What Filipino middle class?

At Penang International Airport late last month, I was struck not so much by the gleaming state-of-the-art terminal but the incredible hordes of people going to or coming home from vacation. There were foreign tourists like us, but we were clearly outnumbered by Malaysians. You can tell from the distinctive native wear and the chatter in Bahasa or Chinese all around us.

And I mean whole families, sometimes three generations from grandparents to mere toddlers, as well as clusters of young people — all headed for regional destinations like Sydney or Medan, or, through quick connections in Kuala Lumpur, further afield to London and Frankfurt.

Without any doubt, Malaysia has become a middle class society as trendy and consumption-driven as the United States or any country in Europe. These are people who must own their homes, their children tucked in good schools and with enough disposable income to indulge in travel beyond comfort zones at home and nearby ancestral homelands of a multi-racial society like China and India. Their flag carriers like Malaysian Air System and budget airlines Air Asia, Firefly and Mandalo do not make empty boasts when they blurb about travel to anywhere now truly affordable to most, if not all, Malaysians.

It was not always happy times in Old Malaysia. As late as 1987 when I first visited the country, its capital KL was a backwater town that lacked sophistication and reminded me of Cotabato City. Penang was laid-back provincial recently linked to the mainland by a long causeway bridge instead of the old sluggish ferry. But not even Lee Kuan Yew’s tiny island-state next door was as grand or dynamic as Manila. Not yet. Raffles Hotel was pretty run-down and the crumbling shop-houses all around reminded you of a poor man’s Hong Kong.

Take note that in the 1980s, any thought of the Philippines being left behind by such ersatz neighbors would only have been dismissed as a joke. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were the dazzling stars of ASEAN in the rather bland company of Lee, Suharto and Razak. Lee traveled inconspicuously on commercial jets to the US, no doubt upgraded to business class by his then-fledgling airline; the Marcoses flew in his-and-hers 747s or DC10s, each attended by maharajah-style retinues. Guess whose airline became the world’s best and most profitable?

Who would have thought that in just over a generation — no more than 30 years — the reversal of fortune would become so disastrously unfavorable to the country and people — us — that once appeared to have it all?

Today, Malaysia and Singapore are more European than Europe in economic heft and even laggard Indonesia appears to be catching up fast. It’s the Philippines and its middle class — long-Americanized and far ahead in the region — that have, in fact, shrunk to pitiful levels. You’re either filthy rich or embarrassingly poor in this dearly beloved country; there’s just a tiny group in the middle which didn’t immigrate and is now wracked by bad debts and high tuition fees for the kids.

Not that Filipinos are beyond keeping up appearances; to the contrary. Spend just a few minutes in Rockwell, Glorietta, Podium, or Alabang Town Center and you’ll get the drift. We do have Hermes, Gucci, Tod’s, and Patek-Philippe along with the Zaras, Marks & Spencers and Lacostes, but you know there are precious few buyers and it’s all for show. The shops are pretty tiny and should easily fit into a small wing of the Lion City’s Marina Sands or  a corridor of  KL’s Suria Mall.

The contrasts stare you in the face at NAIA, perhaps avant-garde in 1976 but behind Lagos or Abuja for quite some time now. Flying to or coming in from Chek Lap Kok, Changi or KLIA brings the message loud and clear. On just the basic matter of providing a decent airport for passengers who pay (and have paid zillions all these years) for the service, all administrations from Cory to P-Noy have utterly failed and ought to be crucified without mercy. There can be no excuses.

One index of how our middle class has vanished was the brisk Hong Kong-Manila traffic for Holy Week and the Christmas break during the Ramos years (1992-98). The then-British colony was our favorite vacation spot, not Singapore or Bangkok, which took its place after the 1987 handover to China. The practice then was for upwardly mobile families to upgrade vacations from Baguio to Hong Kong as they prospered through the years before heading farther out to San Francisco and Paris.

Philippine Airlines and Cathay Pacific doubled daily flights (from five to 10 each) in the key weekends to accommodate the heavy demand. All the big hotels would be booked solid by prosperous Manilans. Kowloon’s three Marco Polos and Holiday Inn Golden Miles were fairly standard and were priced as low as $60 a night. You had to be tight to be seen in dreary places like BP Guest House or the holes-in-the-wall of Chungking Mansions. If you had an overnight layover, say to Tokyo or Seattle, the hotels would have you picked up by a Mercedes at Kai Tak.

