By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
My Facebook post entitled “The most reliable explanation to poverty in the country” referring to the following quote “Your ability to discipline yourself, to set clear goals, and then to work toward them every day, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor” attributed to Brian Tracy which I shared on its third anniversary more than two weeks ago sparked a spirited debate on my Wall. With some help from fellow believers, I am ranged against four Facebook friends. All four reject my contention that failure to live by the Brian Tracy nugget of wisdom accounts for the poverty of more Filipinos than does any other factor for poverty at work in the country. Three of them have since abandoned the debate and as of this writing, I have not heard from the fourth for more than two days but I am not counting him out yet. The opposing side appear are Netizens 1, 2, 3 and 4. Of course, I am ECA. Friendly forces who joined in are Netizens 5, 6 and so on.
Netizen 1: Anthropologist Oscar Lewis coined the term culture of poverty, which means that poor people do not learn the norms and values that can help them improve their circumstances; hence, they become trapped in a repeated pattern of poverty. Because many poor people live in a narrow world in which all they see is poverty and desperation, they never acquire the skills or the ambition that could help them rise above the poverty level. Since culture is passed down from one generation to the next, parents teach their children to accept their circumstances rather than to work to change them. The cycle of poverty then becomes self-perpetuating. – SparkNotes
Modern Statesmen know the above brief explanation very well. Hence, out of love, social and moral obligation legislators passed laws for the protection and lifting up poor people. Many societies succeeded in eradicating extreme poverty. For thousands of years the whole world was inflicted with the culture of poverty.
ECA: If what you are trying to point out is that poor Filipinos cannot be rescued from their miserable existence without government intervention, then kindly see if that contention is born out by the experiences cited in this post of your brother: ” Mam Aura I did not say that those street sweepers are not capable to become entrepreneurs. What I said is ” one who is only productive by being a janitor will only be a curse if he will become an entrepreneur” There are a lot who are victims of what so called “downward mobility” in sociology. I have a neighbor whose family was the one dictating the economic activity of our island about 40 years ago. When his parents died he got his inheritance and failed to manage wisely his inherited resources. Now he is a copra farm worker receiving a minimum daily wage. This is the kind of person I am referring to as incapable to become an entrepreneur because his lot under heaven is only a productive copra farm worker. I was a janitor during the whole period of my high school years, now I am not rich but I am managing government owned and controlled corporation. I also created jobs for others by being a small scale entrepreneur. We got to seek our place under heaven where our skills and capabilities are tailored.”
Netizen 1 Yes, they cannot be rescued without government intervention, Estan.
That’s my brother’s … not mine.
Your position is not new and hold not by only few people up to now. As a matter of fact, except of a handful philosophers in the past like Plato, from time immemorial such a conviction has been held by all members of literate elite groups in this planet until the advent of Sociology, more or less 200 years ago, that led to a critically and rationally examining the most fundamental assumptions of human lives.
Our argument is only a reflection of the argument of Isagani and Fr. Fernandez in Rizal’s novel El Filibusterismo before the former submitted himself to the authorities. When the student retorted that Spain failed to do her moral duty in lifting up the lives of the Filipinos, the friar remarked that they, as educators, did their best but the problem was that they were working on defective human specie – like your belief of self-inflicted poverty.
I am overloaded, Estan, … almost 300 students. Paper works.
Netizen 1: Of course it’s your brother’s. My point in posting it is to ask you where in the experiences of your brother and that of the rich son turned copra farm worker cited therein did the government play a role? My point is that your brother made his life better sans government intervention in the same manner as the wayward son made a mess of his life without help from government. . Regarding the thoughts of Rizal on the poverty of Filipinos, the question with the country no longer under a foreign power, there is an issue of their relevance which becomes more glaring when we consider that we live under the same government and yet millions of previously poor Filipinos have escaped poverty while there are still around 21 percent who have not. How would you explain the fact that in 1983, some 70 percent of Filipinos lived below the poverty line but now only 21 percent do? Granting that indeed, the government is the major player which rescued the 49 percent, what is it with the 21 percent that they are still in the rut of poverty? The government played favorites of the 49 percent and neglected the 21 percent? To satisfy my curiousity, does Sociology deny any role of the individual in his poverty and say that poverty is the solely caused by external factors?
