National pride

After Precious Lara Quigaman was crowned Miss International in September last year, ending a two-decade-long drought in beauty titles for Filipino women, the nation erupted in jubilation, with Makati welcoming her with a parade.

An even more rapturous welcome was laid out for Manny Pacquiao after he knocked out Mexican Erik Morales to win the super featherweight title bout in Las Vegas last January.

Now the nation is cheering again, this time for the first batch of Filipinos to reach the peak of the world’s highest mountain. We are applauding the first, second, third – do people really care who won that dangerous race to the top of the world? – and will continue to be in awe of any Filipino who braves the risks of "summiting" on Mt. Everest.

After all, the forbidding slopes leading to that summit have claimed countless lives, starting with the team that attempted the first recorded ascent to the top in 1924.

That detail has led even some Filipinos to belittle the achievement of the Philippine team, especially when we are reminded that over the past 83 years, the summit has been reached by the blind, the legless, young and old, citizens of so many other countries. They all got there ahead of us.

People ask why we are such late bloomers when it comes to summiting on Everest, named after the British surveyor-general of India and first conquered on record by a New Zealander and tribal Sherpa. We can only theorize that Filipinos aren’t used to snow and the resources needed to survive in temperatures way below zero.

Also, the trek to Everest is only for the rich in this country, unless you have a sponsor like the TV networks. As the story going around now indicates, another Filipino might have actually reached the summit ahead of Leo Oracion, but didn’t have the $9,000 to pay for the certificate attesting to his feat.

That’s how organized the treks to the summit of Everest have become: you get a certificate to prove your claim, somewhat like the certificates issued at certain points along China’s Great Wall, except the risks in the Himalayas are 10,000 times greater.

Which brings us back to the celebration in the Philippines. The attitude is, so what if we’re late by 82 years? What’s the rush in getting there? Barring a collision between the Earth and a massive asteroid, Everest will always be there. But now Pinoys can also say that we’ve been there, done that. To borrow a slogan, yes, the Filipino can!

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Some people might sneer at this feat, but we need more such "conquests" to develop national pride and a strong sense of national identity.

The lack of that identity translates into a lack of national purpose and a common goal, a keen awareness that what’s good for the nation is generally also good for the individual.

Foreigners who have lived in the Philippines for some time after staying in other countries in Asia have noticed not only the chronic political disunity that leaves the impression of a rudderless nation, but also this general lack of Filipino commitment to a greater good.

There is no sense of nationhood – a national identity that is palpable in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that those countries are also leading the way in economic development in this part of the world. The "Buy Filipino" movement continues to sputter, whereas in Korea, an imported vehicle is a rare sight. And it’s not just prohibitive taxes that compel Koreans to buy their own products.

A security expert specializing in the Asia-Pacific told me recently that we need grand ideas, if not grand achievements, to fire up national pride.

He pointed to what critics considered the grandiose schemes of Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad when he was still at the helm of that nation. The Petronas Towers were derided by critics as Mahathir’s monument to his outsize ego, but the project became a source of national pride as the towers were acknowledged as the tallest buildings in the world – until higher ones were built elsewhere.

Mahathir also had many of his compatriots uniting behind his push for the development of a car proudly made in Malaysia. That car was the Proton, which still needs a lot of improvement, but hey, Japan’s automotive industry was not built in a day either.

I told the security expert that once upon a time we did have a leader with grand ideas, who was keenly aware of the need for icons behind which a nation can unite.

That leader’s wife built the Cultural Center of the Philippines and launched the Light Rail Transit, promoted a "green revolution" and beautification program that Metro Manila needs to this day, and mouthed slogans about "the true, the good and the beautiful."

Unfortunately for us, grand ideas and grand projects also meant grand commissions for the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

We have yet to fully recover from the ruins of the dictatorship. These days the grandest dream of the Filipino is to leave his own country and work abroad to earn a decent wage.

Our grandest infrastructure projects, modest by international standards – a new airport terminal, a railway system to decongest traffic in Metro Manila – are either mired in controversy or stuck in litigation amid suspicions of corruption.

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There is such a dearth of good news that when something – anything – that offers cause for national rejoicing comes along, we pull out all the stops in celebration.

And so we welcome the Filipino "conquerors" of Everest with unqualified pride.

In the years ahead, we need the drive to be the first, and the national unity to excel in a fiercely competitive world.

We will have to give more focus to feats in less exciting sectors. After that parade for Precious Lara Quigaman, our newspaper received several letters and email asking why we give such massive press coverage to beauty queens and also-rans in American Idol, and bury stories about Filipino achievers in fields such as education and the sciences. Some pointed out that women’s groups have been questioning the relevance of beauty contests in the 21st century. In the United States, public interest in the Miss America beauty pageant has significantly waned.

We have to look beyond pop entertainment and feminine pulchritude to fire up national pride. No Filipino has won a Nobel prize or an Olympic gold.

Today we celebrate the Filipino’s feat on Mt. Everest, but we have many more mountains to conquer. Next time we have to be ahead of the pack.