After the handover, Filipinos were priced out of the Hong Kong market by free-spending mainlanders. They moved to Bangkok, twice the distance southwards but with the same air fare, plus cheaper hotels, good shopping and raunchy sex. For many years, Chatuchak and Patpong were part of the Filipino lexicon.

I think the bottom fell sometime after the fall of Erap Estrada in 2001. The October 1997 Asian financial meltdown finally caught up with us and, sad to say, we have never bounced back from that crippling blow. The nine Gloria years added up to an economic disaster of colossal proportions. The brave Ramosian talk of becoming Asia’s next tiger cub and catching up with Japan, Korea and Taiwan turned ridiculous. We were already behind Singapore, KL, and even Saigon and Jakarta.

Indeed, Filipinos were no longer reputed to be big spenders as they were right after World War II. “Filipino” became a metaphor for domestic helpers whom we shipped out by the planeloads. And then we took umbrage at being pushed aside and treated like dirt. The Flor Contemplacion case in the 1990s was a crucial mile post in the transition from robust self-confidence to shell-shocked morale.

What happened in the past 26 years that brought us to this pitiful state of affairs?

Some pundits recall the day President Cory Aquino went on a trip to Hong Kong and lavishly hailed the Filipino domestics as “Our New Heroines.” She meant it literally and her government and those succeeding hers did nothing to arrest the nation’s descent into the hell of pious intentions and do-nothing concern.

Marcos had cynically exported engineers and technicians to pre-empt potential troublemakers and hoard hard currency to meet ballooning oil bills. It was a temporary measure at best or so it was made out to be. Making the mass export of labor the substitute for manufacturing and diversification of exports could only be a cowardly and regressive approach to nation-building. That’s exactly what happened.

Like Marcos, it was said that Cory was no social reformer. She was a haciendera for whom all the wrangling about bold investments and balanced manpower development were messy affairs. “Bahala na kayo diyan,” the old señoras used to say as they dismissed squabbling servants and peasants. Or “Please don’t disturb me while I play mahjong with my amigas.”

Well, the government always talked of bringing home the maids and seamen, but practiced exactly the opposite policies in escalating their migration to the farthest corners of the earth. It was all so convenient because the dollar remittances just kept pouring in. Now it’s $20 billion annually, more than enough liquidity to cover essential imports and service foreign debts. If the nation is still afloat despite rampant corruption and suicidal trapo politics, it’s thanks to the blood, sweat and tears of our overseas contract workers.

Ten million Filipinos — one out of every 10 — living and working abroad boggles the mind. It’s like having two Finlands or two Norways emptied out just like that.

I have nothing against the free flow of labor to wherever and certainly not against people improving their lot and providing for their families.

What disturbs me is when government abdicates basic responsibilities of economic growth and good governance, and ignores the awful social costs of broken homes and dislocated workers. I am not ashamed of hardworking Filipinos I meet all over the world. I have nothing but contempt for a government which leaves its people at the mercy of impersonal market forces and hostile cultures that tend to exploit and reduce them to inferior standing in the world.

Why do our people have few options but to sell body and soul in foreign markets?

Well, there are few jobs at home and these won’t allow them to make ends meet.

Why so? The economy is virtually stagnant. It is a semi-feudal, rentier economy monopolized by oligarchs and vested interests. Presidents come and go but it’s the same brilliant minds at Makati Business Club who call the shots, earn ever bigger profits that, thanks to tax loopholes they prepared and lobbied for, they ship off to offshore accounts in Grand Cayman or wherever.

Mr. Plain Citizen wants to go into business in this beloved country? Try getting a loan and the banks will ask for collateral and impose high interest rates. You end up buying a fast-food franchise and making the malls richer with your rentals.

More than ever, what passes for Manila’s stock market is an old boys’ club where trading is essentially insider. In halfway decent countries, some captains of industry we know will be in jail for security fraud. In Manila, they donate buildings in elite universities with their names splashed all over, just short of being put in neon and blinking lights. 

And when they do die, as all of us must, these tycoons end up eulogized in every newspaper as bleeding-heart philanthropists instead of robber barons, presidential cronies and foreign dummies before they miraculously rose from hunger and poverty. The foundations for this or that good work are set up even before they kick the bucket.

Old-style sugar barons and assorted racketeers have long shifted to utilities, banking, mining and real estate. A few have made it to the Forbes 100 richest list, at the same time the country is ranked among the lowest in per capita income and the highest in corruption and infectious diseases.