ECA: And back to the experience of the rich son turned copra farm worker, is not his misfortune not self-inflicted? The classmates of Netizen 2 who had the means to go to college but did not exert enough effort or made wrong decisions so that they dropped out of school is that not self-inflicted? And you mentioned your 300 students. Those who fail because they do not practice or have never developed good study habits, take their studies for granted – if they fail, is that not self-inflicted? Like I have already told you and Netizen 3, nobody wants to stay poor but improving one’s economic condition is not dependent on what the individual wants but on the efforts he exerts towards that goal. My question now is this: The people who stop at just desiring to have better life while others like the poor Chinese immigrants two generations ago and the poor Kankanaey people who came to Tabuk more than a generation ago whose progeny now live comfortable lives labor night and day and exercised control over their urges which militate against the drive for better life – is their poverty not self-inflicted?
ECA: I am sure you have heard of the saying “Uray no agtudo ti balitok saanka a bumaknang. Sadotmo laeng nga agpidot.” It is also the fault of government that his family is destitute? Now, the government causes the opening of some jobs or there is an economic boom so that there is enough job to go around but could not hold on to the job because of his work ethic. Now, is his poverty inflicted by outside factors? You ever saw an a lazy adult shaking off the weakness?
Netizen 2 (brother of Netizen 1): Estan and my brother are both on extreme ends on their standpoints as far as the cause of poverty is concerned. Inasmuch as my statements were cited by Estan, may I make my points more conclusive and clearer for the sake of our readers. Poverty in many cases is not self-inflicted because it is a result of lack of inherent skills and abilities to compete amidst intervention of government. In some cases it is also self-inflicted as seen in the life of drug addicts who have the necessary skills, abilities and resources but suffered the extreme curse of poverty because of dangerous vices aggravated by the inability of government to destroy the apparatus of the drug trade.
On the other hand Estan is mentioning cases that is more on how to conquer poverty not actually on the causes of poverty. How to make life better and what makes a person poor are different issues to tackle.
ECA: Netizen 1, you might want to comment on this reaction from Netizen 5 addressed to you: “I totally agree with Brian Tracy but I am going to add God, because without Him. your success is not complete. Stan, I am a living example of that saying. I am not saying that I am rich because I am not, but better than the past because of self discipline and hard work. Resources is important too, like what TRA said, but how do you use resources if you don’t have self discipline and hard work? Netizen 1, you work at AUP. You see lots of working students there and most of them are successful because of self discipline and hard work. Those who don’t have self discipline likely fail and go home and marry and continue the life of poverty. Some of them have sponsors(resources), but even then, if they don’t work hard and have self discipline their resources will go to waste…”
ECA: Netizen 1, I dare say that what Netizen 5 said about students who waste their opportunity to earn a college degree through their own doing is not an exclusive AUP phenomenon. The cases are in the millions through the years. We have seen a lot of them in Kalinga. Still the fault of external factors? Not self-inflicted? We blame the government for the hard life they live? Does your Sociology hold them blameless for their destitution? Rizal also absolves them?
Netizen 1: What a torrential rhetoric, ading Estan. That’s what to be a journalist. Hands up-ak.
This is what I have to say: My conviction with this issue was the same as yours when I was in high school but thanks to my professor of Intro to Sociology in college who initiated my interest and understandings social problems. There are many things to learn in the universe but there are much more things to unlearn. I have gone to the point of no return being fully convinced that my high school knowledge of what society is all about was wrong.
I need not to elaborate further. Why don’t you visit all the college libraries in Tabuk and peruse all the expositions concerning social stratification, inequality and poverty written in sociology and anthropology books? I bet you’ll never find a single literature to support your argument. Of course, there may be some supporting articles favoring your position written by lawyers, biologists, journalists, medical doctors, artists, et. al., but surely none of those was authored by a sociologist or anthropologist.
Madikon, Estan. Nagabsuon ti korekek nga papel. Isturboka. Al-aliaen daka koma ni madam Leticia Magsanok. Ammok nga kampi kaniak daydiay nga baket.
ECA: I respect your decision to leave the debate. But please allow me to say a few words. Re “torrential rhetoric,” like I said before, I take debates seriously. Re the position of sociologists and anthropologists on the issue, being a journalist I would rather base my conclusions on my own research and personal observations and of course the experience and observations of people who are not themselves strangers to poverty like myself or know of people who are and who have triumphed over the condition or chose to wallow in the same regardless of the opportunities open to them like the misguided students of AUP Netizen 5 referred to. And one thing more, I would rather have the validation I get from debates than the agreement of the learned who may be proven wrong in the end to begin with. Re the late Ma’am Lava, I never had a chance to hear her speak on the issue but if she agreed with your position, I would not be surprised as she belonged to that Lava clan if I am not mistaken. Re checking papers of students, going by your belief that people should get the same regardless of their personal traits, attitudes and efforts, wouldn’t it be consistent to just give the students a uniform grade?**(To be continued)
