I found this meme on Facebook. Fortunately, there's already an attribution on the picture. In my case, I prefer to say, "Continuous improvement is better than expecting sudden perfection." It's because perfectionism is lethal, and we're all but human beings. As the midterm elections come in, there are still people who may either be (1) reminiscing that "perfect leader" (ex. Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, etc.) or (2) still expecting the perfect leader.
It's sad some people still believe in the old lie repeated all over again, "It's not the system that's the problem. It's the people that's the problem." They still wait for this "grand glorious leader". That's why I often joke on Facebook saying, "Why don't you create this perfect leader so I too may follow him to victory!" Of course, there's no perfect leader, and trying to genetically engineer that "perfect leader" is stupid. In fact, it's scientifically impossible to do so. If they couldn't create the perfect leader then should we, well, not change the outdated system?
Examining the logic of people who wait for "utmost perfection"
I was reminded of two fake accounts talking with each other. Out of respect for my own privacy policy, I'm not going to display the names. I even blocked out the profile pictures even if they're using cartoon characters. Anyway, I chose that one specific phrase which makes me laugh at such bad logic.
For those who couldn't understand Tagalog, I will translate it for you:
Dumbdumb animals
Their logic is that replacing the OS will improve the performance of the computer. As if the new OS isn't prone to virus, bugs, etc.
Whoever the fake account holder is, may be saying, "Let's not change the PC's operating system until we have a perfect operating system." Is the guy still using Windows 2.0, which was built on December 2, 1987? I doubt it because the person may no longer be able to access Facebook. That is, unless he plays the hypocrite card and say, "Well, I don't have a choice but to update, to survive." Well, why do you think we have to update to operating system or even change the PC? It's because the PC will eventually break down. The operating system will be rendered obsolete sooner or later. I bought a PC last 2014 and I had to change that PC last 2024. Before that, I had to get rid of my college PC in exchange for the PC last 2014.
If you think about it, newer and more powerful antiviruses will require newer PCs and newer operating systems. However, the logic of this guy who I'll probably call Dumb Doggy (because the actual profile picture, uses the picture of a dog cartoon character) is that, "We should never upgrade until we get an OS that's 100% immune ot viruses and bugs." Well, Windows 11 did have that controversial conflict with Crowdstrike. That fat bully known as Porky Madugo even joked that it's the fault of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines. I tried to convince Porky that it's simply an illustration. Of course, Pork's high pride (and high blood) always refuses to listen to reason. Maybe, according to Porky and his pals, we must have that "perfect system". Dream on is all I can say!
Should the Crowdstrike incident be a reason not to update to Windows 11 and stay with Windows 1987? Certainly not! Microsoft immediately went to check out what went wrong and to ensure it never happens again. However, it seems that Porky, Dumg Doggy, and I'll probably call another one here Stupidis (but I believe they may all be run by just one person) would say, "No! We will wait until we have that perfect software!" Never mind that if they are still using Windows 1987--they would have much worse performance than the temporary setback caused by the Crowdstrike-Windows 11 conflict! Just imagine if I still stuck with my old PC today. I would still have to deal with extreme slowdowns as most websites today, use a lot of ads! Now, I can read a lot of sites without having to use Adblockers! Back then, I had to use Adblockers because they slowed my reading experience and it was an old PC!
Instead, the focus is continuous learning leading to daily improvement
If there's anything that causes my procrastination and more failures--it's because I tend to expect for "sudden perfection". In truth, some people claim to reach perfection but they haven't. It's all a lie to make themselves feel good, until they crash so low. The tendency is to blame others. I remember dreading the idea of having to continuously learn mathematics, wishing to suddenly become perfect at it. It caused me to get mad whenever it was mathematics class, when I was in my senior year high school. Those were the K+10 days.
In business, there's always the trend of never stop learning. The late John Gokongwei Jr. understood the businesses and built an empire after his family lost their fortunes, during the war. Gokongwei Jr. could've allowed his old successes to intoxicate him. If there is one good reason why some summa cum laudes fail in life--it's because they stopped learning. If some cum laudes are successful in life, it's because they never stopped learning. If there's one reason a big business or brand fails today--it's because it relies too much on its past successes. Remember what happened to Nokia? Today, who's really using a Nokia compared to other, better mobile phones? Nokia could've still been relevant if it just embraced change soon. Gokongwei's advice is this, "Never stop learning!" Learning involves rising up and falling down--like the stock market! Nobody will reach perfection and I should stop beating myself, over not being perfect.
