A DAMAGED CULTURE poor.

There may be more miserable

By: James Fallows places to live in East Asia – Vietnam,
Cambodia – but there are few others
A New Philippines? where the culture itself, rather than
a communist political system, is the
In the United States the main barrier to development. The
coming of the Aquino government culture in question is Filipino, but it
seemed to make the Philippines into ahs been heavily shaped by nearly a
a success story. The evil Marcos was hundred years of the “Fil-Am
out, the saintly Cory was in, the relationship.” The result is
worldwide march of democracy went apparently the only non-communist
on. All that was left was to argue society in East Asia in which the
about why we stuck with our tawdry average living standard is going
per dictator for so long, and to down.
support Corazon Aquino as she
danced around coup attempts and Now a few disclaimers. Some
worked her way out of the problems things obviously have gotten better
the Marcoses had caused. since Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos
fled the country at the end of
This view of the New February last year (though most
Philippines is comforting. But after Filipinos seem to think that the
six weeks in the country I don’t think threats to the Aquino government-
it’s very realistic. Americans would of which the worst was the bloody
like to believe that the only colony August coup attempt – imperil such
we ever had – a country that progress as the country has made).
modeled its institutions on ours and Not so much money is being sucked
still cares deeply about its relations out at the top. More people are free
with the United States – is to say what they like about the
progressing under our wing. It’s government, without being thrown in
not, for reasons that go far beyond jail. Not so many peasants are
what the Marcoses did or stole. The having their chickens stolen by
countries that surround the underpaid soldiers foraging for food,
Philippines have become the world’s although the soldiers, whose pay has
most famous showcases for the been increased, are still woefully
impact of culture on economic short on equipment and supplies.
development. Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, Singapore – all are short The economy has stopped
on natural resources but all (as their shrinking, as it had been doing in the
officials never stop telling you) have late Marcos years, and some rich
clawed their way up through hard Filipinos have brought capital back
study and hard work. Unfortunately home. I was not in the Philippines
for its people, the Philippines during the Marcos era and can’t
illustrates the contrary: that culture compare the atmosphere firsthand,
can make a naturally rich country but everyone says that the bloodless

______________________________________________________________________
dethroning of Marcos gave Filipinos and preparing for another almost
new dignity and pride. Early this nonstop since early last year.
year, on the first anniversary of the Election disputes have returned too.
“EDSA revolution” (named for For three months after the legislative
Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, elections last May, long recounts
where many of the crucial events dragged on to determine whether
took place), television stations ran Juan Ponce Enrile, Marcos’s former
round-the-clock replays of all the Defense Minister, whose switch to
most emotional moments; the nuns’ Aquino helped topple Marcos, would
attempts to protect the ballot boxes, get one of the twenty-four seats in
the defection of Marcos’s two main the Senate. Senators are elected
military supporters, Juan Ponce nationwide, in what often resembles
Enrile and Fidel Ramos, the abortive a popularity contest. Among the
swearing-in of Marcos, his sudden new senators is a Charles Bronson-
disappearance in an American style action-movie star; Enrile is
helicopter. It was inspirational and about as well known as the actor,
moving and heroic, and as late as and though he has made many
this summer, just before the enemies, most foreigners I spoke
attempted coup, some of the same with found it hard to believe that in
atmosphere remained. Filipinos are an honest vote count he would have
famous for their love of religious lost to everyone on Aquino’s list of
icons. A visitor would have to be nominees, which included a number
blind not to see the religious element of newcomers and nobodies. Finally,
in Corazon Aquino’s public role. in August, he squeaked in as number
Stores sell small Cory dolls with twenty-four.
bright yellow dresses and round-
rimmed glasses. They’re not exactly Democracy has unleashed a
icons, but I’ve seen them displayed Philippine press so varied and
in homes and cars as if they were. licentious as to make even
Even when beginning to grumble Americans feel nervous-or rather, to
about her government, many recall standing in grocery check-out
Filipinos speak of Cory’s goodness, lines looking at Midnight and Star.
patience, and piety in tones that Newspapers are always starting up
suggest they think of her as a and closing, but at any given time
secular, widowed Blessed Virgin, and Manila has at least twenty dailies,
as the only person with even the most of them in English. Each paper
potential to hold the country features its stable of hardworking
together. star columnists, any of whom is
capable of turning out 2,000 to
Democracy has returned to 3,000 words of political commentary
the Philippines, in a big way. As if to and inside gossip-the equivalent of a
make up for all the years when they whole American op-ed page-in a
could not vote, Filipinos have been single day. Philippine politics has a
analyzing the results of one election small-town feel, because so many of

