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    A Damaged Culture by James Fallows The Atlantic Monthly November 1987 PDF

    Uploaded by

    Ivanne Meinel Calcita

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    aFORNAT! VERTICAL FILE OTe Bd Teno ake he Pie eeeeretiy The evi Barco was ot te sn Gary assim te worldwide march of demos went on faa fewest pe abt why we tek wit OF sevtis peter for 30 ng. ano support Carron Muto she anced sound coup attempt nd worked Nee orate pblems the Maccose ad ned ‘Vie wow ofthe Now Phippines fenton Te RNcee wou ke we believeth the only clos Si ciah states dees ssn relon eh gi 1 ted States—is progressing under our wing, T's not, fr rea.” Our Asia correspondent a nation not only without nationalism birt also without much national p /\ DAMAGED CULTURE BY JAMES FALLOWS. A New Philippines? , offers a dark view of *\! sons chat go far beyond what the Marcoses did or stole, ‘The countties that surround the Philippines have become the world’s most farnous showcases for the econoinic development. Japan, Korea, Taiw Hong Kong, Singapore—all are short on natural resources, butall (as their officials never stop telling you) have clawed + their way up through hard study and hard work. Unforto- nately for its people, che Philippines illysteates the cor- make a naturally rich country poor rable places to live in East Asia— tier than & communist political s to developmen. ‘The culture in question ithas been heavily shaped by nearly &nua- & heap that is home to 13,000 SERIALS DIY. The Agdao burvio, a slim near Davac. on Dfindanao rad years of the “Fil-Am lationship.” The result is ap- parcnily the only nun-commumist society in East Asia in whévia the average living standard is going down. ten beter since Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos fied the country at the end of Febroary last yeas (though most Filis pinos seers to think shat the threats to the Aquino govern ment—ol which the worst was the bloody August coup at- tempt—imperil such progress as the country has made) Not so much money is being sucked out at the top. More people are free to say what they like about the govern: Ww disclaimers, Sore things obviously bat iment, without being thrown in jail. Not so many peasants are iwving, their chickens stolen by underpaid soldiers foraging for food, although the soldiers, whose pay has cen increased, ate still woefully short on equipment and supplies. “The economy hus stopped shrinking, as it had been do- ing in the late Marcos years, and some rich Filipinos have brought capital back home. I was not in the Philippines during the Marcos era and can’t compare the atmosphere firsthand, but everyone says that the bloodiess dethroning, of Marcos gave Filipinos new dignity and pride. Early this year, on the first anniversary of the “EDSA revolution” (named for Epifanio de los Santos Avenuc, where many of the crucial events took place), television stations fan round-the-clock replays of all the most emotional mo- ments: the nuns" attempts to protect the ballot boxes, the Uefection of Marcus's two main military supporters, Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos, the abortive swearing-in of Murcos, his sudden disappearance in an American helicop, tet [ewes inspirational and moving and hervic, and as late this summer, just before the attempted coup, some of the same atmosphere remained. Filipinos ate famous for their love of religious icons, A visitor would have 10 be blind not to see the religious element in Corazon Aquino's public role. Stores sell sinall Cory dolls with bright yellow dresses and round-tiinmed glasses. ‘They'se not exactly jcons, but I've seen them displayed in homes and cats as if they were. Even when beginning to grumble about her govetninent, many Filipinos speak of Cory’s goodness, pa ee f tience, and piety in tones that suggest they think of hes as peccular, widowed Blessed Virgin, ant as the only person with even the potential to hold the country togethex Democracy has returned to the Philippines, in s big way, As ifto make up forall the years when they could not Vote: Filipinos have been analyzing the results of one elec- tion and preparing for another almost nonstop since carly fast year Election disputes have returned woo. For three months after the legislative elections last May, long ce- ccqunts dragged on to determine whether Joan Ponce En- file, Marcos's former Defense Minister, whose switch 9 ‘Aquino