What's the Use of Being a Cum Laude/Summa Cum Laude When One Doesn't Support Badly Needed Constitutional Reforms?

Just reading the Facebook news led me towards Kabataan (Youth) Partylist representative Raoul Abellar Manuel. Yes, I don't deny that Manuel himself is a summa cum laude. In a recent debate, Manuel himself said the following:

“Mr. Speaker, modesty aside, summa cum laude po ako. Hindi po ako bobo. Insulto sa kabataan na ang turing ng AFP sa ganitong mga topics ay paraan sa recruitment pupunta sa mga rebelde,” Manuel stressed.

The translation would be, "Mr. Speaker, modesty aside, I'm a summa cum laude. I'm not stupid. It's an insult by the AFP to raise these topics as a method of recruitment for rebels." I really must laugh that someone should use the appeal to authority fallacy. 

What is the appeal to authority fallacy?

Appeal to authority fallacy occurs when we accept a claim merely because someone tells us that an authority figure supports that claim. An authority figure can be a celebrity, a well-known scientist, or any person whose status and prestige causes us to respect them.

An appeal to authority (also known as an appeal to false or unqualified authority) plays on people’s feelings of respect or familiarity towards a famous person to bypass critical thinking. It’s like someone is telling us “accept this because some authority said it.”

This sort of reasoning is only fallacious when the person in question has no legitimate authority in the field of knowledge under discussion. For example, to cite Einstein in an argument about education is fallacious, while it’s perfectly legitimate to cite him in a discussion about physics.

Appeal to authority fallacy is a type of informal fallacy which means that the logical error lies in the content of the argument. Regardless of whether the claim is true or not, an appeal to authority is fallacious because it lacks sufficient evidence to support the claim. Appeal to authority, like ad hominem fallacy and genetic fallacy, is a fallacy of relevance. These fallacies appeal to evidence or examples irrelevant to the argument at hand.

I'm not going to dismiss the fact that it's difficult to enter the University of the Philippines, get into an applied mathematics course, and become cum laude. I suffered from math anxiety since childhood, I always wondered if I would never get better in mathematics, and why I wasn't good as math as some of my elders. I ended up in the "shameful courses" though it no longer mattered. I still felt some "sense of shame" when I graduated from a business course. Meanwhile, there were several Information Technology students that shifted away for commerce-related course either because it wasn't for them or they flunked. It was a good thing that when one of my high school classmates graduated cum laude in IT--the childish feud had long ended with that guy! Good thing that most of my friends who graduated cum laude weren't arrogant. In the case of Manuel, I feel the guy is very condescending based on the photos shown on Facebook as well as the way he talks. Either he knows he's lying for his own benefit or school hasn't really taught much. 

I used to blindly admire some dean's listers. However, not all dean's listers are worth admiring, and that statement came from the mind of a dean's lister himself. I was no longer after honors in college, as long as my grades weren't low. The meme above from Kabataan Partylist. I really must facedesk on how a summa cum laude could actually make such a statement. From the Economics Help website, we can read why ill-timed wage increase can cause more harm than good:

Wage Push Inflation. If labour is able to push for higher wages, despite lower growth, then we could get a combination of rising inflation, but slow growth. This is especially a problem if a country is part of the single currency. If wages rise, they become uncompetitive leading to lower demand. Therefore there is an unwelcome combination of rising prices, but lower growth. If countries were not in a single currency, the uncompetitiveness would lead to a depreciation in the exchange rate to restore competitiveness and increase demand.

It's hard to believe that someone supposedly better than I am is making this statement. That's why I wrote some time ago about having a prestigious education background while making unsound economic decisions. Are you going to dismiss my arguments immediately because I'm not a UP graduate or I didn't graduate summa cum laude like he did? I wrote an article where I talked about the credentials fallacy. The guy ends up being arrogant when he said, "I'm a cumlaude!" during the argument. Now, I'd like to give a translation for the sake of those who don't speak Tagalog. What Manuel here is saying is:

We've had decades of continuous entrance of foreign businesses into the Philippines but it has not given us a higher salary for the workers.

Actually the low wage rate of the Philippines is a good sign and appealing to the eyes of foreign businesses but the low salaries is increasing the burdens of our fellow Filipinos.

We need to address the brain and brawn drain in order so the new generation can serve or nation. The wage increase is what we need.

I wonder if this guy can truly take his claims to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Publicy Policy? In Raoul's case, did he notice that the Philippines is still actually very restrictive when it comes to FDI? There's the negative list which limits the equity of MNCs. Some industries are exempted from the negative list. However, we still have other entities that can't even enter like mass media. Can Manuel himself explain that if there's this continuous influx then why is it that the public services act had ot be amended many times? Even worse, these fools even protested agains the Public Services Act of 2022 calling it an act of imperialism. It was hilarious and irritating to listen to League of Filipino Students' member Carwyn Candila make his preposterous claims.

