PH’s ‘damaged internal compass’

Dear Randy David,

I’m writing about “The challenge of nationhood in our time,” that you wrote last June 10. Well, it was, is and perhaps will always be, until more of our people begin to understand what really ails us as a nation.

Spanish colonization damaged our culture. The Americans just changed the language but continued to let our country’s leadership be driven from the outside. They did not repair our damaged internal compass.

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in their book “Why Nations Fail” provide reasons why we are unable to build this nation.

The reign of greed remains. We are cruel to each other; F. Sionil José has kept saying it is Catholicism’s ultimate legacy to us. Only when we are out of the country do we call ourselves Filipinos. Inside, we call ourselves by other names: Batangueño, Ilocano, Bisaya, Ilonggo…

The subject on our national hero Jose Rizal, which is mandated to be included in university curriculum, is being taught by unqualified teachers even in the University of the Philippines, which has changed its course code to PI-100.

I feel that teaching our people Rizal’s story could probably answer the challenge of nationhood in our time. But, sadly, there are more foreigners who know him better compared to most Filipinos. Why?

The only answer is the failure of leadership in our so-called institutions.

Our nation has developed a blindness to our own defects, and we are suffering not because we cannot solve our problems, but because we cannot see them.

DANILO PASIA,
faculty member,
College of Engineering,
University of Batangas,
[email protected]