helped topple Marcos, would get one of the wes ty-four seats in the Senate. Senators are elected nation- wide, in what often resembles a popularity contest. ‘Among the new senators is @ Charles Bronson~style ac- tion. movie star; Enrie is about as well known as the actor, and though he has made many enemies, most foreigners | spoke with found it hard to beticve that in an honest vote count he would have lost to everyone on Aquino's list of ominces, which inchided 2 number of newcomers aud nobodies. Finally, in August, he squeaked in as number twenty-four Democracy has unleashed a Philippine press so varied and licentious as to make even Americans feel nervous of rather, to recall standing in grocery check-out lines look- Jing at Midnight ond Star. Newspapers ate always starting up and closing, but at any given time Manila has ac Teast twenty dailies, most of them in English. Each paper fea- tures its stable of hardworking stat columnists, any of hain is capable of turning out 2,000 to 3,000 words of po- Fitical commentary and inside gossip—the equivalent of a whole American op-ed page—in a single day. Philippine polities has a small-town feel, because so many ofthe ptin- Cipals have known one another all their lives. This adds to the velocity and intensity of gossip—especially the rumors fof impending coups, which have cropped up every week pprten days since Aquino rook power, and which preoccupy political Manila the way scandals preoccupy Washington. ne final disclaimer: it can seem bullying or graccless for an American t criticize the Philippines. Seen from Manila, the United States is strong and rich. Seen from anywhere, the Philippines is troubled and oot, Why pick ‘on people who necd help? The Filipino ethic of delicadeea, their equivalent of saving face, encourages people to raise unpleasant topics indirectly, of, better still, not co raise them at all, Out of respect for delicadeza, or from a vague sense of guile that the former colony is still foundering, oF teause of genuine fondness forthe Filipino people, the United Seates tolerates polite fictions about the Philip. pines that ie would ruthlessly puncture if dey concerned France or even Mexico, Fdan't pretend thae my view of the Philippines is authoritative, but P've never before been in a country where my initial impressions were so totally at tage withthe standarc,cosnforcing, let'-allpollxogether view, Iscems to ie that the prospects forthe Phifippines tre about as dismal as those for, s95, South Kores are bright, In each ease the basic explanation seems wo be cul NOVEMBER 1987 ture: in the one ease a culture that brings out the produe- tive best in che Koreans (or the Japanese, or now even the “Thais), and in the other a culture cha pulls many Filipinos toward their most self-destructive, self-defeating worst, ‘The Post-Kleptocratic Beonomy. Officials in both South Korea and the Philippines have pointed aut to me that in the mid-1960s, when the idealistic (as he then seemed) Ferdinand Marcos begen his first tcrm as President, the two countries were economically even with each other, with similar per capita jncomes ofa few hundeed dollars a year. The officials used this fact co make very different points. The Koreans said it dramatized how uticrly poor they used vo be ("We were like the Philippine” said one somber Korean bureaucrat), while to the Filipinos it was a reminder of a golden, hope- ful age. It demonstrated, they said, that the economy had been basically robust until the Marcoses launched heir kleptocracy. Since the 1960s, of course, the Philippines has moved in the opposite direction from many other Bast Asian countrics. South Korea's per capita annual income is now about $2,500—which gives the country a low-wage advantage over Japan or the United States. ‘That same in- come makes Korea look like a land of plenty relative co the Philippines, where the per eapica income is about $600. “The average income in the Manila area is much higher than that for the country 4s a whole; in many farming se ‘gions the per capita income is about $100. ‘The govern- ment feports that bout two thirds of the people in the country live below che poverty line, as opposed to half in the pre-Marcos esa. There are technical argumfnts about where 10 draw the poverty line, but itis obvious that most Filipinos lack decent houses, can’t afford education, in some areas are short of food, and in general are very, very oot. The official unemployment rate