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James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
the principals have known one Koreans (or the Japanese, or now
another all their lives. This adds to even the Thais), and in the other a
the velocity and intensity of gossip- culture that pulls many Filipinos
especially the rumors of impending toward their most self-destructive,
coups, which have cropped up every self-defeating worst.
week or ten days since Aquino took
power, and which preoccupy political The Post Kleptocratic Economy
Manila the way scandals preoccupy
Washington. Consider first the overall
economic picture. Officials in both
One final disclaimer; it can South Korea and the Philippines have
seem bullying or graceless for an pointed out to me that in the mid-
American to criticize the Philippines. 1960s, when the idealistic (as he
Seen from Manila, the United States then seemed) Ferdinand Marcos
is strong and rich. Seen from began his first term as President, the
anywhere, the Philippines is troubled two countries were economically
and poor. Why pick on people who even with each other, with similar
need help? The Filipino ethic of per capita incomes of a few hundred
delicadeza, their equivalent of saving dollars a year. The officials used this
face, encourages people to raise fact to make very different points.
unpleasant topics indirectly, or better The Koreans said it dramatized how
still, not to raise them at all. Out of utterly poor they used to be (“We
respect for delicadeza, or from a were like the Philippines!” said one
vague sense of guilt that the former somber Korean bureaucrat), while to
colony is still floundering, or because the Filipinos it was a reminder of a
of genuine fondness for the Filipino golden, hopeful age. It
people, the United States tolerates demonstrated, they said, that the
polite fictions about the Philippines economy had been basically robust
that it would ruthlessly puncture if until the Marcoses launched their
they concerned France or even kleptocracy. Since the 1960s, of
Mexico. I don’t pretend that my course, the Philippines has moved in
view of the Philippines is the opposite direction from many
authoritative, but I’ve never before other East Asian countries. South
been in a country where my initial Korea’s per capital annual income is
impressions were so totally at odds now about $2,500 which gives the
with the standard, comforting, let’s country a low-wage advantage over
all pull together view. It seems to Japan or the United States. That
me that the prospects for the same income makes Korea look like
Philippines are about as dismal as a land of plenty relative to the
those for, say, South Korea are Philippines, where the per capital
bright. In each case the basic income is about $600. The average
explanation seems to be culture: in income in the Manila area is much
the one case a culture that brings higher than that for the country as a
out the productive best in the whole; in many farming regions the

3
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
per capita income is about $100. some of the cartels run by Marcos’s
The government reports that about “cronies” and exposing them to
two thirds of the people in the competition. Construction and small-
country live below the poverty line, business activity were picking up.
as opposed to half in the pre-Marcos The price of copra (the country’s
era. There are technical arguments leading export) was finally rising.
about where to draw the poverty And the economy might grow by five
line, but it is obvious that most or six percent this year – more than
Filipinos lack decent houses, can’t the economies of Japan and the U.S.
afford education, in some areas are Another economist, Bernardo
short of food, and in general are Villegas, has been predicting an East
very, very poor. The official Asian-style sustained boom for the
unemployment rate is 12 percent, Philippines.
but if all the cigarette vendors,
surplus bar girls, and other Many man-on-the-street
underemployed people are taken Filipinos share a version of this view,
into account, something like half the which is that Marcos was the source
human talent in the country must be of all their problems, so his removal
unused. is itself a solution. There is some
truth to what they say, especially as
Some Filipino economists it concerns Marcos’s last ten years in
contend that the country is about to office, when he had graduated from
turn the corner, is ready to make a his earlier, nationalistic, land-reform-
new start economically as it has and-industrialization phase and
done politically. Is the world price of formed the “conjugal dictatorship”
sugar stagnant? Plantation owners with his wife.
can flood seaside sugarcane fields
and raise shrimp, which bring high Still, for all the damage
prices and for which Japan has an Marcos did, it’s nor clear that he
insatiable demand. Are American, caused the country’s economic
Japanese, and European companies problems, as opposed to intensifying
shifting their production sites them. Most of the things that now
worldwide? Why not build more of seem wrong with the economy –
the plants in the Philippines, which grotesque extremes of wealth and
believes it has a well-educated work poverty, land-ownership disputes,
force and relatively low wages. Just monopolistics industries in cozy,
before the first anniversary of the corrupt cahoots with the
EDSA revolution I spoke with Jaime government-have been wrong for
Ongpin, an intense, precise decades. When reading Philippine
businessman in his late forties, who novels or history books, I would
had become the new Finance come across a passage that
Minister. For the immediate future, resembled what I’d seen in the
he said, the trends looked good. Manila slums or on a farm. Then I
The government was breaking up would read on and discover that the

