Dave Starr

One of the mixed blessings of the aging process is that I’m prone to remember things.  Of course I’m prone to forget things from time to time too, but we won’t talk about that right at the moment.

There are times that my memory and my grasp of the past is so comprehensive that I even remember things that didn’t happen ;-)  or so it seems at times.

I was born 10 days after World War II officially ended.  Therefore, my "real" memories of WWII are a bit suspect.  But since, in my formative years it was the most common shared experience of all my family and adult friends, I feel I am pretty well connected to the War.  I also am a real history buff and I majored in history at university, so, at least in my own mind I have a pretty good concept of what went on and how people reacted.

What am I really writing about here, today?  Well I’m attempting to tie this into several of my preceding posts on the role of government .. and actually close that subject out.  It’s getting perilously close to a political discussion to me, and the only thing that bores me worse than ballet or American football is, political discussions.

So in WWII, as a couple examples might make us believe, were the people, the John Q. Public or the Juan de la Cruz walking down the street in Manhattan or Manila a better class of folks than we see walking those streets today?

My thesis is, no they were not, but it’s easy to see why that assumption could be made.   AMericans stopped driving their cars, planted victory gardens, collected scrap metal, bought war savings bonds, enlisted in droves and accepted all sorts of really strict government controls on life in order to ‘do their bit’ to help win the war.

Filipinos went off to war in huge numbers too.  they slipped into the jungle and formed effective guerilla units also, even though in the days leading up to the war the Americans (it was US territory, remember) couldn’t even supply decent tennis shoes for the volunteer soldiers, let alone weapons.  I could go on as well with stories I pretty much know to be true regarding heroics of Filipinos under Japanese rule but never giving up their cause.

Point being, do we see anything like that today?  hardly.  The ideal in the US seems to be get a degree in some kind of scammy futures marketing, pile up all the debt that you can (fake it ’til you make it), make the Columbian drug lords rich buying crack, bet whatever money is left over on football, and drive the biggest, most gas guzzling car that can be bought.

In the Philippines it isn’t a lot different.  there’s anew bribery scandal every other day.  The same people are fighting over the same ground with the same rhetoric in Mindanao as they did 10 years ago.  The former deposed president, hounded out of office and saved from a death sentence by presidential pardon (which included a prohibition on political caparisoning) is busy running for office.  A pack of cancer sticks costs 40 cents US, a 500 ml bottle of 80 proof whiskey costs 80 cents US, but the birth certificate a parent needs to send their child to primary school costs more than $13 USD .. several days pay for many people here.

Has the population in general just gone downhill in the days since World War II?  I don’t think so.

But our leadership certainly has.  And I think that’s a key.  Anybody seen anything resembling Churchill’s speeches to the British (who were so close to being knocked out of the war that it boggles the mind).  How about Wilson’s Fireside Chats, or Truman’s "the Buck Stops Here" slogan. Hardly.

The US economy is being brought to it’s knees principally by gas prices aided and bettered by the current president’s hand holding (literally) with mid-east oil barons.  The prospective successors have no energy plans to speak of either.  Has any of these so called "leaders" even done the obvious and used the free TV time he can have by snapping his fingers, gone on the air and said, "hello, stop buy those stupid Hummers, we’re in a tight spot and we need to pull together."  Nope.  Any statements that do get made are only to try to spin things to "prove" to the American public that it has to be someone else’s fault.  What has the average American been asked to do .. to improve the economy or to even fight the ‘war on terror’?  Not a damn thing.  Business as usual.

here in the Philippines we have our own crises.  there is shooting war fighting going on in Mindanao as we speak.  Know when I last saw the prudent on TV?  meeting with executives who own private jets at the Baguio airport, assuring them that she will keep the airport open with government funds so that they don’t have to use ground transportation like the "common folk".

In the meantime the country is routinely down to a few weeks supply of rice … while thousands and thousands of hectares go vacant and hundreds of thousands of able bodied men who need work .. so why are we buying Philippine-developed rice from Vietnam instead of calling out to people to get busy and raise their own?

I don’t know.  reading back over this I’m not sure if I am making a point.  But really, I think people in any country today are every bit as good as the people of the 1940s … they will respond if asked to do what is needed.  What we (both the US and the Philippines) really need is a president who will ask.

Recently I had an interesting conversation here with Steven, a frequent and valued reader.  He an I have a bit of a difference of opinion on the role of government in a country’s day yo day life.  here’s an excerpt:

@Steven: Hi Steven.  I guess we need a dictionary as well, because my sense of your comment is you confuse my advocacy of government workers being strong in their charter to actually perform their duties with what seems to me to be a different slant

Where I feel we will always differ significantly is in areas like the belief that ‘the government’ has a role in providing infrastructure.  I feel that is very much an outmoded way of looking at it.