is 12 percent, bur if all the cigarette vendors, surplus bar girls, and other un- dcremployed people are cakesi into account, somethis Tike half the human calent in the country must be unused Cea FIRST THE OVERALL ECONOMIC PICTURE, Some Filipino economists contend that she country is about wo tum the corner, is ready 10 make @ new start €c0- omically 5 it has done politically. Is the world price of sugar stagnane? Plantation owners can flood seaside sugar- ‘cane fields and raise shrimp, which bring high prices and for which Japan has an insatiable demand. Are Amesican, Japanese, and Buropean companies shifting, their produc- tion sites worldwide? Why not build mote of the plants in the Philippines, which believes it has a well-educated work force and relasively low wages. Just befure the first anniversary of the EDSA revolution 1 spoke with Jaime ‘Ongpin, an intense, precise businessman in his lace for ties, who had become the new Finance Minisiey i the immediate future, he said, the ctends looked good The government was breaking up soave of the cartels fol by ‘Marcos’ “cropies” and exposing them so competition. Con scuction and small-business activity were picking up. The [price of eopra (the country’s leading export) was finally ris- ing. And the economy might giow by five or six percent this year—more than the economies of Japan and the U.S. Another economist, Bernardo Villegas, hes been predict- ing an East Asian-style sustained boom for the Philippines. ‘Many man-onthe-street Filipinos share a version of this view, which is thac Marcos was the source ofall eheig prob- lems, s0 his removal is itself a solution. ‘There is some truth to what they say, especially as it concerns Marcos's last ten years in office, when he had graduated from his eatlier, nationalistic, land-teform-and-induscrialization phase and formed the “eonjugal dictatorship” with his wife, Sui, for all the damage Marcos did, it's mot eleas that he caused the country’s economic problems, as opposed 1g in- tensifying them. Most of the things that now seem wyang witi the cconomy—grotesque extremes of wealth and poverty, land-ownership disputes, monopolistic industries in cozy, corrupt cahoots with the government—have been ‘wrong for decades. When reading Philippine novels or his- tory books, 1 would come across @ passage that resembled whac I'd seen in the Manila slums or on a farm. ‘Then 1 would read on and discover thar the description was by an American soldier in the 1890s, or a Filipino nationalist in the 1930s, or foreign economist in the 1950s, ar a young politician like Ferdinand Marcos or Benigno Aquino in the 1960s, “Herc is a land in which 2 few are speccaculatly rich hile che masses remain abjectly poor, . .. Here isa land consecrated to democracy but run by an encrenched plu- tocraey. Here, t00, are a people whose ambitions run high, but whose fulfillment is low and mainly restricted 10 the self-perpecuating elite.” ‘The precise phrasing belongs 10 Benigno Aquino, in his early days in politics, but the thought has been expressed by hundreds of others. Kore- ans and Japanese Jove to tauat Americens by hailing out did, pompous predietions that obviously have not come ‘rue. “Made in Japan” would always mean “shoddy.” Ko- rea would “always” be poor. Hah hah hah! You smug Yan- hhees were so wrong! Leafing back through Filipinology has the opposite effect: its surprising, and depressing, 10 see how litle has changed: GrpraL g yyy Vos CAUSE PHEVIODS CHANGES OF GOVERNMENT HAVE Bree scimis ome fieve that replacing Marcos with Aquino, desirable 3s it doubtless is, will do much besides stanching the flow of ctony profits aut of the county. the lewation of Corazon Aquino through the EDSA revol- tion should probably be seen not asa revotation but as the catoration of the old order. Marcos’ tise represented the tuinmph of the nouveau fiche. He was, of course, an Tor ranntotn the tough, frugal Hocos region, in the north sweat comer of Luzon, Many of those whom he enriched wert also outsiders to the old-money, old-family lite + that had long dominaced the country’s politics. These elite groups, often referzed win shorthand as Maka (the frame of the wealthy distsic: and business center of Ma~ tila), segarded Marcos the way high-toned Americans sided Richaed Nixon: clever and ambitious, but so uncouth. Corazon Aquino’s family, the Cojuangeos, is part ofthis landowning elite, (Theit name illusteates its Fispanie pre- easions. Her