Based on a data in 2020 on minimum wages from the World Population Review, we can read these countries have the highest minimum wage:

1. Australia - $14.54
2. Luxembourg - $13.67
3. New Zealand - $13.18
4. Monaco - $11.88
5. Ireland - $11.54
6. France - $11.46
7. United Kingdom $11.37
8. Netherlands - $11.21
9. Belgium - $11.06
10. Germany - $10.68
11. San Marino - $10.55
12. Canada - $10.33
13. South Korea - $8.99
14. Israel - $8.17
15. Japan - $7.52
16. Spain - $7.30
17. United States $7.25
18. Andorra - $6.72
19. Slovenia - $5.84
20. Taiwan - $5.26

What do these countries have in common? Did they self-industrialize by protecting the small businesses and only opened up later on as people like Teodoro A. Casiño (and I do feel this guy is very arrogant too) would like to claim? Nope, in contrast, the testament of Singapore from the penmanship and mouth of the late Lee Kuan Yew said the following from the book From Third World to First, page 68:

Our job was to plan the broad economic objectives and the target periods within which to achieve them. We reviewed these plans regularly and adjusted them as new realities changed the outlook. Infrastructure and the training and education of workers to meet the needs of employers had to be planned years in advance. We did not have a group of readymade entrepreneurs such as Hong Kong gained in the Chinese industrialists and bankers who came fleeing from Shanghai, Canton, and other cities when the communists took over. Had we waited for our traders to learn to be industrialists we would have starved. It is absurd for critics to suggest in the 1990s that had we grown our own entrepreneurs, we would have been less at the mercy of the rootless MNCs. Even with the experienced talent Hong Kong received in Chinese refugees, its manufacturing technology level is not in the same class as that of the MNCs in Singapore. 

Those countries have higher minimum because they have more competition. Companies would compete through higher wages. Who wouldn't want to work in a company that can provide better standards of living? Would you work at a tabi tabi for a low fee for for an MNC that pays higher? That would realy be the question. Stuff in Singapore are expensive because they have higher wages. Wages are part of costing. If wages are increased then the prices of goods and services must also increase. If you want to have more workers with you, more customers buying your goods even at a higher price, then it's very important to develop a happy working environment. From TaskUs, we can also read this:

The happier an employee is towards their work, the more engaged, motivated, and better their performance is. This delivery of high-quality service combined with a positive attitude results in customer happiness and loyalty. Moreover, happy employees show increased productivity and fewer absences at work. Happier employees lead to a positive work culture that encourages healthy relationships among coworkers, improves an employee’s mental and physical well-being, and ultimately boosts a business’ profitability. 

If FDIs can provide happier employees then why not? Why have Filipino workers at the mercy of abusive Filipino businessmen if they can have better jobs with FDI? It's just plain absurd to say to yourself, "I'd rather be nationalistic by working for an abusive Filipino employer who pays me peanuts than work for a foreigner who pays me well." That's not being a service to the Philippines. That's just being plain stupid. How can one getting exploited by a fellow Filipino be beneficial to the Philippines? For all we know, that Filipino employer who pays peanuts is already guilty of several offenses, hasn't paid proper taxes, in contrast to the FDIs giving proper compensation and not committing tax evasion. Which business is then more helpful for the Philippines and the Filipino people seeking jobs? 

Sadly, this meme can also apply to even summa cumlaudes. It's very easy to get intoxicated in one's past successs that one becomes stupid in the present. It didn't matter anymore if the person even had a high grade in masters or even a doctorate. Some businessmen didn't even go to college like Bill Gates. It's not that I'm encouraging people to just drop out. Some people drop out because of misconduct and they're not successful. Meanwhile, some people didn't pursue college because they found out that they can do without out. Sure, I do need someone who went to college like a lawyer or an engineer to help me out. But if it's about learning businesses, I do feel college might've become a bigger hurdle since I never learned to invest in stocks and bonds in college. I had to self-study investing in the stock market (through UITFs) to do so. I learned more reading Warren Buffett's basic investment than I did attending my MBA classes. 

With the Philippine education system, I'm afraid that it actually focuses too much on grades than learning (read here). A person can graduate valedictorian, salulotorian, honorable mention, cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cumlaude and still be an idiot instead of a real intellectual. I never thought I'd mention it until a classmate of mine who graduated summa cum laude posted it on his wall that students cheat because the system cares more about grades than learning. It's a good thing when there are cum laudes who don't let their Latin honors blind them. However, it can get very wary to become a cum laude when the education system is really bad. Learning has become too theoretical. A good example is that it's possible to learn a lot about mathematics but never learn how it's applied. That's why I had math anxiety in high school. It was just a requirement to pass rather than a subject to cherish. Just think that I only valued trigonometry's existence after high school. People then leave their knowledge behind in school whether they graduated with honors or not.

I even wonder if cum laudes supporting economic protectionism can defend their claims in countries with better education. Maybe, they can start with the LKYSPP. Maybe, they can also go to the University of Economics-Ho Chi Minh City for a start. I'd really love to say, "But I'm a cum laude!" to these schools in countries with a better education system.