4
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
description was by an American was, of course, an ilocano, from the
soldier in the 1890, or a Filipino tough, frugal Ilocos region, in the
nationalist in the 1930s, or a foreign northwest corner of Luzon. Many of
economist in the 1950s, or a young those whom he enriched were also
politician like Ferdinand Marcos or outsiders to the old-money, old-
Benigno Aquino in the 1960s. “Here family elite that had long dominated
is a land in which a few are the country’s politics. These elite
spectacularly rich while the masses groups, often referred to in
remain abjectly poor. . . . Here is a shorthand as Makati (the name of
land consecrated to democracy but the wealthy district and business
run by an entrenched plutocracy. center of Manila), regarded Marcos
Here, too, are a people whose the way high-toned Americans
ambitions run high, but whose regarded Richard Nixon: clever and
fulfillment is low and mainly ambitious, but so uncouth.
restricted to the self-perpetuating
elite.” The precise phrasing belongs Corazon Aquino’s family, the
to Benigno Aquino, in his early days Cojuangcos, is part of this
in politics, but the thought has been landowning elite. (Their name
expressed by hundreds of others. illustrates its Hispanic pretensions.
Koreans and Japanese love to taunt Her great grandfather came from
Americans by hauling out old, China and was reportedly named Ko
pompous predictions that obviously Hwan Ko, which was gentrified into
have not come true, “made in Japan” Cojuangco. Most educated Filipinos
would always mean “shoddy.” Korea speak fluent English but in the
would “always” be poor. Hah hah stuffiest reaches of the upper class,
hah! You smug Yankees were so I was told, the residual Spanish
wrong! Leafing back through influence is so strong that it is a sign
Filipinology has the opposite effect: of greater refinement to speak
it is surprising, and depressing, to perfect Castilian Spanish.) Her
see how little has changed. husband, Benigno Aquino, was also
Because previous changes of from a famous family. Her running
government have meant so little to mate in the 1986 elections, Salvador
the Philippines, it is hard to believe Doy Laurel, is the son of Jose Laurel,
that replacing Marcos with Aquino, who was the Quisling-like President
desirable as it doubtless is, will do under the Japanese. Many of her
much besides stanching the flow of first Cabinet appointees and
crony profits out of the country. In a sponsored candidates for the Senate
sociological sense the elevation of bear old, familiar names. And so
Corazon Aquino through the EDSA when Corazon Aquino replaced
revolution should probably be seen Marcos, it was as if Katharine
not as a revolution but as the Graham, having driven Richard Nixon
restoration of the old order. from office through her newspapers,
Marcos’s rise represented the succeeded him as President – or
triumph of the nouveau riche. He Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis or Mrs.

5
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
C. Douglas Dillon III. The traditional Philippines is caught. The men had
upper class was back in its traditional worked in the Philippines for years
place. Carmen Navarro Pedrosa, a and had absorbed the ethic of
writer some of whose work was delicadeza. They did not want their
banned under Marcos, recently names, or the name of the bank they
published a debunking biography of worked for, revealed. This
Imelda Marcos. Its killing blow, in its reluctance might suggest that their
final chapters, was its assertion that views were unusually critical, which
while Imelda always pretended to be was not the case; they were
an aristocrat, Corazon Aquino really remarkable only for how concisely
was one: “Her jewels were truly they summarized what I’d heard in
heirlooms, not recent purchases other banks, in embassies, in
from Van Cleef and Arpels. She was business offices, and from a few
a true blue stocking, educated in the Philippine government officials. The
United States, and fluent in French. men ticked off the list of possibilities
She represented all that Imelda had for Philippine development and
ever aspired to.” explained the problems in each case.

Especially on my second trip Manufacturing: “there were

to the Philippines, in the summer, not many viable sectors to begin
many Filipinos told me that Aquino with, and most of them were taken
had become strangely passive in over by cronies. The industrial
office, acting as if her only task had sector is used to guarantee
been to get rid of Marcos and ride monopoly and high-tariff protection.
out the periodic coups, rumored and It’s inward-looking, believes it cannot
real. As long as she did those jobs – compete. People are used to paying
that is, stayed in office – she did not a lot for goods that are okay-to-
feel driven to do much else. Perhaps shoddy in quality. Labor costs are
she will do something to prove that actually quite high for a country at
judgment unfair; the August mutiny this stage of development. They
and preceding social unrest may should be like Sri Lanka’s but they’re
force her not only to control the like Korea’s, because union
army more tightly but also to take organizing has run far ahead of
economic problems more seriously. productivity. It’s a poor country-but
But even with the best will in the an expensive place in which to
world, she will have trouble produce. American and Japanese
dramatically improving the country’s firms have set up some electronics
prospects. assembly plants, but they’re only
buying labor, not building subsidiary
One morning this summer, as industries or anything that adds real
I stared out the window at the value.”
monsoon rain. I listened to two
foreign economists describe the Agriculture: “It’s been heavily
economic trap in which the skewed for fifty years to plantation