great-grandtather came from China and was vonedly named Ko Hvar Ko, which was gentrified into Cajaangeo. Most educated Pitipinos sp. bat in the stafiest reaches of the upper class, 1 was told, the residual Spanish infivenee is so strong thae iia sign ff pleatertefinement to speak perkeet Castilian Spanish.) Her husband, Benigno Aquino, was also from « famous family. Her ranning mate in the 1986 elections, Salvador “Duy” Laure, isthe son of José Laurel, who was the Quis ling like President under the Japanese. Many of het fist Cabinet appointees and sponsored candidates for the Sen fee bear old, familiar names. And so when Corazon Aquine feplaced Marcos, it was as if Katharine Graham, having Guwen Richard Nixon from office through her newspapeh Succeeded him as President—or Jacqueline Kennedy Onas: Sis, of Mes. C., Dooglas Dillon III. “The traditional upper hase was back in its traditional place. Carmen Navarto Pe tirosa, a writer some of whose work was banned under Marcos, recently published 2 debunking biography of Iinelda Marcos. Its killing biow, in its final chaprers, was its assertion that while Imelda always pretended to be an grstocrae, Corazon Aquino really was one: “Her jewels vere uly heiddooms, not ecenc purchases from Van Cleel sind Arpels, She was a tue blue stocking, educated in the United States, and fluent in French, She represented all that Imelda bad ever aspired to.” ‘Eapecially on my second tip to the Philippines, in the sumines, many Filipinos told me that Aquino had became Scangely pasbive in office, acting as if her only task had heen wo get rid of Mareas and ride out the periodic coups, rumored and real. As long as she did those jobs—that is stayed in office——she did not feel driven to do much tise, Perhaps she will do something to prove that judg- enc unfair; the August mutiny and preceding social un- fest miay force her not only to contal the armny more tightly buc also to ake economic problems more seriously But even with the best will in the world, she will have Ina sociological sense 52 Tae ATEAwTig MONTHLS trouble dramatically improving the country’s prospects ‘One momning this summer, 2s I stared our the window at ‘the monsoou tain, [listened to £0 foreign economists de Keribe the economic trap in which the Philippines is Caught. The men had worked in the Philippines for years snd had absorbed the ethic of delicadera. They did not want their names, or the name of the bank they worked Yor, revealed. ‘This reluctance might suggest tha the vicws were unusually critical, which was nor the case: (hey Were remarkable only for how concisely they summarized what I'd heard in other banks, in embessics, UMfieces, and from a few Philippine government officals The men ticked off the list of possibilities for Philippine developmencand explained the problems in each case. “Monufacturing? “There were not many viable sectors to begin with, and most of them were taken over by cronies ‘The induserial sector is used co guarantee monopoly and high-tariff protection. Tes inward-looking, believes i nat compete. People ate used to paying a lot for goods that dre okay-to-shoddy in quality. Labor costs are actually ‘quite high for a country at chis stage of development. ‘They should be fike Sri Lanka's but they're like Korea's, Jpectuse union organizing has run fa ahead of productivity Tes» por country—but an expensive place io which to produce. American and Japanese firms have set up some Electronics assembly plants, but they're only buying labor, hot building subsidiary industries or anything that adds teal value.” “Agriculiure? “ies beet heavily skewed for fifty Yeats 10 plantation crops, AN those tadisional exports are down, Sagat most ofall, Copea is okay for the moment, but its ever woing, vo expand very much. Prawns are the only ak etnative anybody can think of now.” Agriculzure is also nearly paralyzed by arguinents over land ownership, Since the Spanish days land has been concentrated in afew giant haciendas, including the 17,000-acre Hacienda Luisita of the Cojuangco family, and no government has done much to change the pattern. “You could argue that real land te~ form would lead to more productivity, but i's an encirely hypothetical argument,” an Australian economist told me, in business NOVEMBER 1987 ae STN TES “This government simply is not going to cause a revolu- tion in the social structure.” Just before the new Congress convened, as her neardictatorial powers were about co