The holidays will only salve the national wounds, and, as tempered in nature as the carabao, we will suffer quietly and make do with what is left of our lives. We should be very, very angry for having been complacent and for not having acted at all. There have been many incidents in the past which should have triggered alarm bells and forced us to mend our ways. It is enough for us to be seeing red for the entire millennium.
It doesn’t help that, assurances to the contrary, our national coffers are empty and our finances are in the red. In the 2004 corporate governance survey conducted by the Wallace Business Forum last September, the Philippines ranked seventh after China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and South Korea as the preferred investment site in Asia. Clearly, our quest for the not-so-mighty Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) dollars is an uphill climb – up a very steep hill. How has it happened that Vietnam is now more preferred than our much bandied English-speaking workforce advantage?
Our singular claim to a global market has just been razed to the ground: The semiconductor industry is going the way of the dinosaurs, and, with it, our much-needed export dollars. An industry in the red. Oracle’s hostile buyout of its closest competitor, PeopleSoft, underscores a shrinking technology sector, be it hardware, software or whateverware. Even IBM, that hardcore blue chip stalwart of the computer business, just recently sold its personal computer business to the Chinese. That is a historical milestone, I think. Or a travesty. It’s akin to a father selling off her daughter to a rich man.
But then again, business does make strange bedfellows, and even stranger relations. These corporate posturings aimed at cowing competitors into submission would put the Kama Sutra to shame, figuratively speaking, of course. And size does matter in this wild and wooly world of free enterprise. Many local businesses have protested the arrival of big shopping malls in their cities to no avail. In the interest of the greater public, flourishing local traders in small cities have had to, grudgingly, concede to giant retail chains with their choc-a-bloc, cookie-cutter shopping malls. Where do you think you’ll find the stranded local stores who couldn’t possibly afford to rent a place in the mall? In the red, of course.
Elsewhere, FPJ supporters are seeing red in the uncouth manner by which once-FPJ detractors are now sneaking into what they consider an exclusive and final act of the one who would be President. Consequently, they turned the proffered wreaths of condolences into smouldering red. Would that indicate a similar fate for any cooperative initiatives within the divided congress?
The militant faction of the communist party is still at it, and, if the growing number of skirmishes with the Philippine armed forces are an indication, growing in numbers in some areas. The Reds are already part of the rural social landscape; many have retreated to Southern Luzon and Samar or Central Luzon where communities have been found to be more hospitable. These are, incidentally, the same communities identified by the Peace and Equity Foundation’s poverty maps as areas where poverty incidence is highest. What relationship could there possibly be between poverty and turning red (of the insurgent hue)?
On the matter of turning red, the Singapore Prime Minister’s recent visit to the country was certainly a cause for some faces to turn red in embarrassment. His unsolicited advice to the country’s head of state included, among others, hiking government officials’ salaries to levels that would ensure that they found corruption unattractive. Singapore’s government leaders are paid better than their American counterparts. To which our leader’s patronizing and characteristically defensive reply invoked the constraints of our fiscal situation and, hamina-hamina-hamina, ho-hum.
We also see red in our national report card. The Asian Development Bank contradicts the government’s declaration of a fiscal resolution by saying the Philippines is not out of the woods yet. It reports that the current fiscal problems are "the most important of economic imbalances and should be urgently corrected to reduce poverty and boost investor confidence." Our foreign debt is our albatross, dragging our quality of life down to depths of despair and hopelessness.
On a more humdrum note, Christmas traffic has put a brake on any prospects for stress-free driving. Staggered workhours notwithstanding, anarchy rules every street intersection even when traffic lights are burning red. Traffic lights, at this time, are mere colorful street decorations, in keeping with the street tinsel adorning the roads that city governments always seem to have money for. Congestion is not only on the road. Try to visit a shopping mall and you will face a sea of blazing red tail lights, vehicles hunting for space in the P30 privilege parking lot.
The Chinese believe red to be a lucky color. Come the time for gift-giving, a traditional red envelope with (hopefully) good luck incantations printed on it, and often containing cash, is a much appreciated item. Fiery and full of energy, red connotes a sense of optimism, of good things to come.
Special occasions are often called red-letter days. It is when a milestone event takes place, such as graduation day or winning that heavily-contested advertising account. Even liquor now comes in a premium category of red, and, for some odd reason, bulls, eagles and horses seem to be made more attractive as names of products when colored red. I wonder if Red Man would make a great brand for, say, a skin peel clinic ("redmanized" was a Crispa attempt to create a category for their T-shirts in the ’70s).
We’re in the thick of the red season. Shimmering Christmas decor, twinkling lights in various shapes and sizes and giant-sized facsimiles of coconut trees glimmering in neon red are lit at night. The neglected poinsettias now gain our attention with its blossoms of red. Of course, the poster boy of the season, the epitome of jolliness and good cheer, wrapped up in a bundle of red, and equally flushed in his cheeks (owing to his supposed arctic origins), Santa Clause is available for a photo with the family and kids for 100 bucks a pop, at your nearest shopping center (film negative available at extra cost).
There must be more to the color spectrum than the dominant hues of red. Our lives can certainly take only so many red sunsets. A stroll down the Manila baywalk can be a picture-perfect end to a stressful day. But, for heaven’s sake, do we have to ruin the beautiful scenery by blaring out noise disguised as music from every blimey loudspeaker every 10 feet of the way? We certainly know how to ruin the good things in life.
The same could be said for many other treasures that we have lost. Our forests, our wildlife, even our history as a proud nation, we have, sadly, lain to waste. Instead, we have become the world’s mendicant, hoping for investment tablescraps, imploring for aid after every natural calamity. Had we heeded the warnings at Ormoc, or simply reined in our greed, we would not be suffering the blight that we, ultimately, have inflicted upon ourselves.
This Christmas, let us reflect on the grand plan for our nation, and our role in our national salvation.