Theres The Rub
Past, present, future
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:30:00 04/28/2008
MANILA, Philippines - I have my own take on what we can do to stop being the basket case of Asia. I’ve always said, in reply to people who say “Easy to criticize, but what would you do if you were running the country?,” that I’ll do only three things. Three things that can assure a past, a present and a future. Those are the very same three things we do not have today, especially under the present regime. We have no past to take pride in, we have no present to be happy about, we have no future to look forward to.
The first is to teach history. I cannot sufficiently belabor the importance of this. Sanjeep Kanjilal, who wrote to comment on Romeo Encarnacion’s letter, and which I commented on last Thursday, has a point about national pride. That is something Indians have and we don’t. In fact that is something other Asian countries have and we don’t. That alone guarantees making us the basket case of Asia. You don’t have national pride or a sense of country as I myself put it, you’ll get nowhere.
How to instill that pride? I know of no better way than for us to learn our history. By history, I do not just mean names and dates, though I don’t mind even that so long as history is taught. I know that from personal experience. Much of my history I did not learn from the classroom, I learned it from activism. I can tell you that the sensation of reading Rizal’s novels, the Noli and Fili, for the first time without them being assignments is quite literally an eye-opener. It’s like having been blind your whole life and suddenly been given sight. That was true as well reading about Bonifacio and the Katipunan, Mabini and the American Occupation, and the things that happened afterward. Suddenly, you no longer feel like an orphan in the universe. Suddenly you no longer feel like a drifter in the world. You have a home you can take refuge in, you have an ancestry you can be proud of.
We keep saying we are a forgetful people. Why shouldn’t we be forgetful if we are not given a past to remember? Indeed, if our own rulers make it a point to destroy that past lest it catches up with them? Which is of course the case today, and cruelly so: The very beneficiary of Edsa II wants us to forget the thing that brought her to power. This regime isn’t just erasing our past, it is erasing our instinct to remember.
The second is to assure food security. Or to put it more plainly, to feed the people. That was not, that is not and that won’t be assured by a policy of importing rice. That has been, that can be and that will be assured by having self-sufficiency in rice.
The developed countries will not compromise food notwithstanding their call for free markets and open economies. The US heavily subsidizes its agriculture. EU heavily subsidizes its agriculture. Japan heavily subsidizes its agriculture. Japan is interesting because only a small portion of its lands are cultivable and it should really be importing rice rather than producing it. But it will not yield its yield and even at great cost to its coffers buys dear from farmers and sells cheap to consumers. That is how it feeds its people.
And that is how we do not. Home of IRRI and home to vast cultivable lands, we are the biggest importer of rice in Asia, possibly of the world. Under the present regime in particular, we have embarked on the foolhardy policy of trusting in the kindness of strangers. I’ll leave the examination of this folly for another time. Suffice it to say that history in the form of the current rice crisis, which threatens to be long and bitter, has proven it wrong. The strangers, like Vietnam and Thailand, will not be so kind anymore.
We want to assure the present, let’s reverse that policy. Whatever massive subsidy we give to rice production will always be massively cheaper than the subsidy we give to official corruption. Hell, we want to assure the present, let’s get rid of this regime.
The third is education. By education, I don’t just mean the three “R’s” (reading, ‘riting and ’rithmetic), though that is quite a substantial part of it. Every time school opens, you’re assailed by the staggering sight of Korea et al having a 1-1 ratio between computer and student and our classrooms having to make do with two or even three shifts, if they are not improvised under a guava tree. How on earth are we going to compete with other countries if we have only a mass of tired, poor, hungry—and ignorant—masses yearning to get by? Take it from Reggie Miller of the NBA, you don’t go to school, you won’t have a shot. He actually says “college,” but never mind college, just mind elementary and high school. We don’t have that, we’ll always be prey to false economic prophets, religious crackpots and political charlatans.
But more than the three “Rs,” I also mean the three “ty’s”—honesty, integrity, verity. Education shouldn’t just impart skills, it should impart values. And the best way to teach that is by example. Example is the best teacher of all. You have a teacher who is always drunk, who harasses students and who skips classes, no amount of lecturing by him on civics and ethics is going to stick. You have a government that lies, cheats and steals, no amount of talk by it about unity and solidarity is going to stick. When parents are a bad influence on their kids, other countries cut them off from their children, remanding the kids to the custody of child welfare. I don’t see why, when government is a bad influence on its citizens, we do not boot it out of sight and remand the citizens to the custody of public welfare.
This country isn’t hopeless. All it takes is a little vision and a lot of will. Let’s have history, food and education and we’ll have a past, a present and a future.
|