6
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
crops. All those traditional exports Mindanao, I watched TV one night
are down, sugar most of all. Copra and saw an ad repeated over and
is okay for the moment, but it’s over. Women wanted for
never going to expand very much. opportunities oversea.
Prawns are the only alternative Qualifications: taller than five feet
anybody can think of now.” two inches, younger than twenty
Agriculture is also nearly paralyzed one. When I took cabs in Manila,
by arguments over land ownership. the drivers routinely inquired if I
Since the Spanish days land has wanted a woman. When my wife
been concentrated in a few giant returned our children’s rented inner
haciendas, including the 17,000-acre tubes to a beach vendor at Argao,
Hacienda Luisita of the Cojuangco the vendor, a toothless old woman,
family, and no government has done asked if she was lonely in her room
much to change the pattern. “You and needed a hired companion.
could argue that real land reform
would lead to more productivity, but Resources: “Exploiting
it’s an entirely hypothetical natural resources has always been
argument,” an Australian economist the base here,” one of the
told me. “The government simply is economists said. “But they’ve taken
not going to cause a revolution in every tree they can easily get. It’s
the social structure.” Just before the not like Brazil or Borneo, with
new Congress convened, as her another fifty years to rip out the
near-dictatorial powers were about heart of the earth.” Every single day
to elapse, Aquino signed a Japanese dinners take hundreds of
generalized land-reform-should- millions of pairs of chopsticks out of
happen decree. Most observers took paper wrappers, use them for fifteen
this as an indication that land reform minutes, and throw them away.
would not happen, since the decree Most of the chopsticks started out as
left all the decisions about the when, trees in the Philippines though more
where, and how of land reform to and more of them now come from
the landowner-heavy Congress. American forests. The Philippines
has more naturally spectacular
Services and other industries: mountains and vistas than Malaysia
“They’re very much influenced by or Indonesia, but you can travel for
the political climate. I think this has miles in the countryside and mainly
tremendous potential as a tourist see eroding hillsides stripped bare of
country-it’s so beautiful. But they trees. Like Americans who speak of
don’t have many other ways to sell “conquering” the frontier, Filipinos
their labor, except the obvious one.” sometimes take a more romantic
The obvious one is the sex business, view of what “taking every tree” can
visible in every part of the country mean. F. Sionil Jose, a prominent
and indeed throughout Asia, where novelist in his early sixties, who grew
Filipino “entertainers” are common. up in Ilocos, has written a famous
In Davao, on the southern island of five-volume saga-the Rozales novels-

7
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
about the migration from the harsh
Ilocos region to the fertile plains of “And then you have
central Luzon. The Ilocano migrants population growth, which is closer to
made a new life for themselves he three percent than two-point-five,
observes, and they did it by cutting even though the government says
down the jungle and planting rice. two-point-two. The population could
“There is some hope with minerals go over a hundred million in fifteen
and gold,” one of the economists years. Since the economy doesn’t
said. Indeed, a Forty-nine-style grow that fast, the per capital
gold rush is now under way in income keeps going down.” Most
Mindanao. I was told that people I met in the Philippines asked
communist rebels, Moslem me how many children I had. When
separatists, and former Philippine I told them, the normal response
Army soldiers now work side by side was, “Only two!” By the end of my
in the gold mines, proving that stay I was experimenting, raising the
economic development can be the number to test the response. “Only
answer to political problems. six!” a priest said on my last day.

The economists went on: The economist concluded, “All

“Geographically, the country is in all, you’d have to say it’s a
fractured beyond belief. The most worrisome situation.”
controllable area is right around
Manila, but beyond that the The Meaning of Smoky Mountain
government’s writ has never run
very far. “ For instance, the You’d have to say something
newspapers that blanket Manila have more than that. Most of the time I
virtually no circulation in the rest of spent in the Philippines, I walked
the country: among a population of around feeling angry-angry at myself
55 million, the combined readership when I brushed off the latest platoon
of all twenty plus daily papers is of child beggars, angry at the
about five million. “The education beggars when I did give in, angry at
system has run down terribly.” The the rich Filipinos for living behind
Philippines spends about one eighth high walls and guardhouses in the
as much money per student as fortified Makati compounds
Malaysia does. Free education runs euphemistically called villages, angry
only through the lower grades, and as I picked my way among piles of
after that the annual fee of $10 a human feces left by homeless
student keeps enrollment down to 50 families living near the Philippine
percent. “The fifteen to twenty Navy headquarters on Roxas
billion dollars that Marcos creamed Boulevard, angry at a society that
off has had a big effect. There’s a had degenerated into a war of every
kind of corruption that just recycles man against every man.
the money, but all this was taken
out.

