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"Sorry," I muttered automatically, though I felt it was not my fault. But he continued to rave. "Everything is so slow in this country." Everyone froze to silence and the stunned cashier seemed to move in even slower, surreal slow motion as she fumbled to reopen her machine, accidentally slammed close at the attack of words. "A slow, but happy people, that's what we are," a voice behind me piped, and the tension eased. Someone should have justifiably said to the crazed guy, "Why don't you just go back to where you came from." But it was he who had more to say. "If there was a fire in here, you'd all be burned before one of you came up to open the door. Yes, you'd all burn, all burn...burn!"
"No, Sir, we may be slow in the way we do things in a normal day, but in an emergency, we run fast - not away, to save ourselves, but toward those who may need our help." I did not anymore verbalize how when my family lived abroad, I once saw a man suffering some kind of a seizure fall on the sidewalk. The morning horde of people rushing to catch the next bus pushed past him without even slowing down to look. "Isn't someone going to help him," I asked. "We should not touch him," my Filipina friend warned. "We may get into legal problems. Let 911 Rescue do their thing. Surely some policeman has called them."
Let me tell you yet another true story. It happened not too long ago, when I was still young and sexy, driving home late at night from an MBA class. As I was near the gate of Greenhills North, a car horn was continuously sounding, and I stopped to look. A man was slumped unconscious on his steering wheel. I ran to the security guard to help me transfer the man to my car, and we brought him to nearby Cardinal Santos Hospital. From Emergency, the security guard called the man's home and the man's wife came immediately. "Who are you," she said to me, apparently very angry. "What are you to him? Why were you together?" To the security guard, she said, "Why did you not call me before moving him?" No "thank you's!"
Now, this is a true story: it happened at the check-out counter of a supermarket over the weekend, just after the afternoon Mass at a nearby chapel. It was a busy time, as the grocery seems always the natural progression for a family after a Mass - that's the way it has been since when we were growing up, and the tradition seems determined to stay for many generations.
The check-out queues were six to eight persons deep, but that only helped the perceptively festive mood that always comes with families and couples shopping for food. Could this show trace influences of the undeniable self-fulfillment of primeval hunters and beasts of the wild foraging for food to bring home to their lairs? But musings were pierced by a harsh cry, as if from a hyena roused from his sleep. "Seven minutes!" he snapped as I was restoring to my wallet my credit card, rewards card, charge slip, long receipt and coupon stamps whilst scrounging for car keys hiding somewhere at the bottom of a deep floppy bag. "In the States it would take less than a minute to check out," he ranted.
"Sorry," I muttered automatically, though I felt it was not my fault. But he continued to rave. "Everything is so slow in this country." Everyone froze to silence and the stunned cashier seemed to move in even slower, surreal slow motion as she fumbled to reopen her machine, accidentally slammed close at the attack of words. "A slow, but happy people, that's what we are," a voice behind me piped, and the tension eased. Someone should have justifiably said to the crazed guy, "Why don't you just go back to where you came from." But it was he who had more to say. "If there was a fire in here, you'd all be burned before one of you came up to open the door. Yes, you'd all burn, all burn...burn!"
"No, Sir, we may be slow in the way we do things in a normal day, but in an emergency, we run fast - not away, to save ourselves, but toward those who may need our help." I did not anymore verbalize how when my family lived abroad, I once saw a man suffering some kind of a seizure fall on the sidewalk. The morning horde of people rushing to catch the next bus pushed past him without even slowing down to look. "Isn't someone going to help him," I asked. "We should not touch him," my Filipina friend warned. "We may get into legal problems. Let 911 Rescue do their thing. Surely some policeman has called them."
And my heart burst with pride at the Filipino, pure soul who will always immediately help his fellowman. There are no laws restricting anyone from helping in an emergency, perhaps because there is not the weird possibility that the victim would turn around and sue for wrong physical handling in the interim before professional medical attention came. Surely there are merits to structured reaction in cases of emergency in litigious developed countries, but here, the sacred assumption for all is sincerity and trust.
Indeed, it is an enigma why the Filipino's natural trust and spontaneous sincerity can be both good and bad, as it manifests in a slow and easy attitude to daily life, yet a dependable concern for fellowmen in time of the other's need. But some may bluntly call it being "laid back." Political pundits still chastise the Filipino for the puzzling tolerance for bad leaders, citing particularly the long silence of 17 years under the Marcos dictatorship. When the people finally rose against Marcos at the EDSA I People Power Revolution, the collective passion established Cory Aquino and the change that she stood for. Unfortunately, it may not have been clearly understood that the value of installing Cory, the symbol, was to be nurtured and sustained not by her - but by the collective, concerted effort of all in developing better institutions, systems, and procedures for better governance in a truly participative government of the people, for the people, and by the people.
And the Filipino had been back to "slow-mo" in the complacent years after 1986, with a forgettable EDSA II in 2001 that removed Erap Estrada and ironically installed Gloria Arroyo on a 10-year rule. Come now the elections of 2010, when there might be the chance to recoup the dream of EDSA I for a truly free Philippines, led by an honest and sincere president to the great heights of competitiveness in the globalized economic and political world. But there seems to be no sense of urgency to make things happen.
Real estate developments are advertised like there was no typhoon Ondoy in very recent memory - and brisk pre-selling is being enjoyed by developers even in these "critical" times before a crucial national election. What election? It does not seem to matter who wins in these elections, or even if elections will push through, gauging from the unabated hyped consumerism that makes non-stop fiestas in teeming malls and market places. Thanks to the $18-billion OFW remittances in 2009, no one's worried. Even the credit rating agencies do not really factor any drastic downgrade for the possibility of a draconian change in policy by whoever wins, simply because there will probably be no change. The foreign chambers of commerce are saying investments will come in after the elections. This might probably be to find out who they will be dealing with, more than for any fear of changes that will impact existing or future relationships, or any real changes in doing business in the Philippines.
Let me tell you yet another true story. It happened not too long ago, when I was still young and sexy, driving home late at night from an MBA class. As I was near the gate of Greenhills North, a car horn was continuously sounding, and I stopped to look. A man was slumped unconscious on his steering wheel. I ran to the security guard to help me transfer the man to my car, and we brought him to nearby Cardinal Santos Hospital. From Emergency, the security guard called the man's home and the man's wife came immediately. "Who are you," she said to me, apparently very angry. "What are you to him? Why were you together?" To the security guard, she said, "Why did you not call me before moving him?" No "thank you's!"
Which brings us back to that brusque young Caucasian at the supermarket, shouting his intolerance of the slowness in his guest country: was he right (though still unforgivably uncouth)? We must alter our pyrrhic pride in little hero stories that extol the preparedness to help our neighbor. These do not justify the lack of urgency that holds back competitiveness with the rest of the world. We must learn faster action!
The sense of urgency should be a habit honed by day-to-day awareness of principles and priorities. Let us cultivate it in the little disciplines of being on time for appointments, doing things fast and efficiently (as in the supermarket example), following schedules of completion, target dates, etc. Let us not save our sense of urgency for "emergencies" such as my unrequited feeling-Good Samaritan experience with the unconscious guy, or even the glorious burst of energy for the collective feel-good of an EDSA I. The time to change ourselves is now.
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