So what seems to be the underlying issue here and just what might be a proper role of government?

The role of national government is to keep the peace, guard the borders and get the hell out of the way of people who want to earn a living …or so I opine.

Now, what in the world has all this to do with the Philippines?  The whole conversation between Steven and I got started over the role of the Philippine government micro-managing right down to the point of telling an individual Jeepney owner, the epitome of an independent small businessman how much he could charge for fares.  The exact type of action which drives up fares and hurts the very poor people that the lawmakers ’say’ they are out to protect.]

Let’s look for a moment at just a few things that _do_ work in the Philippines.  Good toll roads in Luzon … private enterprise that took over former government boondoggles. 

Hospitals.  Government hospitals are scary.  The first thing the reception staff will ask you when you arrive at one and appear to be able to pay for care is, "Sir, why don’t you go to a private hospital"?  been there, done that.  There are good hospitals here in the Philippines … but they are private enterprise.

Postal Service … there’s a prime example to anyone who grew up in a country with a strong postal system.  Surely the role government is to provide an effective, cheap mail service, isn’t it?  Well, I don’t know how it works in Australia, but I know how it works in the USA … not nearly as well as it should, and not nearly as cheap as it ought to be.  Here in the Philippines there is a postal system … in nearly two years I have seen our local mail carrier twice.  How does routine mail service get carried out … things like my monthly bills?  Again, private enterprise courier services which are cheap and actually reach more parts of the Philippines than the government mail service does.  It also makes a profit and pays taxes instead of sucking the life out of poor taxpayers.

So next time you make the pronouncement that ‘the government should do something, stop and think if that is really what you want or if you’re just frustrated because private enterprise hasn’t yet filled the gap.

(by the way, I hope this discussion isn’t going to just die here between a Yank and an Aussie, neither one of whom is an expert on each other’s country .. are there no US folks who have their own doubts about the role of ‘the government’?)

One of the reasons many Westerners give for visiting or moving to the Philippines is the common use of the English language.  It makes a person feel at home … or lets lazy people like me neglect to spend time learning any of the common Filipino languages such as Tagalog.  But one of the things visitors and potential residents need to understand is, just because English is often spoken (and is, indeed, one of the Philippines "official" languages), do not expect that English is English is English.  As the words of a song say, "It ain’t necessarily so".

Let me look for a minute at a word meaning/usage situation that came up for me starting a few weeks back.  A reader left a comment that stated, in part, "… other good qualities of Filipinos are that they are meek…"

Are Filipinos meek?  Well that’s certainly open to debate, not one I will open up here, but what I will open for discussion is, just what does "meek" mean?  many of the folks reading this are Christians, so it’s common for those of us who are to think of Matthew 5:,  "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth". After all, to a Christian, what could be more authoritative than the words of Christ himself?

That is true only if we are very careful in deciding what we really mean by meek.  A generally accepted definition of "meek" is to be gentle and considerate of others.  In a great many ways you will see this in almost every interpersonal interaction.  In fact many Filipinos seem to have mixed up "meek" with "subservient" or even "fawning.  This is not only disturbing to Westerners at times … I am not "Sir David" and it does me no favors if I ask if some action is possible or acceptable and I get an "Oh po" (yes, sir) in reply when actually what I want is not the right thing and an honest "Hindi po", (no sir) is the response that should be made.  This isn’t unique to the Philippines, by the way, it’s somewhat of an Asian-wide custom … sometimes "no" is the hardest answer to obtain, even when that’s the answer that will really serve the questioning person most honestly. It is perfectly possible to be both "meek" and "honest", if you truly understand what "meek" means.

This perversion of "meekness" often manifests itself in the issues I talked about in my last post, where people somehow confuse modesty, politeness and "meekness" with taking advantage of opportunities that are not only their right, but sometimes even their duty.

Let me give a couple examples that ought to serve well.  Quickly now, how many who are reading this like taxes and tax collection agencies?  Thought so.  But how many of us accept that taxes are a fact of life and have their role in an organized society … mainly to provide basic human services.  So we pay, and we certainly expect that the authorities charged with tax collection are going to do their jobs.

Now virtually everyone agrees that the Philippines is a poor country and many of the ills of the country in general could be cured, or at least improved upon, by an infusion of funds.

But let me acquaint you with something many people don’t know.  The Philippines is not nearly so poor as it is naturally … it’s as poor as it is, to a large degree, by mismanagement.  What specific mismanagement?  Simple.  The agencies charged with collecting taxes don’t.

