Alien assessments

Why are we so vulnerable when foreigners look us over and publicly make their assessments of who we are, what we are doing, how we are doing and how we may or must do better on whatever it is we are doing? Another painful consideration: Why are foreigners so prone to assessing and advising us on how to do better?

Across the years, international institutions, foreign governments, transnational companies and their aggressive authorities – one might also add, foreign academics and high profile entertainment personalities – have made public assessments of our governance, economy, foreign policy and, at times, even the overall quality of our people. Some of these evaluations have been positive enough but many have also been quite critical. Foreign commentaries of course do not limit themselves to travel advisories for their nationals going to or already within the Philippines; they expand to include unsolicited advise on how to deal with Philippine concerns like government corruption, economic bottlenecks, public finance deficits, judicial maladministration, the precarious state of public safety and the problematic quality of official statistics on macroeconomic performance, public finance and criminality.

In the darkest days of this republic, foreign counsel may even be preferred on distinctly political, domestic issues. Many believe it to be decisive in determining whether a sitting president should "cut clean" and evacuate the presidency or, alternatively, welsh on a sacrificial pledge to forego presidential election and – acknowledging the inviolable right of the properly gendered – opt for an even greater personal sacrifice and seek a term extension.

Filipino vulnerability to alien sentiments of course cuts both ways. When foreigners speak well of us, we wax ecstatic, whether we be sophistic presidents, resourceful bureaucrats, struggling clerks, near-desperate janitors or kapit-sa-patalim tao’s seeking whatever employment. On the other hand, faced by less than laudatory alien assessments, we often reflect much consternation, a deep sense of hurt – something akin to being betrayed by those we had trusted to be our walang-iwanan friends – and, occasionally, a stronger reaction that could be mistaken for outrage.

It is of course good to be interested in how others see us and it would be foolish at times not to heed what foreigners may advise us to do. However, when we get to rely overly much on their opinion rather than ours, it may be that we are unable to form our own opinions or grossly distrust our own. In either case, much insecurity and/or immaturity may be suspected of the nation.

A colonial history does not make it easy for us to independently define our national identity. Imperial socialization cultivates a sense of national inferiority that only prolonged, strenuous struggle by its victims overcomes. In the last 100 years, this nationalistic struggle had been aborted several times; Filipinos in 2003 appear to have fallen way short of what a most intelligent patriot had longingly described as "the nation that we could be". We continue to treat foreign governments and aggressive foreigners much too deferentially and cloak this bad habit by passing it off as Filipino hospitality. (We may be the only ones fooled by our own illusions.)

Additionally, many of our own authoritarian institutions incline the citizenry to leave thinking and acting to those that are their perceived superiors. Whether it is the family, the school or the church that one focuses on, much is wanting in the way they nurture the young so the latter develop self-reliance, take initiative easily and, most of all, learn to be comfortable even when alone in facing the responsibilities that adulthood invariably brings.

A Filipino’s self-worth is normally not linked to intrinsic personal or national criteria that make the assessments of others – foreigners or natives – quite secondary. On the contrary, his ego gets to be so completely dependent on how others regard it and thus he constantly seeks their approval as regards any action he might undertake. The greatest fear of Filipinos must be isolation by their presumed subordinates and peers or excommunication by their perceived superiors. For them, the absolute horror of being left alone is reflected by the constant need to reassure each other of constant company, regardless of whether that company is right or wrong.

Hindi ka nag-iisa! and Walang iwanan! are national slogans that echo a most basic need for supportive and hopefully very affirmative company.

Foreign institutions and their authorities appear to realize how insecure we are, indeed how weak a republic our nation has become. Since we perennially require substantial foreign assistance to survive and regularly publicly embrace foreign institutions and governments and their self-serving productions for assisting us – preening ourselves in state visits that provide us our five minutes of fame and ignoring the countless years of paying back whatever we wheedled out of a favorite uncle or a momentarily charitable neighbor – we must not be surprised by how much foreign assessment, unsolicited advice and outright intervention come our way.

Machiavelli, that supposedly wicked spirit, a genuine patriot who believed in building only the strongest of republics, was absolutely right when he remarked of national leaders: "Those who ignore their own people build on foundations of sand." He said nothing of the people themselves, but it is safe to assume that a people that refuses to strengthen itself and settles for foreign comfort instead will gain little sympathy from this patriot.