Velasco, Julian Lee S.

ECON 121

Hawak Mo Oras Mo!: A Discussion on Filipino Use of Time

Perhaps it is culturally endemic, but we Filipinos tend to judge “quality of life” based
almost exclusively on “ends”. Little attention is given to the activities that allow for these optics
as if to say that for us, “the ends justify the means”. Think how many Filipinos crave the
celebrity lifestyle, but don’t really understand the nuances of its reality. Most people don’t
understand that celebrities go through very debilitating training sessions, subject themselves to
dehumanizing judgment - to the point that they lose a part of their identities for the sake of
marketability, all to get a role in a movie that might not even do well in the box office. But
whether or not their movies make it big, that optic of being a “celebrity” even for that fleeting
moment is what is most important. This predisposition towards “ends” permeates through
essentially every aspect of Filipino life, but not entirely of people’s own volition. Rather, this is
the dominant sentiment because of how difficult life is for many Filipinos. For most people, the
daily struggle is whether or not their family will have something to eat or whether they will have
a roof over their heads – to have the problems of a celebrity would feel like a luxury compared to
their current reality. These difficulties trap many people into destructive cycles of work, where
they’re forced to work undignified jobs at inhumane hours for selfish people without even the
slightest prospect of upward mobility – all to achieve “the good life”. Although that latter part is
rather hyperbolic, it does highlight the depth of sacrifice people give through their work in order
to achieve a certain quality of life for themselves and their family. Simply put, earning an easy
life in the Philippines is generally not easy. This is the irony of life in our country.

On Resilience

One reason this irony remains a societal trope is the concept of Filipino Resilience. Garay
et al. (2020) provides great insight on how resilience manifests itself as it pertains to “ends”.
They highlight how it’s within the indomitable Filipino spirit to never give up, to go through all
means before submitting to fate and allow things to fall into place. The same paper particularly
contextualized Filipino resilience with the stages of grief (Ross, 1969; Garay et al., 2020),
insofar as the former fortifies the person to go through each stage in the process, sometimes even
becoming a necessity in order to progress. In this capacity, the spirit of persistence inherent
among our people is a positive trait. It is this spirit that keeps us afloat amid difficult times, keeps
us united in the face of adversity.

However, while resilience is indeed rooted in the noble cause of survival, it is this same
persistence in achieving an “end” that leads people to bear unjust situations, such that need not
be bore. Overidentifying with resilience promulgates passivity in people, positively accepting the
bare minimum and hardships in life all in the name of the “Filipino Spirit” (Ang Pamantasan,
2020). In this capacity, we see the perverted romanticization of hardships in the name of “ends”.
For example, people admire and even congratulate children who persevere in crossing mountains
and rivers just to be able to get an education amidst limited resources (Ang Pamantasan, 2020).
When brought to its extremes, people become too independent and self-reliant such that
complaining becomes taboo - we’re told to just “deal with things”, as other people do.
 This discussion on resilience only serves to pin down the systematic issue we have in this
country, especially when it comes to identifying pain points within the lives of Filipinos. As
obvious as it may sound, perhaps the reason why progress in this country is so hard to come by is
simply because the people in power are out of touch with their citizens. They concern themselves
too much (or rather too little) with the realities of people’s lives, and only give mind to the “end”
they achieved (or they appear to have achieved). This is where the Bhutanese concept of Gross
National Happiness, particularly its aspect of Time Use comes into play.