lapse, Aquino signed a generalized land-reform-should- happen decree. Most observers took this 48 an indication thar land reform would nor happen, since the decree Jefe all the decisions about the when, where, and how of land re- form to the indowner-heavy Congress “Soriees and other industries? “Tvey'te very nruch influe enced by the political climate. I think this has tremendous potential a5 # tourist country—its so beautiful. But they Yun't have many other ways co sell their labor, except the Gbvious one.” The obvious one isthe sex business, visible vn every part of the country—and indeed throughous Asia, where Filipino “entertainers” are common. In Davao, on the southern island of Mindanao, I watched TV one night land sew an ad repeated over and over, Women wanted for opportunities overseas. Qualifications: taller than five feet tee inches, younger than twenty-one. When I took e2bs in Manila, the drivers routinely ingvired if | wanted 2 wom an, When my wife rewmed our children’s rented innet tubes to.a beach vendor at Argao, the vendor, a toothless told woman, asked if she was lonely in her room and need ‘ed a hired companion “Resources? Exploiting navural resources has always been the base here,” one of the economists said. “Bus they've taken every tee they can easily get, Its nor like Brazil or Borneo, with another fifty years 10 rip out the heart of the earth.” Every single day Japanese diners take hundreds of tnillions of pats of chopsticks out of paper wrappers, use them for fificen minutes, and throw them away, Most of the chopsticks started out as «ees in the Philippines, though more and more of them now come fibm American forests, The Philippines has more navurally spectacular mountains and vistas than Malaysia or Indonesia, but you tan travel far miles in zhe countryside and mainly see rod ing hillsides stripped bare of trees. Like Americans who speak of “conquering” the frontier, Filipinos sometimes ake a more romantic view of what “taking every tee” can ean, F, Sionil Jose, a prominent novelist in his early six- ties, who grew up in Thocos, has written 2 famous five-vol- lume saga——the Resales novels——about the migration from the harsh Hocos region to che fertile plains of centcal Lo- ‘on. The Hocano migrants made a new life for themselves, he observes, and they did it by curting down the jungle and planting tice. “Phere is some hope with minerals and told," one of she economists said. Indeed, a Forry-niner Style gold rush is now under way in Mindanao, I was tld that communist rebels, Moslem separatists, and formes Philippine Army soldiers now work side by side in the gold mines, proving that economic development ean be zhe an- swer to political problems. The economists went on: “Geographically, the country is fractured beyond belief. ‘The most controllable ares is fight around Manila, but beyond that the government's vwrit has never tun very fat" For instance, the newspapers that Llanker Manila have virusally no circulation in the rest NOVEMBER 1987 : __ Tae ATLANTIC Mo Behind gates and high walls, she good life of the coun dined readership of all ewenry-plus daily papers is about five million, "The edueation system has sun down tere bly.” The Philippines spends about one eighth as much money per student us Malaysia docs, Free education sui Dinly ehiough the fower grades, and after that the anoul fee of $10 a student keeps enrollment down to 50 percent. he fifteen-c-twenty billion dollars thac Marcos creamed off has had a big effect. There's a kind ofteortup- tion that just recycles the money, but all this was taken among a population of $5 million, the con el forte percere than we poinesve, even tough he 2 fens rae wa puectwo, ‘The populacion could fo eed mallon i fifteen yea, since the eo aaa hat fat the per epi income Keeps LOW, See esc people T met in the Pliippines sked @e a pyehinen Thad. When Ll them she noc a eeealy eal” By ee enol my sa) Twas ox Peay ats piese sid an mast ay “The etonomis concluded, "Alia ‘you'd have (0 say “The Meaning of Smoky Mountain ‘| OUD HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING MORE THAN THAT. Y Most of the tine I spent in the Philippines, 1 walked around feeling angry—angry at myself when | brushed off the latest platoon of child beggors, angry atthe beggars when 1 did give in, angry ac the rich Pilipings for Tiving behind high walls and guasdhouses in the fortified Makati compounds euphemisticaly called villages, angry as 1 picked my way