8
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
 It’s not the mere fact of when I say mass. The smell makes
poverty that makes the Philippines you deaf as it hits you like a blow to
so distressing, since some other the solar plexus.”
Asian countries have lower living
standards. China for instance, is on The significance of Smoky
the whole much poorer than the Mountain, though, is not how bad it
Philippines, and China’s human is but how good. People live and
beasts of burden, who pull huge work in the garbage heap, and say
oxcarts full of bricks down streets in they feel lucky to do so. Smoky
Shanghai or Beijing, must have lives Mountain is the center of an
that are among the hardest on the elaborate scavenging and recycling
planet. But Philippine poverty seems industry, which has many tiers and
more degrading, for reasons I will try many specialized functional groups.
to illustrate through the story of As night falls in Manila, hundreds of
“Smoky Mountain.” scavengers, nearly all men, start
walking out from smoky Mountain
Smoky Mountain is, I will pushing big wooden carts – about
admit, something of a cliché, but it eight feet long and shaped like
helps illustrate an important and children’s wagons – in front of them.
non-clichéd point. The “mountain” is They spend all night crisscrossing
an enormous heap of garbage, forty the town, picking through the
acres in size and perhaps eighty feet curbside garbage dumps and looking
high, in the port district north of for the most valuable items: glass
Manila, and it is home to some bottles and metal cans. At dawn
15,000 Filipinos. The living they push their carts back to Smoky
conditions would seem to be Mountain, where they sell what
miserable: the smell of a vast city’s they’ve found to middlemen, who
rotting garbage is so rank and own fleets of carts and bail out their
powerful that I could not breathe suppliers if they get picked up by the
through my nose without gagging. I police in the occasional crackdowns
did finally retch when I felt my foot on vagrancy.
sink into something soft and saw
that I’d stepped on a discarded half- Other scavengers work the
full blood transfusion bag from the garbage over once city trucks have
hospital, which was now emitting a collected it and brought it in. Some
dark, clotted ooze. “I have been look for old plastic bags, some for
going to the dumpsite for over ten rubber, some for bones that can be
years now and I still have not gotten ground up for animal feed. In the
used to the smell,” Father Benigno late afternoon at Smoky Mountain I
Beltran, a young Mod Squad style could easily imagine I’d had my
Dominican priest who works in preview of hell. I stood on the
Smoky Mountain, has written. “The summit, looking into the lowlands
place becomes infested with millions where trucks kept bringing new
of flies that often get into the chalice garbage and several bulldozers were

9
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
at work, plowing through heaps of Mountain complain about land-
old black garbage. I’d of course tenure problems-they want the city
heard of spontaneous combustion to give them title to the land on
but had never believed in it until I which they’ve built their shacks – but
saw the old garbage steam and the one or two dozen I spoke with
smoke as it was exposed to the air. seemed very cheerful about their
Inches behind the bulldozers, community and their lives. Father
sometimes riding in the scoops, were Beltran, the young Dominican, has
about fifteen or twenty little children worked up a thriving business
carrying baskets, as if at the beach. speaking about Smoky Mountain to
They darted among the machines foreign audiences, and has used the
and picked out valuables that had lecture fees to pay for a paved
been newly revealed. “It’s hard to basketball court, a community-center
get them to go to school,” a man in building, and, of course, a church.
his mid twenties who live there told As I trudged down from the summit
me. “They can make twenty, thirty of the mountain, having watched
pesos a day this way” - $1 to $1.50. little boys dart among the bulldozers,
“Here the money is so good.” I passed the community center. It
was full of little girls, sitting in a
The residents of Smoky circle and singing nursery school
Mountain are mainly Visayans, who songs with glee. If I hadn’t come at
have come from the Visayas region the last minute, I would have
of the central Philippines – Leyte, suspected Father Beltran of putting
Negros, Cebu – over the past twenty on a Potemkin Village show.
years. From time to time the
government, in embarrassment, has The bizarre good cheer of
attempted to move them off the Smoky Mountain undoubtedly says a
mountain, but they have come back: lot about the Filipinos’ spiritual
the money is so good compared with resilience. But like the sex industry,
the pay for anything else they can which is also fairly cheerful, it says
do. A real community has grown up something depressing about the
in the garbage dump, with the tight other choices people have. When I
family bonds that hold together was in one of the countless squatter
other Filipino barangays, or villages in Manila, talking with people
neighborhoods. About 10 percent of who had built houses out of plywood
the people who live in Smoky and scavenged sheet metal, and who
Mountain hold normal, non- lived eight to a room, I assumed it
scavenger jobs elsewhere in Manila; must be better to be poor out in the
they commute. The young man who countryside, where at least you had
guided me had just graduated from some space and clean air to breathe.
college with an engineering degree, Obviously, I was being romantic.
but he planned to stay with his Back home there was no way to earn
family, in Smoky Mountain, after he money, and even in Smoky Mountain
found a job. The people of Smoky people where only a four-cent

