Culture

F. Sionil Jose: Why the Philippines is Standing Still

by ryanborja | July 15, 2008 at 12:50 am

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F. Sionil Jose is known globally for his novels, short stories and essays. In writing this, he ruminates about the reasons why the Filipinos will never make it big and succeed in the long term. Yes, there are few who made it big in other countries. Many Filipinos are successful now abroad, but why it is not in their country?

It is still a curiosity to me why Filipinos can be very hard-working, good and law-abiding in other countries except in his own? Now this piece by Jose can give us a few hint why.

We are poor because our people are lazy. I pass by a slum area every morning - dozens of adults do nothing but idle, gossip and drink. We do not save. Look at the Japanese and how they save in spite of the fact that the interest given them by their banks is so little. They work very hard too.

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ryanborja

at 00:55 on July 15th, 2008

This essay brings to mind another enlightening essay by fellow novelist and writer, and arguably the best Filipino novelist, Nick Joaquin, who wrote about Filipino's so-called heritage of smallness. Filipinos, Joaquin noted, are contented with small labor, success and joys. There are proofs that this can be positive, but most of the time it negates our vision of growth in the long term.

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at 06:02 on July 15th, 2008

I am a Filipino myself and I'm proud to be one. It's sad to hear that other Filipinos rather would choose to work for foreigners and no for their own country.

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