I was fat in 2013. However, in 2025, I'm more or less fit. Losing my double chin and having to buy a smaller-sized belt, is an improvement. I'm now using a medium-sized belt because my waistline has decreased. If I expected to be suddenly shredded (which I'm not), I would've probably been bloated with unhealthy food and a sedentary lifestyle. Whether we like to admit it or not, exercise may start for as little as 30 minutes a day before one can walk much longer distances. I started with a treadmill before my legs could take longer walks on uneven terrain. In the case of Porky, he's probably still waiting for "sudden perfection", instead of trying to do continuous improvement. I did some 30 minutes exercise then I went for an hour, or even two hours. Eventually, I started to simply do whatever exercise I could do, depending on my body condition. I'd say that doing that one hour exercise used to burn me 1,000 calories when I was fatter. However, the slimmer I got, my body started burning far less calories because my heart didn't have to pump that hard.
I'd recommend learning from Kishore Mahbubani over Atty. Hilario Davide Jr. (read why here). Sure, both know policymaking. However, the difference is that Davide thinks that the 1987 Constitution absolutely needs no amendments because it's the "best in the world". However, Mahbubani has a different approach. Mahbubani keeps learning even as what Tagalogs would call a "lolo" (grandfather). One grandfather is stuck in the good old days, namely Davide. Mahbubani is a grandfather who chooses to move forward, see what works and keep it, and what doesn't work and change it. Davide chooses to remain in the status quo. However, Mahbubani spoke out loud that Singapore will learn new things.
That's why Mahbubani said his famous quote on foreign investment. Mahbubani believed in a growth mindset, even in his old age today. Mahhubani saw that these MNCs would not just provide jobs and services. Mahbubani saw MNCs will train and develop their labor force. Davide may actually be satisfied with the status quo when he said, "Our country may have businessmen so strong because they have the money." Davide is only focused on the "sweat and blood" he put into writing the replacement constitution. Unlike Kishore, Davide is stuck with a fixed mindset.
I wanted to give up when I lost money to a scam. However, I realized that success doesn't come easy. Wisdom is never easy either. People are prone to making the wrong choices. There's no use in insulting someone by calling them demeaning names as if you are "so perfect". Whether we want to admit it or not, we make the wrong choices when our emotions aren't under control. People make the wrong choices when they're intoxicated with past successes or moping over failures. Instead, I was told to, "Charge it to experience."
It's either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is sticking to what you know. However, a growth mindset is learning new things. Some intelligent people fail in life because of a fixed mindset. An intellectually stupid person may succeed in life through a growth mindset. It's said that William Shakespeare said, "A wise man knows he is a fool. A fool thinks he is wise." It's because wisdom is a lifelong process. It's not take wisdom and you'll never have to learn again. Businesses rise because of a growth mindset. Businesses collapse whenever they have a fixed mindset.
The same goes for why Filipino First Policy is a failure
THE “FILPINO FIRST” POLICY
The ”Filipino First” policy of this administration received a resounding popular indorsement in the last election. Politically we became independent since 1946, but economically we are still semi-colonial. This is especially true in our foreign trade. This policy is therefore designed to regain economic independence. It is a national effort to the end that Filipinos obtain major and dominant participation in their own national economy. This we will achieve with malice towards none and with fairness to all. We will accomplish this with full understanding of our international obligations towards our friends of the Free World. We will carry this out within the framework of our special relations with the United States to whose citizens we granted until 1974, by Constitutional provision, equal rights as Filipinos in the exploitation of our natural resources and public utilities, and to whom we also granted trading parity rights under the Laurel-Langley Agreement. Under this policy we will welcome friendly and understanding foreign capital willing to collaborate with us in the exploitation of our vast natural resources preferably on joint venture basis.
It is my hope that legislations under this orientation will be enacted this year.
Carlos P. Garcia's declaration hasn't done much. Instead, it's been years of Filipino First Policy. Has the Philippines truly become a first-world country? Instead, it's a shame that Communist Vietnam should even beat it! Sure, one can blame corruption for economic decline. I'm not belittling government corruption and political instability. However, the late Lee Kuan Yew invited MNCs to invest in Singapore, when it was still a third-world country. The same went with Deng Xiaoping and the late Nguyen Duy Cong of Vietnam. In this case, the Filipino First Policy believes that the Philippines must first "become perfect" before it must open its door to foreigners (read why that's just plain ridiculous here).