among piles of human feces left by homeless families living near the Philippine Navy head Ghuarters on Roxas Boulevard, angry ata society chat bad notated into a war of every man against every man. Ts not the mere fact of poverty that makes the Philip- pines so distressing, since some other Asian counttieyhave Tower ving andar lg ies on he hoe 33 much poorer than the Philippines, and*China’s human beasts of burden, who pull huge oxcarts full of bricks down stects in Shanghai of Beijing, must have lives that are among the hardest on the planet. But Philippine poverty seems more degrading, for reasons 1 will try to illustrate through the story of “Smoky Mountain. ‘Smoky Mouncain i, 1 will admit, something ofa cliché, but it helps illustrate an important and non-clichéd point. ‘The “mountain” is an enotmous heap of garbage, forty acies in size and pethaps eighty feet high, in the port dis- trict north of Manila, and itis home to some 15,000 Filipi- fos. ‘The living conditions would seem to be miserable: * the smell of a vast city’s rocting garbage is so rank and pow erful that I could nox breathe through my nose without gauging. | did finally reich when I felt my foot sink into something soft and saw that I'd stepped on a discaided half-full blood-cransfusion bag from the hospital, which ‘was now emitting a dark, clotted ooze. “I have been going, to the dumpsite for over ten years now and 1 still have not gotten used to the smell,” Father Benigno Beltran, 2 young Mod Squad-style Dominican priest who works in Smoky Mountain, has written, “The place becomes in- fested with millions of flies that often get into the chalice when I say mass, The smell makes you deaf as ic hits you like a blow co the solar plexus.” The significance of Smoky Mountain, though, is. not how bad itis but how good. People live and word in the gar bhage heap, and say they feel lucky to do so. Sinoky Moun- tain is the center of an elaborate scavenging-and-recycling industry, which has many ters and many specialized func: tional groups. As night falls in Manila, hundseds of seaven- gers, neatly all men, start walking out from Smoky Moun- tain pushing big wooden carts—about eight feet Jong and shaped like children’s wagons—in front of them. They spend all night crisscrossing che town, picking through the curbside garbage dumps and looking for the most valuable items: glass bortles and metal cans. At dawn they push their carts back to Smoky Mountain, where they sell what they've found to middlemen, who own ficets of carts and bail ous cheir suppliers if they get picked up by the police in the occasional crackdowns on vageane} Other scavengers work the garbage over once city tucks Have collected it and brought it in. Some look for old plas- tic bags, some for rubber, some for bones that can be round up for animal feed. In the late afternoon at Sinoky Mountain } could easily imagine I'd had my preview of hell. 1 stoid on the summit, looking into the lowlands where trucks kept bringing new garbage and several bull: dozers were at work, plowing through heaps of old black garbage. I'd of course heard of spontaneous combustion bbuc had never believed in it until | saw the old garbage steam and smoke as it was exposed to the ait. Inches be- hind the bulldozers, sometimes riding in the scoops, were about fifteen or twenty little children carrying basiecs, as if at the beach. They darted among the machines and picked out valuables that had been newly revealed, “Is hard to get them to go to school,” 2 man in his mid-wen- Tie ATLANTIC MONTHLY ties who lived there told me, “They can make ewenty, thirty pesos a day this way"—$1 to $1.50. “Here the mon- ey is s0 good.” . ‘The residents of Smoky Mountain are mainly Visayans, ‘who have come from the Visayas tegion of the central Phil- ippines—Leyte, Negros, Gebu—over the past twenty” ‘years. From time to time the government, in embarrass: ‘ment, has attempted to move them off the mountain, but they have come back: the money is so good compared with the pay for anything else they can do. A real community has grown up in the garbage dump, with the tight family bonds chat hold together other Filipino barangays, of ‘neighborhoods. About 10 percent ofthe people who live in Smoky Mountain hold normal, non-scavenger jobs clse- where in Manila; chey commute. The young man who guided ine had just graduated from college with an engi- necting degeee, but he planned to stay with his Farily, in Smaky Mountain, after