On Time Use: The Bhutanese Context

At its very core, the rationale of the Bhutanese government behind identifying how
people use their time is grounded on the notion that achieving balance in one’s paid work, unpaid
work (work in general), and leisure is necessary for one’s well-being (Ura et al., 2012). In such a
characterization, we see a society that culturally accepts the natural tendency of people in
hardships to complain and as an extension, we see a government that strives to not be “out of
touch” and understand the plight of its people to its very core. However, while other
governments definitely identify their people’s pain points, what sets this apart from simply
identifying pain points is the recognition that these pain points most organically manifest
themselves in how people go about their daily lives, thus making the latter almost as important
an aspect of prosperity. To this point, the Bhutanese characterize this more in the context of
happiness (or satisfaction; but for our purposes, these are interchangeable terms) such that
prosperity is a function of happiness. At the fundamental level, happiness and time use are
connected and the happier the person, the more productive they become for themselves and for
the country (Galay, 2007). As an example, this same 2007 study by Galay found that rural people
spend substantial amounts of time visiting their local government offices for various reasons thus
wasting time that could have been spent tending to their farms. These kinds of insight inform
policy that may reduce bureaucracy, leading to less of everyone’s time being wasted, making
everyone at least marginally happier. In general therefore, it is prudent to say that understanding
how people use their time, in its ability to provide insight into people’s lifestyles and
occupations, reveals the gap between GDP and non-GDP activities, that further reflects the gap
between market and household economy sectors (Ura et al., 2012). This significantly informs
pertinent institutions to appropriately contextualize their goods and services for the people they
intend to serve.

With the importance of time use to prosperity in general established, the question now is
how does the government gather these information? Ura et al. (2012) stated how the GNH survey
included a time diary that asks people to simply recall their activities for the previous day, that is,
from the time they woke up until the time they slept. They were also asked how long each
activity lasted and these data are then grouped into different categories such as work, leisure,
sleep, personal care, and so on. For practical purposes, the GNH index uses only two broad
aggregated time use categories: work (paid and unpaid) and sleep. While this may seem to
oversimplify the analysis of the accumulated data, it is most prudent to only consider these two
categories because, aside from the practical considerations, these two categories are the best
manifestations of satisfaction in a person’s life. Looking at it from the perspective of policy, the
amount of time a person spends working and resting already provide great implications for how
efficient and productive the systems in place are. This last consideration is what I believe is most
direly needed within the diaspora of Philippine government and policy.

On Time Use as it relates to the Filipino

Naturally, when the idea of using GNH or a GNH-like index comes up, the question of
transmitability also comes up. However, this line of questioning has never made sense to me
simply because of how obvious the answer is. Of course it would make sense for us to
comprehensively improve the way we look at prosperity, especially when that involves
considering even the activities of everyday living. Therefore in this regard, for the purposes of
this paper, I would assume that, at the very least the view on the importance of a more
comprehensive index, notwithstanding its implementation, is unanimous.

The hopeful perspective then at this point is that the main barrier to entry with respect to
the use of an index akin to GNH is a philosophical one. Not that the concept of such an index is
fundamentally oppositional to the Filipino spirit, rather it is marginally beyond the sphere of the
mainstream Filipino mindset to the point that it is yet to be an obvious consideration, not only for
those in power, but even to the ordinary person. However, there is also a possibility that the
reason this concept has failed to take a significant cultural foothold is because it simply doesn’t
agree with how the Philippine government wishes to govern its people. Let’s explore each case.

Before going on a further discussion however, it is important to note that both cases
identify a lack of awareness, or worse knowledge, to the implications of time use to prosperity.
The main difference here is only with the source of this observed lack. On the philosophical
front, it is implied that the awareness or knowledge of such a concept is within the expanded
sphere of the Filipino mindset; the issue only is that it is in the periphery where the spotlight has
yet to be shone. The more grim front however implies a more impenetrable barrier such that this
awareness or knowledge is purposely blocked off to the cultural diaspora. The question now is
what is the reality we are experiencing today?

To answer this question, the existence of these schools of thought has to be examined. Do
they exist independently or are there implicit and/or explicit links to their manifestations? I
subscribe to the latter point. It is not beyond the realm of reasonable thought to assume that these
two ideas constantly influence each other, not linearly, but circularly. To illustrate, let’s look at
the context of farmers. The nature of their work subject them to uncomfortable conditions that
they eventually have just become accustomed to. This seemingly perverse determination to being
accustomed to such conditions is exacerbated by the culture of hard work and resilience inherent
in Filipinos. By then being accustomed to these conditions, they live through the problematic
aspects of their work in passivity. Because of this passivity, the government is unable to do
anything about these problems either because they don’t hear about them or they don’t wish to
hear about them. The latter wish to not hear about them may stem from the yearning to not stray
from the status quo of governing - and the cycle repeats.