The wonder of wonders is that there’s little social protest, much less fury about this obscene arrangement. You see all these plutocrats and high-living progeny parading doodads in the glossy magazines and society columns and you’ll really want to believe the Philippines is “a super-rich country pretending to be poor.”

More than that, ours is a free and democratic society. We enjoy freedom of the press and regular elections. Our voices can be heard. No grievances can be filtered out if we shout loud enough. But that’s about all. Everybody is given 15 seconds of fame and you better move on or the news cycle simply consigns you to the cyber void. Think of Apeco, Luisita or Sumilao marchers or the relatives of the  Ampatuan massacre victims and weep copious tears.

As for the Filipino mania for elections, when was the last time intelligence and national purpose came into the picture? Or are we on the same planet?

Don’t bother thinking about who to vote for. The poll surveys tell you who’s ahead, whom you voted for as you exit the polls, and exactly who will come out in the winning column. Comelec will even proclaim winners without actual vote counts because the all-knowing chairman guarantees the “most probable winners.”

And again speaking of middle class, what about Cebu Pacific, Zest Air, PAL Express and Air Asia now connecting us to the major cities of the region?

Ten years ago, I thought that this was incontrovertible proof that the middle class had gotten larger in the Philippines. More ordinary people can travel, not just the uppity crowd you used to meet up and down Nathan Road in the old days. 

No doubt these budget flights fly full or near-full. But not with Filipinos off on holidays or families seeking exposure to a bigger and more fascinating world. Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) and Bali may be the exceptions for giving access to students and families who could not otherwise afford the regular airlines.

The truth is these flights mainly serve the OFW market and facilitate frenetic movements between their work places and the Philippines. Workers pay a lot less than in PAL, Etihad, SQ or CX, which means they save cold cash for family needs. The downside is they’re crammed like sardines, fly at ungodly hours like around midnight, pay even for drinking water, and shell out incredible charges for overweight baggage.

Cebupac can’t be blamed for cashing in on the Dubai market which they will enter in October. I can’t imagine 400 or so passengers shoe-horned into A330s for nine hours, but I know planes will be full and Lance Gokongwei will be happier still.

Dubai is Muslim but secular. Once nothing but sandy wasteland, vast oil wealth and financial engineering have turned it into an economic powerhouse. They need manpower like crazy. Filipinos, like Pakistanis and Indians, are preferred. From airport guards to grocery clerks to hotel cleaners you see Filipinos everywhere. They snap up the lowly jobs they can’t get back home, for which they are overqualified, but in the Philippines will get them zilch.

Far from downbeat, I observe, they look at the bright side of life. At the very least they’re helping provide for their families. I take that as a good sign but never to justify the continuing crime of a callous government which gives them no choice but to take pittances or starve. How can they ever be truly happy? I kept being told they’d rather be home than in Dubai or anywhere else in the world anytime.

Intramuros update:

The bad news first: my friend art historian Mon Villegas confirms that the Yaptinchay mansion in Binan was sold to the BLTB bus company and last he heard the site was turned into a bus terminal. The good news is that Jimmy Laya, before the house was razed to the ground, bought major parts for the Central Bank with the intention of reconstructing the mansion in Intramuros.

Well, EDSA intervened and the project was shelved and put into a black hole. What remains of this jewel of colonial architecture was turned over to the Intramuros Administration. I hope it’s not rotting away in some bodega or dumped in Smokey Mountain.

As for the classic but unfortunately ignored LVN film Portrait, I ran into the beautiful Ching de Leon-Escaler, former ambassador to the United Nations, who says it was digitally remastered some years ago in Singapore by her filmmaker brother, Mike De Leon. Mike holds the rights as a legacy from their father Manny de Leon, son of the grand dame of film Dona Sisang B. de Leon. Manny “lost a mint” but never regretted producing a worthy project that future generations will be eternally grateful for. It will live forever on digital film.

If you want to see what the nation lost in Intramuros, see the film and read Nick Joaquin’s play. It’s never too late to rescue our heritage from willful amnesia, elite greed and cultural ignorance. The physical restoration of  Intramuros will happen someday under enlightened leadership, but it must be accompanied by a deeper appreciation of the Filipino past and how we emerged as a people from the mist of history.

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E-mail the author at noslen794@gmail.com.