he found 2 job. The people gf ‘Smoky Mountain complain about land-tenure problems: they want the city to give them title to the land on which they've built their shacks—but the one or two dozen 1 spoke with seemed very cheerful about their community and their lives. Father Beltran, the young Dominican, has worked up a thriving business speaking about Smoky Mountain to forcign audiences, and has used the lecture fees to pay fora paved basketball court, a community-cen- ter building, and, of course, a church. As I trudged down fromthe snmmit of the mountain, having watched fictle boys dart among the bulldozers, 1 passed the community center. It was full of little girls, sitting in a circle and sing,” ing nursery-schoo! songs with glee. If I hadn't come at che. fast minute, I would have suspected Father Beltran of put-» ting on a Potemkin Village show. f ‘The bizarre good cheer of Smoky Mountain undoubs- edly says a lot about the Filipinos’ spiritual resilieneed But. like the sex industry, which is also fairly cheesful, ifsays something depressing about the other choices people.” have. When I was in one of the countless squatter villages ,'/ in Manila, talking with people who had built houses out of pplywoud and scavenged sheet metal, and who lived eight -} (02 room, I asstimed it must be better to be poor out in the ‘countryside, where at Jeast you had some space and clean ; air to breathe. Obviously, I was being romantic. Back hhome there was no way to earn money, and even in Smoky ¢ Mountain people were only a fourccent jeepney ride away from the amusements of the big city In Smoky Mountain and the other squatter districts, 1 couldn't help myself: try as would not to, I kept dwelling ton the contrast with the other extreme of Filipino life, the wealthy one, The conttas is relatively hard to see in Ma- nila itself, since so much of the town’s wealth is hidden, literally walled up in the fortified “villages.” But one day, shortly after i'¢ listened to scavengers explain why'some ‘grades of animal bone were worth more on the resale mar- ket than others, I tagged along wich a friend and visited one of Manila’ rich young families in the mountains out NOVEMBER 1987. “To enter the house we had 10 talk our way past a fe aman at the gate—a standaid fiature not only of upper-class areas of Manila but also of banks, office buildings, MeDonald’s-—and then follow a long, twisting driveway to Pinountaintop palace. The family was, of eoutse, from old taney, they were also well educated, publc-spirted, sin- tere, But] spent my day with them in an ill-concealed stu pot, wandering, from room 10 room and estimating, how Feany zitlions of dotiars had been sunk into the art, furni- tare, and fixtures. We ate hunch on the patio, four maids in wwhite dresses standing at attention a few paces off, each Dewting 2 platter of food and ready to respond instantly sehen we wanted more, Another maid stood behind my, Chait, leaning over the table and waving a fan back and forth to drive off any flies, As we ate, I noticed a strange rat aut sound from inside the house, as if several reporters hhad set upa city room and were pounding away on old Un- derwouds. When we finished our dessert and went inside, {sav the explanation. Another two or three uniformed ser- vants were stationed inside the cathedrab-tike living room, incessantly twitching their fyswatcers against the walls. ‘The War of Ev Ar SHOOTING FISH IN A MARREL? SURE—YOU COULD A titer seca ran eck ue and the South Bronx, But that would mean only har the United States and the Philippines share = prob- jesn, not that extemes of wealth and poverty are no prob jem at all, In New York and a few other places the ex: iemes are so visible as to make many Americans uneasy about the every-man-for-himself principle on which pur Society is based. But while the South Brons isan Ameritan problem, few people would think of it as typical of Amct~ Kia In the Philippines che contrasting extremes are, and have been, the norm, ‘What has created a society in which people fee! fortu- nate to five ina garbage dump because the moncy is so jzood? Where sone people shoo flies away from others for 5300 pesos, or $15, a month? Itcan't be any inherent defect inthe people: ouside is culture they thrive. Filipino immi- rants to the United States are more successful than imani- ferants irom many other countries. Filipina contract labor ers, working for Japanese and Korean construction Companies, built