10
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
jeepney ride away from the table and waving a fan back and
amusements of the big city. forth to drive off any flies. As we
ate, I noticed a strange rat-a-tat
In Smoky Mountain and the sound from inside the house, as if
other squatter districts, I couldn’t several reporters had set up a city
help myself: try as I would not to, I room and were pounding away on
kept dwelling on the contrast with old Underwoods. When we finished
the other extreme of Filipino life, the our dessert and went inside, I saw
wealthy one. The contrast is the explanation. Another two or
relatively hard to see in Manila itself, three uniformed servants were
since so much of the town’s wealth stationed inside the cathedral like
is hidden, literally walled up in the living room, incessantly twitching
fortified “villages.” But one day, their flyswatters against the walls.
shortly after I’d listened to
scavengers explain why some grades The War of Every Man Against
of animal bone were worth more on Every Man
the resale market than others,. I
tagged along with a friend and Am I shooting fish in a barrel?
visited one of Manila’s rich young Sure-you could work up an even
families in the mountains outside starker contrast between Park
town. Avenue and the South Bronx. But
that would mean only that the
To enter the house we had to United States and the Philippines
talk our way past a rifleman at the share a problem not that extremes
gate-a standard fixture not only of of wealth and poverty are no
upper class areas of Manila but also problem at all. In New York and a
of banks, office buildings, few other places the extremes are so
McDonald’s-and then follow a long, visible as to make many Americans
twisting driveway to a mountaintop uneasy about the every-man-for-
palace. The family was, of course, himself principle on which our
from old money; they were also well society is based. But while the
educated, public spirited, sincere. South Bronx is an American problem,
But I spent my day with them in an few people would think of it as
ill-concealed stupor, wandering from typical of America. In the Philippines
room to room and estimating how the contrasting extremes are, and
many zillions of dollars had been have been, the norm.
sunk into the art, furniture, and
fixtures. We ate lunch on the patio, What has created a society in
four maids in white dresses standing which people feel fortunate to live in
at attention a few paces off, each a garbage dump because the money
bearing a platter of food and ready is so good? Where some people
to a respond instantly when we shoo flies away from others for 300
wanted more. Another maid stood pesos, or $15, a month? It can’t be
behind my chair, leaning over the any inherent defect in the people;

11
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
outside this culture they thrive. come to identify the term with the
Filipino immigrants to the United tiny-country excesses of the United
States are more successful than Nations. Nationalism can of course
immigrants from any other countries. be divisive, when it sets people of
Filipino contract laborers, working for one country against another. But its
Japanese and Korean construction absence can be even worse, if that
companies, built many of the hotels, leaves people in the grip of loyalties
ports, and pipelines in the Middle that are even narrower and more
East. “These are the same people fragmented. When a country with
who shined under the Japanese extreme geographic, tribal, and
manager,” Blas Ople, a veteran social-class differences, like the
politician, told me. “But when they Philippines, has only a weak
work for Filipino contractors, the offsetting sense of national unity, its
schedule lags.” It seems unlikely public life does become the war of
that the problem is capitalism itself, every man against every man.
even though Philippine Marxists
argue endlessly that it grinds up the Nationalism is valuable when
poor to feed the rich. If capitalism it gives people a reason not to live in
were the cause of Philippine the world of Hobbes-when it allows
underdevelopment, why would its them to look beyond themselves
record be so different everywhere rather than pursuing their own
else in the region? In Japan, Korea, interests to the ruination of everyone
Singapore, and elsewhere Asian style else. I assume that most people in
capitalism has not only led to trade the world have the same mixture of
surpluses but also created Asia’s first selfish and generous motives; their
real middle class. Chinese culture tell them when to indulge
economists can’t call what they’re each impulse. Japan is strong in
doing capitalism, but they can go on large part because its nationalist
for hours about how “market racial ethic teaches each Japanese
reforms” will lead to a better life for that all other Japanese deserve
most people. decent treatment. Non-Japanese fall
into a different category. Individual
If the problem in the Filipinos are at least as brave, kind,
Philippines does not lie in the people and noble-spirited as individual
themselves or, it would seem, in Japanese, but their culture draws the
their choice between capitalism and boundaries of decent treatment
socialism, what is the problem? I much more narrowly. Filipinos pride
think it is cultural, and that it should themselves on their lifelong loyalty
be thought of as a failure of to family, schoolmates, compadres,
nationalism. members of the same tribe,
residents of the same barangay.
It may seem perverse to wish The mutual tenderness among the
for more nationalism in any part of people of Smoky Mountain is enough
the Third World. Americans have to break your heart. But when

