How to become a rich nation - Carmen Nakpil

'We Filipinos need more integrity and less charm.'

How to become a rich nation

ACTUALLY, it doesn't matter who wins what in May. Even if we resurrect Rizal and Mabini and put them in Malacañang, pack 12 archangels into the Senate, sit the gnomes and elves of China, Japan, Switzerland and Denmark in our congress, Giuliani and Lee Kwan Lew in the capitols and city halls, we're not going to get out of the misery hole we're in, if the rest of us remain the clueless, selfish, irresponsible stumble-bums we've been for a long time.

The quality and nature of a country's population is at least as important, if not more so, than the qualifications and stratagems of its elected leaders. If we really want to lift ourselves and our nation and become a rich, respectable, enviable country, there are things each one of us must do. For instance:

* Be on time always, but specially at the workplace. A famous visiting economist once observed that if Filipinos could learn to be punctual, they would increase their country's GNP by at least 10 percent. We waste millions of man-hours every day, waiting around for people who're late. The largest, most successful economies in the world, like the US, Japan and Germany, are fanatics about punctuality and deadlines.

* Do your work, whatever it is, faster, better, cleaner, neater, more attractively, with the most efficiency and the least fuss and expenditure of resources than anyone else. Make excellence a habit. Be the top-of-the-line in any line.

* Place the national interest next only to God. Identify with your country, its land and people. Seek their good. Every act, decision, policy, choice must be made with an eye on the welfare of the nation and every intention to keep it out of harm's way. Buy local, patronize Philippine art, music, films, fashions, literature. The most successful nations, Japan and South Korea for example, have practiced economic protectionism and still do.

* Obey the smallest and apparently unimportant rules and regulations and the big ones will be easy. Queuing up, obeying traffic lights, instruction manuals, warning signals should be scrupulously observed. Avoid seeking and using privileges, exemptions, family connections and special arrangements to get out of following cumbersome rules. The law applies to all. Be inflexible about both obeying and enforcing laws. We Filipinos are too relaxed about law and order and then complain about things being chaotic.

* Be aware of the consequences of every act. The runaway birth rate, which has doubled our population in two decades and is ruining the country, is the consequence of numerous, single individual acts of irresponsibility. So is the ruinous capital flight by Filipinos hoarding dollars abroad, lack of investments, denuded forests, extreme poverty of the majority - these are all traceable to individual selfishness and greed. Our troubles are not acts of God but our own.

* Pay taxes without having two sets of ledgers, bribing BIR men or using other legal and illegal forms of accounting. The countries that have the smooth roads, massive infrastructure, excellent educational facilities and health care also pay much higher taxes scrupulously. Bad government is the result of individual and personal dishonesty.

* Waste not, want not. Our cities are littered with derelict buildings, the countryside ravaged by floods and drought because most Filipinos observe the culture of waste, piling food on their plates to leave it uneaten, throwing away still usable goods, neglecting to maintain houses and buildings, make fortunes cutting trees for sale to the rich countries who preserve their own forests. Save as much as humanly possible. The countries around us, whom we envy with so much weeping and gnashing of teeth, have always had a much higher rate of savings. What we should envy is their discipline.

* Forget the much-extolled Filipino trait of pakikisama. It only means trying to please everybody by doing what you know is wrong and destructive because you want to buy friends. On the contrary point out wrongdoing, speak up against lawlessness. We Filipinos need more integrity and less charm.

:: Bing Sunday, January 18, 2004 [+] ::
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