many of the hotels, ports, and pipelines Middle East. “These are the same people who Shined under the Japanese managers,” Blas Ople, a veter~ an 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 Marx- fats argue endleasly dhat it grinds up the poor to feed the fick. If capitalism were the cause of Philippine underde- velopment, why would its record be so different every: Iwhiete else in the region? In Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Chewhete Asian-style capitalism has not only led to trade Surpluses but slso created Asia’ fist real-middte class Chinese economists can't call what they're doing capieal Man Against Every Man 56 jem, but they can go on for hours about how “market re- forms" will iead t0 4 better life for most people, Ifthe protsiem in the Philippines doe: ple themselves of, it would seem, in cheis choles between capitalism and socialism, what is the problem? I not He in the peo cultural, and that it should be thought of as a failure of Th may seem perverse to wish for more nasionalison in any part of the Thied World, Americans have come 0 jdentiy the tera with the tiny-countrs excesses of the nited Nations. Nationalism can of course be divisive, swheft it sets people of one country against anodes, Bor is hsence can be even worse, if that Jeaves people in th se a pu one naower and ese Fapment fed. When @ country with extreme geagraphic, tibel, and Sociul-class differcnces, like the Philippines, has only ¢ tweak offsewing sense of national unity, its public life does become the war of every man agaiust every man. Nationalism is valuable when it gives people a reason not to live in te world of Hobbes—when italiows them to took beyond themselves rather than pursuing their own in- terests to the ruination of everyone else. 1 assume that: most people in the world have the same mixture of selfish tnd gene‘ous motives; theie cultures tell them when to in~ Gulge each impulse. Japan is strong in large part because its nacionalistrscial ethic teaches each Japanese chat all other Japanese deserve decens treatment, Non-Japanese fall into a differene category. Individual Filipinos are at Jeast as brave, kind, and noble-spirited as individual Japa- nese, but their culture draws the boundaries of decent tieatinent much mote narrowly. Filipinos pride them- selves of theit lifelong loyalty to family, schoolmates, ‘compadres, members of the same tribe, residents of the same barangay, The mutual tenderness among the people,” of Smoky Mountain is enough to break your heart. But when observing Filipino friendships I thought often of the Mafia families portrayed in The Godfather: soral devotion 10 those within the circle, total waron those outside, Because the boundaries of decent treatment are limited to the fam- ily or tribe, they exclude at least 90 percent of the people, NOVEMBER 1987, eens sae tahary An ecnse of his ugmenton=i of nationaism-—people treat each oxher Woe the wppunes than in any lice Asian counCTy | Bae °° Hey ies uings ba saying het, this SB eee ee taly eisputed by mst Filipinos. Tine and pun heard inserviews abou the FPS people's ove 2 paiation and cheir proudly nationalistic SPs The ore rfevalution seems emorionally 50 por ja the Philppanes nor ony because it got rid of Mare but also Pili JemonstTated a brave, satonal minded sh 1 acca vo agree with Che Filipinos dar those foN8 days voriejed the country’s spiritual essence. TO 16. tough, ‘he episode seems an exception, even an 206# 00 se ePimore than a hundeed yeas certain tais Bove wwsned ujpin domestic descripsions and foreign ODS a of Pratppine society, The tradition of polities) comittt PoP gs the extremes of wealth and poverns Oe at fgmencaion, the local eis willingness © T8E" © ve art pruttable peace wih colonial powers A reflect Ea i of nationals and aconsempe or aMe PTS hing that is public in che PDilip- wes acems nleced of abused On many ses! Pies veer Manila an unwaty step ean mean a DOS? veg Holes two feet square and five Feer deep 0th be: vend ake cut; they are supposed 2 be covered PY metal yenes, but scavengers have raken he BIAS 9 sell arp, Manila has a potentially Beautiful sexing, divided seer Pang River and fronting on Maile Bas Bu Bae eee cy’ sewage ows rave inte che Pasi, wich ixy Moun: ane of the pret van public vistas, ‘The Philippine telephone sY9°60" moras ha? Mich bogs dow ce countrys business NG eae a people mm (ale Ninpine one

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