The Long View
Bringing the world to our shores
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:08:00 07/07/2008
MANILA, Philippines - Times are tough, they will get even tougher: The papers and news broadcasts are full of doom and gloom. To be sure, that’s because bad news sells, and yet no one can deny that the bad news reflects a depressing reality: just over the weekend, diesel went up again by P2 a liter. But you cannot live on bad news alone—it would be as unproductive and unhealthy as only wanting to hear good news, all the time.
Most of all, as the saying goes, every crisis presents an opportunity. The last time economic crisis stalked our shores, I heard that many young professionals, suddenly out of booming stock market jobs or at the end of their entrepreneurial ropes, wanted to go back to school. They explored taking MBAs, hoping to invest in themselves with the last of their Ramos-era bonuses. It turned out to be an extremely expensive proposition, particularly if you wanted the kind of MBA that conferred access to the cutting edge in business thinking and developments overseas (either as a means to seize opportunities abroad, or modernize things at home). For that reason, it was an option—a sabbatical—few were able to properly explore.
Recently, I’ve started mulling over taking an MBA, not because of any real entrepreneurial inclination on my part, but out of frustration with how things have turned out here, at home, in recent years. Randy David calls it our country’s Crisis of Modernity: the collision between the coalition composed of the dynasts, warlords and racketeers of our beleaguered political class, and a growing (but still loose) coalition of citizens who are far less insular, less hidebound by tradition, far more modern—and modernizing—in their outlook, and who are desperately sick of the deteriorating situation here at home.
As bigger and bigger chunks of our population become less insular and more comfortable with the complexities of the modern world, I have a hunch that people like me, who have the task of commenting on national affairs, will find it increasingly hard-going unless we make an effort to understand these complexities. These complexities, on the whole, have to do with economics and finance as disciplines, and business as an activity: and how all three have been used to discourage citizens from being politically engaged.
This, in turn, leads to hostility between people engaged in business—who point out they’re creating jobs and battling it out in the domestic and global economy—and those frustrated with the conservatism or pragmatism of business people. It’s bad enough boardrooms remain unmoved by stolen elections; even more frustrating is that employees and mid-level managers take a cue from their big bosses and shrug off “political noise”: egged on by official drumbeaters who proclaim every pleasant new economic figure as solely their achievement, but who now call for national
unity when the economy isn’t doing so well.
And so, for example, I don’t think I’m particularly extreme, or alone, in assuming, as a non-business person, that business is not about morality. While it is, to my mind, an amoral, not immoral, avocation, I think most people who comment on national affairs actually consider business a profoundly immoral activity. This attitude colors their every comment, and increases their sense of frustration when large chunks of the population decide to turn a deaf ear to such criticisms—because the criticisms are built on assumptions most other people don’t share.
And so, democracy, liberty, rights are loudly defended by some, while others—more gifted with the means, financially and in terms of social prestige, to demand these things—shrug them off as inconsequential. Could it actually be that the great “isms,” the great movements and ideas of the past, are really obsolete? I think not: but in a society like ours, where the transmission of culture has broken down, our civic sense has to be, not restored, but actually rebuilt: connections between ideas, ideals and the world around us have to be refashioned.
You often hear of people denouncing the absence of delicadeza in our national life, particularly in politics. However, like virginity, delicadeza, once lost, is impossible to regain. That is because even if the physical manifestation of virginity can be surgically restored, carnal innocence can’t. Delicadeza, being an informal code of behavior, once broken, can’t be brought back; a society looking for a means to deter official wrongdoing has to find other means: the sadly much-abused
concept of the rule of law is what’s supposed to replace delicadeza.
Or take politicians who realize that delivering basic services, and moderating official greed, makes sense. Now take this example a bit further: there are businesses that recognize that they can achieve a healthy bottom line by delivering better services and investing in their workforce. Indeed, “it’s about creating value,” someone once said to me, to which the non-business-inclined person might reply, “but what about existing values?” Yet there are places, maybe not here at home, but elsewhere, where business has proven quite compatible with an active citizenry and a flourishing democracy. One such place is Australia.
And so when I found out you could take an Australian MBA without going to Australia, my interest got piqued. The University of Western Australia sends its professors to Manila to conduct classes designed to appeal to the working professional. This is really quite an unprecedented opportunity: to break out of our insular confines, without having to leave the home islands.
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More next time. For now, take a peek at the University of Western Australia’s MBA program in Manila, by visiting www.uwamanila.com
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