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The roots of Filipino indiscipline

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Updated October 20, 2016, 5:42 PM
By Alfredo N. Mendoza V

Illustration by Oteph Antipolo

While the Philippines is known the world over for its warm, friendly people, thanks to social
media, foreigners have recently caught up on how Filipinos really are among themselves, how
they run their country, and how they live their lives without, ah, filters.

Only real Filipinos who’ve lived long enough, however, would agree that the Filipino is his own
worst enemy. And this is especially true when we talk of discipline—something that Filipinos
seem to lack or take for granted. Ironically, discipline is often the card Filipinos play when they
want things to go their way.

If you sit and pass the time in a public place in Manila and try to observe everything at face value,
it’s very likely that you’ll see more than one thing that’s amiss—a broken or erratic stoplight,
columns of cars not giving way to each other, waves of jaywalkers, deteriorated public utilities,
illegally parked cars—and these are only just some of the manifestations of Filipino indiscipline.

But can we really blame ourselves for being ourselves? Are we really innately ill-mannered and
ill-disciplined as a people, or did historical circumstances turn us into what we’ve become today?

Social aspect

While it can be considered an individual matter, lack of discipline can also be traced to several
social factors. Crescencio Doma Jr., a sociologist from University of Santo Tomas (UST),
explained that all attitudes and human behavior developed as a reaction to certain stimuli from the
environment.

“Impatience is basically a reaction to a dysfunction in a given [social] system. People become

impatient only when their needs are not satisfied at a given time. At the same time, it can be
traced to the absence of clear policies and implementing rules that would ensure a positive
response from people towards law,” said Doma.
An example would be the simple act of falling in line. How often have we experienced being cut
by someone else in front of the line? How many times have we done it ourselves? Doma explained
that people have a passive and lax attitude toward laws because they don’t consider certain
offenses as “serious.” Instead, they think of these infractions simply as “agreeable” offenses
similar to “white lies.” That also explains why Filipinos abroad seem to be disciplined—because
in other countries, offenses, whether small or large, are generally frowned upon and are no way
“agreeable” or acceptable.

“Laziness, on the other hand, is a reaction to the inability of the [social] structure to provide the
needed opportunities where one can fully exercise or make use of his or her capacities,” said
Doma, a former chair of the Sociology Department of UST’s Faculty of Arts and Letters.

He added that laziness can be attributed to the bahala na and mañana attitudes, fatalistic and
uniquely Filipino responses that are seriously unprofessional and counter-productive. Laziness
and impatience make for a bad mix when paired with other negative Filipino attitudes like
“Filipino time,” ningas-cogon, and the one-day millionaire attitude, also known as ubos-ubos
biyaya, bukas nakatunganga attitude.

“Philippine society lacks a strong sense of role modeling. While we do not discredit the good
examples shown by some people in the past as well as today, we cannot deny the fact that there are
glaring incidents that would show people that ignoring laws or socially acceptable practices will
do them no good,” said Doma, who’s currently based in the United Arab Emirates as an
administrative assistant of a leading hospital in Abu Dhabi.

According to the Social Learning Theory, a treatise of Stanford University’s Albert Bandura, one
of the pioneers of behavioral and social psychology, an individual learns through various direct
methods, but primarily through observation of models.

“Most of the behaviors that people display are learned either deliberately or inadvertently through
the influence of example.” pp. 5, Social Learning Theory, Bandura, 1971, Stanford University.

Bandura also explained in the said treatise that people are sometimes incentive-motivated
individuals who perform acts based on what they know would be most beneficial to them—in the
case of Filipino jaywalking, convenience, corruption, easy money without too much labor.

Indolence through Rizal’s eyes

Our national hero was undoubtedly patriotic, but what made him really intelligent wasn’t only his
education and aptitude, but also his common sense. Filipinos’ lack of discipline isn’t a new
dilemma. In fact, Jose Rizal himself, a social scientist in his time, noted and agreed that Filipinos
were indeed indolent, but emphasized that the reason behind such indolence was the Spanish
colonizers themselves.

“We must confess that indolence does actually and positively exist there; only that, instead of
holding it to be the cause of the backwardness and the trouble, we regard it as the effect of the
trouble and the backwardness, by fostering the development of a lamentable predisposition,” Rizal
wrote.

La Indolencia de los Filipinos (The Indolence of the Filipinos), a political essay Rizal wrote for
the La Solidaridad in response to Dr. Gregorio Sanciano y Goson’s El Progreso de Filipinas, and
which was one of the highlights of the Reformista Movement, explained that climate, colonialism,
and endless war were the causes of Filipinos’ indolence.

“A hot climate requires of the individual quiet and rest, just as cold incites to labor and action. For
this reason the Spaniard, is more indolent than the Frenchman; the Frenchman more so than the
German. How do they [Europeans] live in tropical countries? Surrounded by a numerous train of
servants, never going afoot but riding in a carriage, needing servants not only to take off their
shoes for them but even to fan them!” Rizal wrote.

As a physician, Rizal particularly noted that the hot tropical climate was one of the many
biological factors in fostering laziness.

“An hour’s work under that burning sun, in the midst of pernicious influences springing from
nature in activity, is equal to a day’s work in a temperate climate; it is, then, just that the earth
yield a hundred fold!” he said.

Colonialism and endless war, however, were the real cause of Filipino indolence, and may be
considered as the root of all Filipino bad habits and lack of discipline. Rizal explained that the
comparatively primitive native tribes of the Philippines eventually grew tired after centuries of
fighting the technologically advanced Spanish conquistadors and that they eventually capitulated
and accepted assimilation—religiously and politically.

Rizal explained that it was much easier to be at peace with the Spanish than to wage a hopeless
war against them—where resources and lives were wasted in vain. For some reason, this mindset
eventually transpired into modern-day laziness—the mañana habit.

The momentum, however, changed when Filipinos collectively took up arms and expelled the
Spanish in the Philippine Revolution, only to be again assimilated afterward by the Americans in a
manner which was similar to the Spanish before—with indolence.
Filipino time

Being late for work or for any occasion has become a habit among Filipinos that it eventually
became agreeable to be late. In fact, some offices or companies in the Philippines take or mandate
grace periods or flexi-time seriously.

But what is the root cause of Filipino time? According to Mitch Valcos, a marketing professional
from Manila, Filipino time has become quite acceptable that it has become a constant excuse.

“Filipino time became an excuse to console people who became late often. I think the only way to
solve this is for us to value time more and realize what is at stake when we do not follow
schedules and agreements or go to work early,” Valcos said.

But according to Kristelle Ann Batchelor, a Filipino writer currently based in California, the cause
of Filipino time is circumstantial.

“Traffic is a daily problem in the Philippines, and I think it’s the most severe in the world. I think
that this, among other factors that test our patience every day, influences our mindset of how we
respect time. I think if we had things easy in our country we wouldn’t be reluctant to follow the
law and embody good principles,” said Batchelor.

But until we start recognizing the rights of others, and go through toil, sacrifice, and hardship like
what leading countries today went through before, we will never go far as a nation.

We can no longer play the victim-of-colonialism card. We have won our freedom. We are not
lacking in laws. Our aspirations are pretty clear. It’s now our prerogative to choose from being a
disciplined or an undisciplined people. Rizal further said in La Indolencia de los Filipinos that the
only way for us to shed our indolence and indiscipline is to acquire a love for work, and to work
for others, with others.

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