The Philippines' damaged culture by James Fallows

I'll be opening a new (or maybe) old can of worms here - but this extremely long essay by James Fallows of the Atlantic Monthly, written 20 years ago as a warning that the euphoric EDSA Revolution will not last long, really merits after all this time serious consideration.  Warning:  it can hurt, and hurt like hell. 

Basically, even back then, Fallows predicted that our place in the sun will not last long, and that our Asian neighbors will overtake us - because our culture at its core is damaged.  Blame Spanish conquistadors, American coddling, the widening gap between rich and poor, the entrenched cronyism and feudalism - but at the end of the day, doesn't matter who's responsible, if we don't get our act together, understand our illness and heal it, we'll be living in this wretched state for eternity.

Just a sample paragraph from Fallows' article:

"What has created a society in which people feel fortunate to live in a garbage dump because the money is so good? Where some people shoo flies away from others for 300 pesos, or $ 15, a month? It can't be any inherent defect in the people: outside this culture they thrive. Filipino immigrants to the United States are more successful than immigrants from many other countries. Filipino contract laborers, working for Japanese and Korean construction companies, built many of the hotels, ports, and pipelines in the Middle East. "These are the same people who shined under the Japanese managers,' Blas Ople, a veteran politician, told me. "But when they work for Filipino contractors, the schedule lags.' It seems unlikely that the problem is capitalism itself, even though Philippine Marxists argue endlessly that it grinds up the poor to feed the rich. If capitalism were the cause of Philippine underdevelopment, why would its record be so different everywhere else in the region? In Japan, Korea, Singapore, and elsewhere Asian-style capitalism has not only led to trade surpluses but also created Asia's first real middle class. Chinese economists can't call what they're doing capitalism, but they can go on for hours about how "market reforms' will lead to a better life for most people.



If the problem in the Philippines does not lie in the people themselves or, it would seem, in their choice between capitalism and socialism, what is the problem? I think it is cultural, and that it should be thought of as a failure of nationalism."

Now here's the actual link:

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/1987/11/a-damaged-culture-a-new-philippines/7414

Read, weep, then pick yourself up and think.  Then let's talk.  Maybe there's still a way out of this.  There has to be.