#ThrowbackThursdays: When Values Education Tend to Teach Children to Patronize Local Products First Because They're Local
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| High School Philippine History Movement |
I was afraid I would be running out of ideas. I wanted to recall some businesses that closed down such as Nova Fontana (my once favorite toy store), Alyssa Caramel (my favorite candy store), El Loco (which used to open at IT Park), etc. Now, I decided to focus on remembering my childhood and values education. Values education is supposed to teach proper manners and good conduct. However, values education tends to become a propaganda tool of the National Economic Protectionist Association (NEPA) to justify Carlos P. Garcia's erroneous Filipino First Policy. However, the whole policy really helped cause the Philippines to fail. Its very idea of Garcia is that majority of the economic participants had to be Filipinos. It might sound good in theory but it wouldn't work with how the late Lee Kuan Yew would put it.
Apparently, Garcia has never learned the consequences of protectionism from history--whether it'd be the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the Great Depression, and the Second World War which were all also fueled by economic protectionism. A sad tale really that the AXIS Powers may have been defeated but protectionism still goes on. Did you know Adolf Hitler was also a protectionist? Hitler had his "German first" policy which he protected local businesses from foreign competition. Hitler also antagonized the Jews also for being better businessmen. In the Philippines, there was also much discrimination against Chinese migrants who worked as merchants who came from the once-poor China. China used to send maids to other countries. Now, the Philippines is sending workers and maids to China. Instead of looking at them as opportunities to grow the nation--they were feared. That kind of xenophobia also contributed to why Hitler was a bad economist. Hitler soon had no choice but to invade Europe to get more resources. Did Garcia learn from it or did he have ulterior motives behind it? I can't be sure but Garcia's decision would soon backfire badly throughout the decades.
Yet, Garcia was given a heroes' burial at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani (Graveyard of the Heroes). In fact, Filipino First was taught in values education. I could remember how I was in elementary and it was taught in the Civics and Culture subject (which was taught as Sibika At Kultura which is the Tagalog term for it). We had silly ideals such as the Philippines is the "best nation in the world" or as Hilario Davide Jr. says, "The 1987 Constitution of the Philippines is the best constitution in the world." Some of Davide's claims can be easily dismissed with a Google search since the Philippines isn't the only constitution in the world that says the government is a public trust. Teaching the values in the Civics subject isn't enough--it's also further enforced in the mandatory Values Education subject.
Nationalism and patriotism aren't the same
Nationalism is often confused with patriotism. However, the difference can be shown as follows in Difference Between.Net:
Nationalism means to give more importance to unity by way of a cultural background, including language and heritage. Patriotism pertains to the love for a nation, with more emphasis on values and beliefs.
When talking about nationalism and patriotism, one cannot avoid the famous quotation by George Orwell, who said that nationalism is ‘the worst enemy of peace’. According to him, nationalism is a feeling that one’s country is superior to another in all respects, while patriotism is merely a feeling of admiration for a way of life. These concepts show that patriotism is passive by nature and nationalism can be a little aggressive.
Patriotism is based on affection and nationalism is rooted in rivalry and resentment. One can say that nationalism is militant by nature and patriotism is based on peace.
Most nationalists assume that their country is better than any other, whereas patriots believe that their country is one of the best and can be improved in many ways. Patriots tend to believe in friendly relations with other countries while some nationalists don’t.
In patriotism, people all over the world are considered equal but nationalism implies that only the people belonging to one’s own country should be considered one’s equal.
A patriotic person tends to tolerate criticism and tries to learn something new from it, but a nationalist cannot tolerate any criticism and considers it an insult.
Nationalism makes one to think only of one’s country’s virtues and not its deficiencies. Nationalism can also make one contemptuous of the virtues of other nations. Patriotism, on the other hand, pertains to value responsibilities rather than just valuing loyalty towards one’s own country.
Nationalism makes one try to find justification for mistakes made in the past, while patriotism enables people to understand both the shortcomings and improvements made.
Looking at the differences made me think why I'd consider myself a patriot than a nationalist. It's easy to confuse one for the other. It's very to say one's an ultranationalist and not have the right kind of nationalism. Though, one could think that the Nationalist Party led by Chiang Kai Shek was a patriotic one while the Communist Party led by Mao Zedong was a nationalist one. Mao's nationalism would fit well with what Orwell said namely "nationalism is a feeling that one’s country is superior to another in all respects". It could fit well with Mao's plan for a Great Leap Forward that only ended in disaster.