Take a look at income taxes.  Just recently on 5 year "Amnesty Program" just closed out and another is due soon.  Amnesty from paying individual or business income taxes.  You can pay your income taxes here if you chose too, or, you can just ignore them and wait for the government to include you in an "Amnesty Program" which lets you make a negotiated, token payment and then go on your merry way.  Mind boggling.  The official stance on these programs?  "Well at least we get some money from these tax evaders, otherwise we get nothing at all."  Excuse me?  What about the law that clearly determines that people owe taxes and must comply.  Doesn’t anyone have the glimmer of  a thought about hauling those who make money and don’t pay into court?  seizing property, collecting what is due?  Is this "meekness" in it’s most perverted form?  You be the judge.

Not long ago my wife and I visited a town in the provinces where she and several members of her family own property.  We stopped at the Municipio (Town Hall) to bring the property taxes up to date on all the parcels in question. I was pretty shocked to find that some of the parcels hadn’t had the taxes paid in years and years.  In another matter we paid some overdue taxes on another property as a favor to the owner (because we might be doing some title work on that property and wanted everything clear and legal).  The owner’s response?  Oh I never pay until after the taxes are more than 10 years overdue … when they get that far behind the town will send a letter offering a settlement (for a much smaller sum) of what’s due over the past years.  So, in other words, why bother paying taxes as set by the law, the tax collectors will settle for less, just ignore it all for now and worry about it in the future, if you have to.

See what I mean about the Philippines being artificially poor?  The former governor of our province here, Bulacan, attained national notice during her term for a program she instituted, unique to all the Philippines provinces.  This is really a foreign initiative to some.  Know what it was?

She required the county tax authorities to a., bill and collect property taxes as they came due and b…, rated job performance, raises and even job security of these officials based on how much they collected.

Sounds a bit simplistic and "so what"?  Well it was a very, very unique program in this country, even had a number of TV documentaries produced covering the program, and management staff from many other provinces visiting Bulacan to learn how it was done.  So again, you be the judge.

If meekness a desirable quality?  Obviously, as opposed to arrogance and insulting behavior it certainly is, but somehow, as it seems to me, "meekness" here in the Philippines has become confused with the definition of negligence and dereliction of duty. 

The Philippines might not be considered a rich nation even if all the taxes did get collected, but I do think it would go a long way toward getting the country on its feet and even, perhaps, feeding a few starving people and educating a few children with no present opportunities.  What do you think?

Last year a close relative, near and dear to my heart, said this about Filipinos and the sometimes hidden but none-the-less very rigid ‘class system’ that underlies Philippine society.  "They are what they are" … and the hidden meaning was, there are classes of people here whom you are not going to change, no matter what you spend on education, material items or (the most costly investment) giving of yourself.

As an American and a person strongly believing in the principle we are all children of God and equal in his eyes, a fellow who has read and even gotten emotional over Horatio Alger style stories, and a guy who even working professionally in the human relations/racial discrimination field I found that statement and the attitude behind it shocking.  Oh what I could have said, wished I had said, how it cut me to the quick that a Filipino, of age and wisdom, would make such a crass and even hopeless sounding statement abut fellow Filipinos.

Everyone has potential, Everyone wants to better themselves, Everyone wants the best for their children … don’t we all know these truths to be self-evident?

Well in my heart I still believe they are, but you must temper your dreams at times with the reality of the Philippines.  It’s not necessarily a show stopper, but if you approach life here and approach the people you meet who might need some help with the same strategy you would approach them in the US, you are very liable to hurt yourself emotionally and you may even hurt, or badly upset the person you think you are helping.

The Philippines has a very class conscious society.  It has since the days before the Spaniards, and certainly the idea of classes or even castes were strongly ingrained and reinforced during the nearly 400 years of Spanish rule.  In the US when we see a guy emptying trash cans we automatically assume he wants to be the office manager.  And we certainly make the almost always correct assumption that the trash man wants his son or daughter to have a better education and a ‘better life" (in US-speak a ‘better life’ means more salary).

There are people born and raised here in the Philippines who feel the same, but in my experience they are ore thin on the ground than their counterparts in the US, and (a more likely theory) the signs that indicate they want to climb the ladder of success are much more subtle.

My thoughts on this issue are, don’t give up on helping, be open and ready to help when you can, but lose the ingrained American "I’m here to help, here’s what you need to do" focus many of us seem to labor under.  What are your thoughts?

Here’s a couple stories that have made my mind work in this direction, if you want to explore a bit more about how your mind works.

Call her Sheryl…   Losing More than a Maid …   A day of many firsts

What do you think?  Do I give up too easy or do I not try hard enough?