While the solution remains obvious (we must break the cycle), it is still easier said than
done because of how deeply rooted within Filipino culture this cycle had become. Although this
is the case, we are seeing, at the very least, the beginnings of a movement towards less
destructive resilience especially within the youth of this country. Light is shed more and more
towards the borderline (or perhaps outright) abusive treatment of the people expected to be
unrelentingly hardworking by a government who has, to put it bluntly, yet to prove their mettle in
their positions. So the question remains, what do we do now?

On Future Implications

I am rather optimistic about the prospects of ushering in a more comprehensive index

akin to the GNH, all things considered. I believe that the contemporary progressive mindset,
spearheaded by the younger generations, is slowly going to lead us to this “end”. It will just be a
matter of staying true to this trajectory, and remaining motivated despite the uphill battle it most
certainly will be. With all that being said, I see no significant action without any change in the
Filipino mindset.

Foremost in this is mental health. This had been swept under the rug since time
immemoriam in the Philippines as a by-product of our culture of resilience. Significant focus has
to be directed towards not only providing infrastructure to properly accommodate cases of
mental health, but the focus must be more towards actually preventing these cases in the name of
lifting the spirits of the entire population. Now, it is important to note that this does not stop at
explicit occurrences of mental ill-health (e.g. depression, anxiety, etc.), but rather morale for life
in general; hence its importance extends even to the seemingly mundane implications suggested
by a person’s use of their time. The overall significance of this aspect is generally with respect to
how it provides a good philosophical foundation for the interconnected relationships between
government and people, government and policy, and the people in general. Simply put, the
holistic wellness of a person, beginning with the mental and emotional well-being, is the
everyone’s top priority.

With this vision laid down, the hope now is that it becomes culturally relevant enough to
actually permeate the diaspora and pierce the veil of resilience. To this goal, concrete actions
must be done. Number one among them are actions that lead to efficiency as is continually
pointed out in the discussions above. These actions are such that they don’t overromanticize
efficiency as the be-all and end-all of all action, but they are such that they recognize the benefits
and detriments of efficiency so to inform the nuance with which actions are performed. Perhaps
this is most clear in the context of business where efficiency is a constant goal. By being overly
efficient, a company may ignore the well-being of its workers therefore reverting back to the
mindset of “ends”, but having a nuanced view of efficiency allows a company to balance its
present returns with the resources it currently has, to preserve future existence – benefitting
everybody in the long run.

But looking at it from a micro perspective, we can also do things (or at the very least look
at things) differently in order to affect this change in our society. For one, we can begin to live
our lives more actively. While this does mean using our time the best we can, given the
admittedly numerous constraints, this also means being cognizant and brave enough to complain
when things are not as they are supposed to be.
 And so it is; for improvement to actually be actuated in our society, a significant shift in
collective consciousness must first be affected. The scale of this shift begins simultaneously
within the micro and macro level, that is the individual and the governmental level. In so doing,
the hope is that the general happiness of the Filipino Public will improve as an effect of better
systems and more representative treatment by the people in charge.
 References

Ang Pamantasan. (2020). Romanticizing Filipino Resiliency. Issuu.

https://issuu.com/angpamantasanplm/docs/unmasked/s/11095777

Galay, K. (2007). Patterns of Time Use and Happiness in Bhutan: Is there a relationship between
the two? VRF Series, 432.

Garay, G., Garay, Ma. C., & Martinez, H. (2020). RESILIENCE AMIDST ADVERSITY: THE
MANY FACES OF RESILIENCE IN FILIPINOS. International Journal of Social
Science and Humanities Research, 8(2).

Ura, K., Alkire, S., Zangmo, T., & Wangdi, K. (2012). A Short Guide to Gross National
Happiness Index [Adobe Acrobat Reader]. The Centre for Bhutan Studies.