Remembering how the childhood values education went
The long-term consequences of teaching such values in Values Education
After several years of disheartening trial and error, we concluded that Singapore's best hope lay with the American multinational corporations (MNCs). When the Taiwanese and Hong Kong entrepreneurs came in the 1960s, they brought low technology such as textile and toy manufacturing, labor-intensive but not large-scale. American MNCs brought higher technology in large-scale operations, creating many jobs. They had weight and confidence. They believed that their government was going to stay in Southeast Asia and their businesses were safe from confiscation or war loss.I gradually crystallized my thoughts and settled on a two-pronged strategy to overcome our disadvantages. The first was to leapfrog the region, as the Israelis had done. This idea sprang from a discussion I had with a UNDP expert who visited Singapore in 1962. In 1964, while on a tour of Africa, I met him again in Malawi. He described to me how the Israelis, faced with a more hostile environment than ours, had found a way around their difficulties by leaping over their Arab neighbors who boycotted them, to trade with Europe and America. Since our neighbors were out to reduce their ties with us, we had to link up with the developed world-America, Europe, and Japan-and attract their manufacturers to produce in Singapore and export their products to the developed countries.The accepted wisdom of development economists at the time was that MNCs were exploiters of cheap land, labor, and raw materials. This "dependency school" of economists argued that MNCs continued the colonial pattern of exploitation that left the developing countries selling raw materials to and buying consumer goods from the advanced countries. MNCs controlled technology and consumer preferences and formed alliances with their host governments to exploit the people and keep them down. Third World leaders believed this theory of neocolonialist exploitation, but Keng Swee and I were not impressed. We had a real-life problem to solve and could not afford to be conscribed by any theory or dogma. Anyway, Singapore had no natural resources for MNCs to exploit. All it had were hard-working people, good basic infrastructure, and a government that was determined to be honest and competent. Our duty was to create a livelihood for 2 million Singaporeans. If MNCs could give our workers employment and teach them technical and engineering skills and management know-how, we should bring in the MNCs.
It would be best to call such a mentality as Third World Mentality. Why are third-world nations like that and why don't they improve? Why are their people lacking in discipline? It's because they adhere to this "accepted wisdom" that opening up the economy to foreign investment equals invasion and the like. It's common to see it in several groups such as IBON Foundation, League of Filipino Students, Kabataan Partylist, Anakbayan, Bayan Muna, and Philippine Anti-Fascist League the same lie all over again. Such a mentality stuck in the population has caused the Philippines to still dwindle. What saved the Philippines, though, was by modifying the negative list by allowing more industries to be exempt from it. The result was that we're getting more foreign services such as Grab and Foodpanda. Both services can be very helpful to the local industries. Lee knew he had the counter such stupidity from the heads of the people. The result was that Singapore went from the third-world status to first-world status.
Deng Xiaoping's quest for a better Communist China decided to modify things. Mao introduced policies that made China a failure. Mao's "values education" only made the Chinese youth grow up with ignorance. The "Great Leap Forward" only was a great leap forward to disaster. Mao's nationalistic policies only made pig iron and inferior agricultural products. Deng, the patriot, went to the USA and told them "China is open for business." Deng was an old man open to new things. Deng made his famous quote, "It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white. What matters is that it catches mice." Deng didn't care if the investors were Chinese or foreigners. What Deng cared more is that they'll bring China to the next level. I could imagine how Deng must've worn such a big smile when he saw China progress through the economic zones. So much that some people might think that the Great Leap Forward was Deng's project. Indeed, Deng ran a real Great Leap Forward to progress. Mao's nationalistic views only ended in failure for China. Mao probably swallowed his own lies in the process--lies that he used to gain power and sympathy. I guess it's only a matter of time before a person believes his own lies.
People must ask themselves this question, "Did Garcia's policy really make the Philippines better?" The answer is no. If they say yes then they must provide empirical data and proof that countries progressed through such policies. Years of rampant protectionism caused a rather slow recovery after EDSA 1986. One could go on and rant in civics classes and Philippine history classes about why the Marcos Years weren't the golden years. However, I'm afraid it's often failed to mention that protectionism was rampant causing inflation. It's because inflation is caused by the shortage of supply and high demand for what's short in supply. The law of supply and demand says when demand is high and supply is low--prices will go up. Instead, be a patriot who will accept foreign investment for the development of the national industry. The economy must be opened up while subjecting foreign investors to reasonable regulations. They can operate without a Filipino partner but they can't buy land (but they can still lease land), they need to follow labor laws, pay taxes, and pay their suppliers. They will get rich but only based on Net Income After Taxes. Garcia's policy must be thrown to where it belongs--in the garbage bin or flush it down the toilet like toilet paper.