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James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
observing Filipino friendships I public good. Practically everything
thought often of the Mafia families that is public in the Philippines
portrayed in The Godfather: total seems neglected or abused. On
devotion to those within the circle, many street corners in downtown
total war on those outside. Because Manila an unwary step can mean a
the boundaries of decent treatment broken leg. Holes two feet square
are limited to the family or tribe, and five feet deep lurk just beyond
they exclude at least 90 percent of the curb; they are supposed to be
the people in the country. And covered by metal grates, but
because of this fragmentation-this scavengers have taken the grates to
lack of nationalism people treat each sell for scrap. Manila has a
other worse in the Philippine than in potentially beautiful setting, divided
any other Asian country I have seen. by the Pasig River and fronting on
Manila Bay. But three fourths of the
Like many other things I am city’s sewage flows raw into the
saying here, this judgment would be Pasig, which in turns empties into
hotly disputed by most Filipinos. the bay; the smell of Smoky
Time and again I heard in interviews Mountain is not so different from the
about the Filipino people’s love of smell of some of the prettiest public
reconciliation and proudly vistas. The Philippine telephone
nationalistic spirit. The EDSA system is worse than its counterparts
revolution seems emotionally so anywhere else in non-communist
important in the Philippines not only Asia which bogs down the country’s
because it got rid of Marcos but also business and inconveniences its
because it demonstrated a brave, people but the Philippine Long
national-minded spirit. I would like Distance Telephone Company has a
to agree with the Filipinos that those long history of high (and not
four days revealed the country’s reinvested) profits. In the first class
spiritual essence. To me, though the dining room aboard the steamer to
episode seems an exception, even Cebu, a Filipino at the table next to
an aberration. mine picked through his plate of fish.
Whenever he found a piece he didn’t
For more than a hundred like, he pushed it off the edge of his
years certain traits have turned up in plate, onto the floor. One case of
domestic descriptions and foreign bad manners? Maybe, but I’ve never
observation of Philippine society. seen its like in any other country.
The tradition of political corruption Outsiders feel they have understood
and cronyism, the extremes of something small but significant
wealth and poverty, the tribal about Japan’s success when they
fragmentation, the local elite’s watch a bar man carefully wipe the
willingness to make a separate condensation off a bottle of beer and
profitable peace with colonial powers twirl it on the table until the label
all reflect a feeble sense of faces the customer exactly. I felt I
nationalism and a contempt for the had a glimpse into the failures of the

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James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
Philippines when I saw prosperous wealth. The mainly Malay culture
looking matrons buying cake and with which the Spanish interacted
donuts in a bakery, eating them in a was different from the Aztec and
department store, and dropping the other Indian cultures in Latin
box and wrappers around them as America; for instance, societies
they shopped. throughout the Malay regions
It’s easy to observe that (including what are now Indonesia
Japan’s habits are more useful and Malaysia) are usually described
economically than those of the as being deferential to their leaders,
Philippines, but it’s harder to figure passive rather than rebellious.
out exactly where the destructive Perhaps for this reason the
habits come from. The four hundred Philippines has not overthrown its
years that the Philippines spent clergy or its landed elite in the
under Spain’s thumb obviously left a twentieth century, the way most
lasting imprint: at first glance the Latin American countries have tried
country seems to have much more in to do.
common with Mexico than with any
other place in Asia. The Spanish But for all that might be said
hammered home the idea of Filipino about the Spanish legacy, the major
racial inferiority, discouraging the outside influence on the modern
native indios from learning the Philippines is clearly the United
Spanish language and refusing to States. America prevented the
consecrate them as priests. (The Filipinos from consummating their
Spanish are also said to have rebellion against Spain. In 1898 the
forbidden the natives to wear United States intervened to fight the
tucked-in shirts, which is why the Spanish and then turned around and
national shirt, the barong tagalog, is fought the Filipino nationalists, too.
now worn untucked, in a rare flash It was a brutal guerrilla war, in
of national pride.) As in Latin which some half million Filipino
America, the Spanish friars taught soldiers and civilians died. Losing an
that religion was a matter of ugly, war has its costs, as we
submission to doctrine and authority; learned in Vietnam; but winning, as
rather than of independent thought in the Philippines, does too. In
or gentleness to strangers in daily opposing our policy in the
life. And the Spanish rulers set the Philippines, William James said, “We
stage for the country’s economic are puking up everything we believe
problems in the twentieth century, in.” His seems a prescient comment
by giving out huge haciendas to about the war, especially compared
royal favorites and consigning others with President William McKinley’s
to work as serfs. As in Latin announcement that conquest was
America, the Spanish thereby necessary to “Christianize” a country
implanted the idea that “success” that in ironic point of fact was
meant landed, idle (that is, non- already overwhelmingly Catholic.
entrepreneurial or commercial)

