Is Education Enough - for Philippine Progress, for the Native Malay Filipino?

"The recent quantum leap in the ability of transnational corporations to relocate their facilities around the world in effect makes all workers, communities and countries competitors for these corporations' favor. The consequence is a "race to the bottom" in which wages and social conditions tend to fall to the level of the most desperate." - Jeremy Brecher, historian and author

Hi All,

We native Filipinos have often heard, been told or conditioned to believe that education will bring individual and consequently national progress. This is part of conventional wisdom. So our parents, many with so much sacrifice to themselves, struggle up to their golden years, just to see us through school.


I still believe, as many fellow native Filipinos do, in education as a possible solution to the long-term improvement and common good of the Filipino masses; but for me that kind of  education would teach a vocation or profession as preparation for a decent livelihood and a critical understanding of our society's realities.

More specifically, to acquire the critical ability to identify/differentiate the symptoms versus the roots of the daily personal misery and/or that of his milieu. I think our good schools have done a fairly good job on the first but gravely fail in the second.


Of course such education, i.e. nationalist education in our globalized, corporate-controlled world  will need to touch on the geopolitics of international economics: neocolonialism aka neoliberalism, the WTO and global corporations (in terms of individual persons as investors versus corporate/transnational and institutional investors, etc.) 

We still  hear a lot of talk via advertisement, more aptly propaganda in the mass media about the "foreign investors," (as if we still have much individual foreign investors); let us realize that in a globalized economy the ordinary, individual investor is really a non-factor. 

[  I find it a tired, worn-out claim that the national economy of our homeland Philippines was second only to Japan -- maybe a far second at that till the 1960s. Education- or literacy-wise, ours was 72% versus 54% for Taiwan (the first of the Asian "miracle" economies); our per capita income was almost double that for Taiwan at $200 vs.$122. 

Despite our supposed higher educational level, since then the ”Taiwan Miracle” has accomplished one of the best economic growth performances in human history while our homeland did poorly; Taiwan's per capita grew ten times than ours ($18,000 vs. $1,800).

Apparently, there are more things than education that determine a country's economic growth performance and real progress - that which lift its common, native citizens. We can look at other so-called Asian tigers, which were behind us then and now all much ahead of our homeland/people: Singapore, HongKong, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, now throw in Vietnam and Cambodia soon ]

However, the prior questions that we need to address are: how do we implement that kind of education, how and who will finance it? Can we see that happening in present realities where the national leadership and our so-called technocrats have been/are corrupt and have only demonstrated selfish and subservient interests, beholden to foreigners? 

Can we see that occurring when our educational system was/is designed to follow the International Monetary Fund/World Bank (IMF/WB) "recommendations" as preconditions to continuing loans; and we know these supposedly neutral and benevolent international institutions are prophets of economic and cultural globalization, under different guises/terms like free trade or free market; but applied to us in particular and which we did not and still do not realize is equal to neocolonialism/neoimperialism) -- and which in turn doomed our national economy and our past, present and foreseeable future.


I frankly do not see such an education being realized in our homeland without a strong motivation from a leadership, supported by a nationalistic populace, that would push for a nationalistic educational program. 


Here again, the prior issue asks how can we have a nationalist leadership and a nationalistic majority? Not from the recent, present and foreseeable governments and institutions. But it really has to start somewhere, somehow. 

It is discouraging indeed. I feel and think that we Filipinos seem to have significantly lost nationalism among the younger generations since the Marcos Dictatorship, but we just have to continue fighting for Filipino nationalism (that's what I try to do and rant about in my own little way).

Else, a nation of decolonized Filipinos will not come to reality. And the Filipino will perpetually be characterized with his damaged culture and continually living his life of selfish individualism, which he at best unknowingly/unconsciously inherited from his culture and reinforced by the historical neglect from his government; with no sense of national community (Filipino nationalism) beyond his circle of family and friends. A country not his own since it is and will not be under his control.

A pretty bleak present and bleaker future for a country and a mostly good native people that only a thinking native Filipino can appreciate and sadly long for, especially when he looks at his homeland from afar -- in a foreign soil.

While many, if not most, of us so-called educated native Filipinos, go along our merry ways; since we and our family are OK, to hell with the rest.


- Bert

NOAM CHOMSKY

Ha-Joon Chang, Faculty of Economics, Cambridge University

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PLEASE DONATE CORE SUBJECT BOOKS TO OUR HOMELAND (i.e. your hometown public schools, alma mater, etc.). Those books that you and/or your children do not need or want; or buy books from your local library during its cheap Book Sales. Also, cargo/door-to-door shipment is best.  It is a small sacrifice.  [clean up your closets or garage - donate books.THANKS!]

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I consider the following previous posts and the RECTO READER are essential about our homeland and us native, Malay Filipinos; and are therefore always presented in each new post. Click each to open/read.

1. WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW:
2. WHAT IS NATIONALISM [Filipino Nationalism]?
3. Our Colonial Mentality and Its Roots 
4. The Miseducation of the Filipino (Formation of our Americanized Mind)
5. Jose Rizal - Reformist or Revolutionary?
6. The Purpose of Our Past, Why Study (Our) History?
7. Studying and Rethinking Our Philippine History
8. Globalization (Neoliberalism) – The Road to Perdition in Our Homeland
9. Resisting Globalization (WTO Agreements)
10. Virtues of De-Globalization
11. Our Filipino Kind of Religion
12. Our Filipino Christianity and Our God-concept
13. When Our Religion Becomes Evil

THE RECTO READER is presented in several postings. Click each to open/read:

• THE RECTO READER: Nationalism,Internationalism,Ultra-Nationalism, Part 1A of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Mission of Nationalism, Part 1B of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Economic Independence,Economic Nationalism,Part 2A of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Economic Nationalism Means Industrialization,Part 2B of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Industrialization: The Alternative to Poverty, Part 2C of 6
• THE RECTO READER: The Fallacy of "Philippines First," Part 2D of 6
• THE RECTO READER: Parity Rights, Currency Dependence, Foreign Loans versus Foreign Investments, Part 2E of 6

NOTE: Recto's cited cases, examples or issues were of his time, of course; but realities in our homeland in the present and the foreseeable future are/expectedly much, much worse. Though I am tempted to update them with current issues, it's best to leave them as they are since Recto's paradigms about our much deepened national predicament still ring relevant, valid and true. In short, Recto saw the forest and never got lost in the trees.- Bert

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8. Songs on Filipino nationalism: please reflect on the lyrics (messages) as well as the beautiful renditions. Other Filipino Music links at blog sidebar.  Click each to play.:

• BAYAN KO by Freddie Aguilar 
• ”Bayan Ko” by KUH LEDESMA 
• ”Bayan Ko” by a Korean choir 
• ”Sa Kuko ng Agila” by Freddie Aguilar 
• ”Huwad na Kalayaan” by Freddie Aguilar