Yesterday I was doing a lot of thinking about some of the discussion here regarding earning a living.  I hadn’t intended when I took this column on to make it an entrepreneur’s’ journal and certainly not a "make money online" column, although these are my current ‘hot button’ subjects.  But I am of an age where I can look back at 50-odd years of life experience and think about successes I have had and areas where I probably didn’t make the right choices. I am also sensitive to the turmoil in a lot of people’s lives as they consider thing like perhaps making a huge change in their lives by moving to the Philippines … what’s the right time, if ever, to do something like that and if such a move is right, whenever might be the right time.

And how on earth could I earn a living and what can I do if I can’t find a job?  Along with these thoughts come years of discussions with people often struggling with this issue which frankly can get a bit tedious at times because, from a country that was built on entrepreneurship and self-reliance we, speaking for myself and the Americans I know, seem to have ’shrunk’ to a fraction of our ancestor’s size … building our lives around what other people tell us is ’safe’ and making sure we finish our years never ‘taking a risk’ because everybody knows risk is wrong and the best move is always to ‘play it safe.

Well I could go back to Colonial times when 13 well-off colonies of great Britain took it upon themselves to break free from the ‘mother country’ and form our own.  Oh course virtually the only citizens of the original colonies who had jobs, with benefits at that time were workers employed by the King of England … most of the dissatisfied Colonists who wanted to break away were independent storekeepers, farmers, mill owners and newspaper publishers.  The ones who wanted to strike out on their own didn’t have Social Security, Medicaid, pensions, tenure, FDIC and all the other safety nets that make our life so secure today.  Do you think the US could even be formed today?  I doubt it.  Wouldn’t be ’safe’.  Wouldn’t be prudent.  Wait a while and ‘the government’ will make everything right.

So let’s look at something a little closer in time and smaller in scale than ‘nation building’.  In 1881 the Denver and Rio Grande railroad forged a whole network of narrow-gauge (only three feet between the rails) railroads through the Colorado Rockies to tap the rich gold, silver and lumber ventures being formed.

Over the next century the railroads evolved, some were made full-size, others were abandoned or sold, but overall a lot of money was made.  One hundred years later there were only two major pieces of the narrow gauge empire left, the most photogenic one being the line from Durango Colorado through the Animas River canyon to the town of Silverton.  The railroad company was still very much a going concern, making a lot of money hauling coal for power plants among many other freight sources.  But they had a terrible, terrible problem that they spent a fortune telling the world and lobbying Washington about.  It was going to drive them out of business, it was terrible, the government was "killing" them.

The "problem" was the antique "Silverton train".  A corporation in the 1980’s in America could not possibly make money running an antique steam railroad, and, at that time, government regulations prohibited the parent company from doing what they wanted to do … abandoning the toy-like, horribly old-fashioned steam trains.  I mean it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out … everyone knows that you can’t succeed by being different and by doing something no one else does.  Help us, help us please.

Well, they got their wish.  During the Reagan era (the Great Deregulator) the D&RG got permission to abandon their unique and horribly unprofitable steam trains.  End of story and happy ending in sight, correct?  Well, yes, but not in the way the "security experts" would have predicted.

A fellow named Charles E. Bradshaw refused to listed to government and private industry "experts" who know all about security and the "right way" to do things.  He formed the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Company, took over the worthless, antiquated equipment (which the original, professional railroad owners didn’t even consider worth hauling away for scrap) and put together what  is now, by far, the most well-known and profitable passenger railroad operation in the world. Trains are booked for months in advance.  Ticket prices run upwards of $45 USD one way for a child) on up into the hundreds of dollars for a chance to ride in the cab and covered with cinders and soot for a couple hours.  Worthless?  Well you sure wouldn’t think so to look at it today.

The point we all can learn from Bradshaw and the "Silverton Train"?  Experts are just one source of opinion.  The ‘ordinary’ way is just one of many ways to do things.  And belief in the dream that you, and you alone, decide is the best for you is more important than every expert, every government caution label and every piece of advice from those who want to see you stay right there in the same place as they are.  Perhaps because they truly care about you, or perhaps so they themselves won’t feel bad bad when you’ve succeeded and they have stagnated.

This train that we are riding today, (life) runs but for a short time, and then we never get another ticket.  At the end of the line do you want to be a Charles Bradshaw or a Philip Anschutz, (the last CEO of the D&RG who despite government help and relief from terrible ‘burden’ of the narrow-gauge lines couldn’t last past 1996 and folded the company … doing all the while doing what the ‘experts’ told him and playing it safe.

photo credit: Mike PierzynskiI