Raising the Future Filipino: The Search for New Leadership

The great Chinese philosopher, Master Lao-tzu, once said that “knowing others is wisdom; knowing thyself is enlightenment.”  

And this is precisely where the dilemma of the modern-day Filipino lies.  He is still struggling to “know himself,” and until he manages to exorcise his confusion, comes to terms with his identity crisis, resolve his debilitating bouts with skepticism, pessimism, and self-doubt, he cannot impede the downward trajectory of his everyday existence nor begin to exploit the inner strengths and latent but impressive talents, which are part and parcel of his heritage.

These are big words, admittedly.  And in this phenomenon,  we can also identify one of the Filipino’s failings.  He is so in love with “big words” that, too often, he tends to mistake florid rhetoric and eloquent speech for action.  Perhaps the Filipino’s curse is not that he is often speechless and inarticulate, unable to express his needs and desire, but that too frequently, too well, he ends up confusing words for achievement.

It is no secret that the Philippines today is mired in political instability, economic misery, and social disappointment.  The only thing we Filipinos have going for us is our growing sense of “nationalism,” most notably among our young.  On the other hand, nationalism is a two-edged sword.  It can point the way to the future in its most generous form.  It can be crippling and inward looking in its most fanatical and chauvinistic extreme and a convenient tool by which charlatans, jingoists, political manipulators and monopolists can seduce the public.  Too often, waving the bright banners of nationalism and wrapping their blackest sins in the shining fold of the flag, we see homegrown exploiters and knaves trying to march our nation into darkness.

Part of our problem, as Filipinos, is our ambivalence toward our multi-cultural psyche. We are children of the East and West-Roman Catholics, for one, swimming uncertainly in the Muslim sea which runs from our Southern Philippines (where our own six million Moros live) through neighboring Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia.  While proud of our race and our “native” culture, meaning pre-Hispanic and pre-Christian, we find ourselves more at home with things “Western.” We love Hollywood and pop. Our national costume, in truth, is not the baro’t saya, the Filipino terno, nor the barong Tagalog, but, from the mean streets of Metro Manila to the most far-flung barrios in the boondocks (a word we gave America from our term for mountains, bundok), we find most Filipinos, male and female, sporting that universal uniform: T-shirt and blue jeans.  We refer to the latter, of course, more often than not, as maong and not denims, but the brand labels are as American as mom and apple pie.

We love to munch American junk food from Big Macs to Burger King (although we have developed our local Jollibee hamburger to contend with the best of them), breakfast in Dunkin’ and Mister Donut and coffee at Starbucks.

Our bars and metro radio stations dish out rap, rock, swing and the jive along with the Latin touch.  Students and even academics can rarely claim mastery over the English or Filipino language, much less both.

With all these, our sense of nationalism is muddled.  We have a continuing clash between pragmatism, internationalism, the realization that we belong to a larger whole, an inter-acting “global village,” and the militant, aggressive, oftentimes bellicose “nationalism” which provokes both fervor and stubbornness.

In his novel, Lord Jim, the writer Joseph Conrad pointed out that “each blade of grass has its spot on earth when it draws its life, its strength; and so a man is rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.”  To understand the Filipino’s dilemma, it is essential to view both his archipelago—the islands between the Pacific and the West Philippine Sea—and his history.

No “tiny” country, as Filipino leaders persist in maintaining in mock humility, we have a population of one-hundred and three million people, composed of 111 linguistic, cultural, and racial groups; 87 major dialects reflect the racial homogeneity which links Filipinos with the principal tribes of Indonesia and bumiputras, the Malays, of Malaysia. The national language adopted by law is “Filipino,” which is Tagalog base, one of the major languages and the de facto national lingua franca of the country. 

And yet in this diversity, we find ourselves trapped, far from the liberation we can attain using the many lessons of our rich heritage.

The Search for New Leadership

 “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it,” a thinker named Frantz Fanon once asserted.

Have we, in our generation, discovered that mission only to betray it? What lies ahead of us? Is the youth of this land ready to face the challenges, the endemic woes and shortcoming passed down to him by his past?

What is the gut issue which faces the Filipinos of today?  Not merely national survival, I would say, but national progress. “Ideals are like stars,” another philosopher, Carl Schurz eloquently expressed it.  “You will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring men … you choose them as your guides, and following them will reach your destiny”.

We must look up at the heavens and regain the light of our stars.  Only then shall we be able to retrace our steps and regain the road of our salvation.

As one of the late Philippine Star columnists, Teodoro Benigno, put it: We need a Vaclav Havel to winnow the nation’s suffering in the prodigious propellers of his mind.  We need an Aung San Suu Kyi to defy the whole establishment from the lonely confines of house imprisonment.  We need a Nelson Mandela to give spiritual muscles to the nation’s bleeding body.  We need a studentry that is alive, purposeful, unafraid, juggling issues of life and earth on its distended breast.  But such students are nowhere.  We need a middle class to fight entrenched power and privileges, but our middle class is either indifferent or asleep.  We need a tyrant to make us angry, but what we have is the tyranny of an elite, not the tyranny of one person.

We have lain in wait for our “Horseman of History”, the fables leaser on horseback sent to inspire us, but has not appeared.  Is it possible that we will have to suffer more, strive more, grieve more, and bleed more? If so, we have yet to arrived at that period of “great urgency” which summons the appearance of a “great leader.

Or perhaps we have no need of this horseman at all.

It is time we all took the lead ourselves, in mapping out a new agenda, in “mobilizing” our people for a fresh start, and daring to blaze new trials and implement brave but sensible initiatives.

All sectors of society must reform and prepare the youth for developing a better Philippines. We must educate our youth to be committed to their nation, their identity.  They must have the right values and develop critical thinking abilities to become good leaders and citizens. We must ground them, empower them, and nurture their qualities and talents to help them become valuable members of society.  The nation must invest in education not only for personal but for national and global development. It is fundamental for growth and development.  It is the weapon that can truly protect our freedom and sovereignty.