Systems

This one I first read in a Star­bucks after Manny Pac­quiao won against Ricky Hat­ton. This is by one of my favorite colum­nists of the Philip­pine Daily Inquirer, and I’d like to share it, partly because I could really under­stand the need for sys­tems in our coun­try. While being vague about the how-tos and the nitty grit­ties of how to build this “sys­tem”, the arti­cle points out some­thing I advo­cate myself: that sys­tems help change a cul­ture, along with the right atti­tude, and more long-term approach to things. If politicians–and Fil­ipinos in general–could let go of their self­ish egos, and stop focus­ing on their own per­sonal lega­cies, sys­tems would prob­a­bly see the light of day in this country.

We do not have sys­tems, because every politi­cian who wins CHANGES every­thing the pre­vi­ous politi­cian has done–including the honest-to-goodness pos­i­tive things. Because pol­i­tics in this coun­try is personality-based and not system-based. And because peo­ple do not think long-term, but in six year terms.

Sys­tems
Con­rado de Quiros
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090512–204471/Systems

I was one of those who shouted them­selves hoarse the other week­end dur­ing the Pacquiao-Hatton fight. Not least at the inter­minable com­mer­cials, espe­cially the cam­paign ads which left a bad taste in the mouth and truly invited shout­ing at the top of one’s voice. But for the most part, my vig­or­ous dis­play of emo­tion was of the effu­sive kind directed at Manny Pacquiao’s demo­li­tion of Ricky Hatton.

You can’t be a Fil­ipino and not mar­vel at the mar­vel Pac­quiao has become. I, too, was one of those who expected the fight to be a tough one, one that would go the full dis­tance. How could any­one have thought the rock-solid Hat­ton would top­ple down like a tall tree felled by a sharp ax in just two rounds?

The fight left me think­ing after­ward: We Fil­ipinos are not lack­ing in tal­ent. We are blessed with it. And in the case of Pac­quiao, abun­dantly so. But if so, if we are blessed with tal­ent, and some­times (or often) abun­dantly so, why are we cursed to live like this? Why are we cursed to live in mis­ery, and more and more grind­ingly so?

We do not, in fact, lack for world-class tal­ents. Pac­quiao is not alone in that depart­ment. Before Pac­quiao, there were Efren “Bata” Reyes and Fran­cisco “Django” Bus­ta­mante, both of whom put us on the world map in bil­liards. Bata was idol­ized by a whole gen­er­a­tion of bil­liard play­ers, not least Amer­i­cans, who picked up their cue com­pletely lit­er­ally from him. Django as well had an envi­able rep­u­ta­tion in Germany.

Before Pac­quiao, there were Cecile Licad and Lea Salonga. As I’ve said in sev­eral columns in the past, I wasn’t at all sur­prised to see them tak­ing the world by storm. I’ve always thought that if we were going to do it, it would be in music, this coun­try being awe­somely gifted there. It’s not enough to just be tal­ented to get to the top of the heap musi­cally in this coun­try (tal­ented musi­cians are a dime a dozen), you have to be noth­ing less than bril­liant. You have to be noth­ing less than world-class. Licad and Salonga are.

And at that, the world hasn’t yet dis­cov­ered the kundi­man. Well, while at that, this coun­try, or this gen­er­a­tion at least, hasn’t yet dis­cov­ered the kundi­man. But that’s another story.

Now what’s the one thing in com­mon between Pac­quiao, Reyes, Bus­ta­mante, Salonga, and Licad? The answer, quite sim­ply and quite mourn­fully, is: They either honed their tal­ents abroad or they had men­tors from abroad.

Bus­ta­mante is a case in point. When he was still liv­ing in Ger­many, he was at the top of his game. A friend of mine once took a cab in Berlin many years ago and when the cab dri­ver learned she was a Fil­ipino, he enthused, “Oh you are from Django’s coun­try.” When she said she did not know Django, he was aghast. “How can you not know Django?” he protested. “He’s the best pool player in the world!”

That was then. Not long after Django came back and lived here, his game fell apart.

Lea Salonga was turned from a tal­ented singer to a bril­liant one by the pro­duc­ers of “Miss Saigon.” That was true as well of Cecile Licad, though that was arguably also due in no small part to the patron­age of Imelda Mar­cos. Licad has since made New York her home, con­tin­u­ing to get rave reviews for her per­for­mances around the world.

And Pac­quiao has Fred­die Roach.

Roach, of course, is a sin­gu­larly gifted coach and it’s arguable if any other trainer, Amer­i­can or not, could have turned Pac­quiao from the raw tal­ent he was to the lethal weapon he is now. But as an Amer­i­can, Roach has infused Pac­quiao with the kind of dis­ci­pline and work ethic Amer­i­cans have, which has enabled him to leap out of his small pond straight into the world ocean. It is no sur­prise that Roach demands that Pac­quiao read­ies him­self abroad before he fights. He stays here, well, vice has not been known to improve readiness.

Does this mean that we need to go abroad or be taken under America’s wings to get ahead in life, if not indeed to unleash our capac­ity to do great things?

Not at all. Pacquiao’s mon­u­men­tal tri­umphs, in fact, merely reaf­firm an old-age truth we our­selves have glimpsed in the form of the ques­tion: Why is it that Fil­ipinos do exceed­ingly well when they go abroad? Or more to the point, because it holds the key to its answer: Why is it that Fil­ipinos obey the rules, act like model cit­i­zens, and work their asses off when they’re abroad?

These are ques­tions we’ve always answered with: Because of the system.

There’s noth­ing innately wrong with the Fil­ipino. There is noth­ing in his genes that pre­vents him from accom­plish­ing big things. There is noth­ing in his phys­i­cal or men­tal endow­ments that obstructs his capac­ity to do great things.

But there is every­thing wrong with his sys­tem. It’s his sys­tem that robs him of his dis­ci­pline, his direc­tion, his drive. It’s his sys­tem that pre­vents him from envi­sion­ing grand things. It’s his sys­tem that stops him from accom­plish­ing great things.

Else­where in the world, the sys­tem rewards the upright and pun­ishes the wicked. Else­where in the world, the sys­tem praises the wor­thy and damns the rot­ten. Else­where in the world, the sys­tem applies the law to every­one, jail­ing bank rob­bers and Bernie Mad­offs alike, jail­ing com­mon crim­i­nals and uncom­mon crim­i­nals alike. Else­where in the world, the sys­tem allows merit to thrive and demerit to per­ish. Else­where in the world, the sys­tem pushes the promis­ing to excel and the cor­rupt to rot away. Else­where in the world, the sys­tem pro­vides the foun­da­tion or the sup­port or the ground for tal­ent to blos­som into genius.

That is how Fil­ipinos do great things when they’re abroad. The sys­tem allows them to.

In the end, we don’t really need to go abroad to be able to do grand things, we don’t really need Amer­i­can coaches to bag the gold in sports or in life. We need only to do one thing:

Change our system.