -- to respond to your calls (and not steal you blind in the process).
In Australia, you dial the emergency number and you get a team of properly equipped competent professionals rushing to your aid with sirens screaming as if you were the most important person in the world at that moment.
I wonder what part of "being ignored" causes a bit of confusion in the "expert" mind?
It's actually kind of amusing that people like the venerable Mr. Buencamino are in the habit of fantasizing how Filipinos living abroad are some sort of second class citizens. Because it seems with every such assertion made, what really comes across are frustrations about how small Filipinos actually are in their own country -- no more than small participants in a teeming mass that utterly fails to collectively emit more than a faint, dull glow in an otherwise brightly-lit global stage.
Then again maybe it's really on some folks dressed in orange that we can pin some hope of acquiring the attention we believe we deserve.
[This article is also published on FilipinoVoices.com. Make this article available to your Facebook friends by clicking on the "Share" button at the upper right hand corner of this article then select "Post to profile".]
GetRealPhilippines.COM's Notes
Sports Fan psychologyJul 2, 2009
The Law of Conservation of CredibilityJul 1, 2009
Festive and intriguing on the insideJun 30, 2009
Winning a war against an ant colonyJun 25, 2009
Nardong putikJun 24, 2009
Iran: There are no heroes or martyrsJun 23, 2009
Winds of protectionismJun 18, 2009
Antiquated weapons on a modern battlefieldJun 15, 2009
Happy "Independence" DayJun 12, 2009
Only one suckerJun 11, 2009