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James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
 In its brief fling with running a businesses, providing the second
colony, America undeniably brought largest payroll in the country at U.S.
some material benefits to the military bases. But in unmeasurable,
Philippines: schools, hospitals, laws, intangible ways it seems to have
and courts. Many older Filipinos still eroded confidence even further,
speak with fondness about the leaving Filipinos to believe that they
orderly old colonial days. But aren’t really responsible for their
American rule seemed only to country’s fate. Whether I was
intensify the Filipino sense of talking with Marcos-loving right
dependence. The United States wingers or communists who hated
quickly earned or bought the loyalty the United States, whether the
of the ilustrados, the educated upper discussion was about economics or
class, making them into what we the U.S. bases or the course of the
would call collaborationists as if the guerrilla war, most of my
Germans or Japanese had received conversations in the Philippines
their favors. It rammed through a ended on the same discouraging
number of laws insisting on free note. “Of course, it’s not really up to
“competition” between American us,” soldier or politician or
and Philippine industries, at a time communist would tell me “We have
when Philippine industries were in no to wait and see what the Americans
position to compete with anyone. have in mind.”
The countries that have most
successfully rebuilt their economies, In deeper and more
including Japan and Korea, went pernicious ways Filipinos seem to
through extremely protectionist have absorbed the idea that America
infant-industry phases, with is the center and they are the
America’s blessing; the United States periphery. Much local advertising
never permitted the Philippines such plays to the idea that if it’s
a period. The Japanese and Koreans American, it’s better. “It’s got that
now believe they can take on stateside taste!” one grinning blonde
anybody; the confidence of Filipino model says in a whiskey ad. An ad
industrialists seems to have been for Ban deodorant warns, “Hold IT!
permanently destroyed. Is your deodorant making your skin
dark?” The most glamorous figures
During the Second World War, on TV shows are generally light-
Filipinos fought heroically against the skinned and sound as if they grew
Japanese, both before and after the up in Los Angeles. I spoke with a
fall of Corregidor brought on the black American who said that the
American surrender of the yearning toward “white” culture
Philippines, in early 1942. Following resembled what he remembered
the war the United States “gave” the about the black bourgeoisie of the
Philippines its independence and was 1950s. College or graduate
in most measurable ways its education in America is a mark of
benefactor: offering aid, investing in social distinction for Filipinos, as it is

15
James Fallows – A Damaged Culture
for many other Asians. But while people still in the Philippines-there
U.S. trained Taiwanese and Korean are 55 million of them, where would
technocrats return to improve they go?-and it’s hard to know what
factories and run government else, within our lifetimes, the answer
ministries, many Filipinos seem to might be.
consider the experience a purely
social achievement, a trip to finishing America knows just what it
school. will do to defend Corazon Aquino
against usurpers, like those who
“This is a country where the planned the last attempted coup.
national ambition is to change your We’ll say that we support a
nationality,” an American who democratically chosen government,
volunteers at Smoky Mountain told that this one is the country’s best
me. The U.S. Navy accepts 400 hope, that we’ll use every tool from
Filipino recruits each year; last year economic aid to public-relations
100,000 people applied. In 1982, in pressure to help her serve out her
a survey, 207 grade school students term. But we might start thinking
were asked what nationality they ahead, to what we’ll do if the anti-
would prefer to be. Exactly ten coup campaign is successful-to what
replied “Filipino.” “There is not will happen when Aquino stays in,
necessarily a commitment by the and the culture doesn’t change, and
upper class to making the everything gets worse.
Philippines successful as a nation,” a
foreign banker told me. “If things ___________
get dicey, they’re off, with their
money.” “You are dealing here with In: The Atlantic Monthly. November
a damage culture,” four people told 1987 pp. 49-58.
me, in more or less the same words,
in different interviews.

It may be too pessimistic to

think of culture as a kind of large-
scale genetics, channeling whole
societies toward progress or
stagnation. A hundred years ago
not even the crusading Emperor
Meiji would have dreamed that
“Japanese culture” would come to
mean “efficiency.” America is full of
people who have changed their
“culture” by moving away from the
old country or the home town or the
farm. But a culture-breaking change
of scene is not an answer for the

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James Fallows – A Damaged Culture