The question worth asking is, "When will Filipinos become perfect?" The answer might be, "Well, it will come." We've already had decades of Filipino First Policy. How long will it be until Filipino businesses will "become perfect"? LKY would totally blast that, especially when he said this in Third World to First:
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.
Did LKY wait until Singaporeans were "perfect" before he opened? Did LKY give the same advice to Nguyen, who was back then, the General-Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)? LKY's own statements prove that nations never progressed first through isolationism, before becoming open to FDI (read here). I must ask why do many Filipinos still buy that myth? Is it because of Pinoy Pride? Even funnier if the same people rejoiced over former president Atty. Rodrigo R. Duterte's arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC). If they were to be consistent, shouldn't the Philippines "perfect" its justice system first before using ICC, which by the way, is a court of last resort, as spoke by the late Atty. Miriam Defensor-Santiago?
It's also why I support the parliamentary system is best put now
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| No gossip, no hearsay, face-to-face debates, liars are slapped in the parliamentary system! |
FEDERAL-PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENTAs mentioned earlier, the Duterte administration plans to a shift our form of government from a Unitary-Presidential form to a Federal-Parliamentary form. To better appreciate how a Federal-Parliamentary system works, it s best to look at it in contrast to a Federal-Presidential system.
A Federal-Presidential system offers no change to the current system where the President is elected through a national election and heads the executive branch. He has no sway on the judicial or legislative branches except through party-line influence. The United States operates under a Federal-Presidential framework.
A Federal-Parliamentary system , on the other hand, encourages people to vote according to political parties. Here, the citizens elect their Members of Parliament (their representatives), most often, based on the ideology of the party they belong to, not on their personalities. The party with the most number of elected representatives is declared “the parliament.” The parliament elects its Prime Minister (PM) from among themselves. The PM, in turn, selects the members of his Cabinet (his ministers) from among the members of the parliament.
There are multiple advantages to this. First, the system does away with expensive and divisive presidential elections. It puts an end to the vicious cycle of presidential candidates resorting to corruption and incurring political debts just to raise funds for their campaign.
Even the poor can run for office so long as they are capable. This is because elections are funded by the party. In a federal-parliamentary system, we do away with people who win on the back of guns goons and gold.
Moreover, since the members of parliament selects the Prime Minister, they can easily remove him through a vote of no-confidence should he fail to fulfill his mandate. We do away with the tedious process of impeachment. And since the ministers are selected from the Parliament, no one gets a free ticket to the Cabinet just because they are friends with the President or nominated by a political ally. The ministers all have mandates and are accountable not only to the PM but to their constituents.
The parliament is a unicameral legislative body. Thus, bills can be made into law faster and cheaper.
A parliamentary system is one where a “shadow Cabinet” exists. A shadow Cabinet is the corresponding, non-official Cabinet composed of members of the opposition. Each Cabinet minister has a shadow equivalent who is mandated to scrutinize every policy done by the official minister. The shadow minister may offer alternative policies which can be adopted if it is deemed superior.
In the end, the systems allows policies to be better thought out with appropriate safeguards to protect the interest of the people.
Among the seven wealthiest democracies (the G7 nations), only US and France follow a presidential system. the rest subscribe to a parliamentary system.
The intentions of charter change is good. Done right, it could be a game changer for the nation.
Did Masigan even say, "We must wait until all the Dutertes and Marcoses will be gone?" Honestly, if the system is that bad then there will be more bad players. Instead, Masigan's proposal is charter change done right. The new charter should still contain the call to amendment, which is even present in the "perfect" 1987 Constitution of the Philippines. Please, not even former president Maria Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino intended it to be the "forever Constitution of the Philippines"!
Instead, the parliamentary system is all about improving and growing. The Government and the Opposition continue to learn from each other. It would also raise up the requirements to become the Prime Minister, like in Singapore. If we had a better constitution, we would eventually produce better leaders. The problem is the presidential system is inclined to popularity voting, which makes the chances of voting wisely, really low. Why hope for that low chance when we can increase the chances of better voters and better candidates?
Closing words
It's now or never. A long journey begins with a single step. A great company was once a small company. An expert in anything was once a beginner. Perfectionism is a delusion. It's because it presumably wants to skip the painful learning process. However, there's a statement that goes, "After the fast then comes the feast."