For the almost five years I have lived here in Australia, and all the times I was able to travel to other parts of South East Asia (HK, Singapore, Indonesia), I see Filipinos who abide by the local laws. I see Filipinos who are obedient, who are disciplined, and who are commendable. And yet when you take these same Filipinos and bring them back in The Philippines, they’d be having a hard time following laws. So I can’t help but wonder, why are Filipinos so hard-headed?
I ask this question all the time whenever I’m back home, or when I watch or hear news or trending posts on social media about people deliberately disobeying the law or not following the rules.
And I’m not even talking about rules during lockdown periods or super-strict city ordinances. I’m talking about simple rules like, I don’t know, crossing the street? Or getting on and off the bus/jeepneys. Or very basic road rules regarding counter-flowing or driving on sidewalks.
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out these rules. And yet, some Filipinos find it really hard to follow them.
Common sense, not too common
If you look at the rules that most Filipinos ignore or disregard, these are rules that doesn’t take a lot of common sense to figure out. Their purpose and why we need to follow them. Unfortunately, common sense isn’t too common these days.
And this is the reason why “honesty stores” or “community pantries” won’t always work. They’re never going to work in The Philippines. At best, these give hard-headed ones opportunities to break the rules and at worst, it shows that there is really something wrong with our mindset and our culture.
The “Diskarte” culture
There are heaps of things that we Filipinos take pride in. One of these is our ability to be creative at navigating our way around our circumstances and basically figuring out a way to make things better for ourselves. That is, being ma-diskarte.
Diskarte is when you wake up early in the morning and sleep late at night so you can work two jobs to be able to pay off your debts.
Diskarte is when, instead of doing all the work, you hire someone who’s going to help you with it. Therefore saving you time and energy, even though it means having to split profits.
Diskarte is also working 8-to-5 but instead of watching Netflix or relaxing when you get home, you work on yourself so you can eventually get out of the rat race that you are currently in.
Diskarte.
In a literal sense, “diskarte” means “strategy”. It’s a beautiful Filipino word but for us Filipinos, sometimes it means so much more.
Unfortunately, there are people who use “diskarte” as a means to circumvent rules, no matter the consequences or no matter what kind of inconvenience it may bring to other people. It doesn’t matter, as long as the outcome is favourable to them.
To make it worse, they would be proud and even brag about it.
Ironically, these people who use diskarte as a means to get ahead of other people get furious when their very own diskarte’s are used against them.
“Ang Pinoy mahilig manlamang pero galit kapag nilamangan.”
Following rules is corny
And breaking them is cool.
This is probably one of the things that I can’t figure out the most. I mean, we’re no longer teenagers. We’re no longer in our school trying to “rebel” against our teachers. We’re adults and as such, we should act like ones. Unless you have a brain of a peanut and an emotional range of a teaspoon.
Case in point: I was in a popular restaurant one time and after eating, I rounded up the plates and utensils I used and neatly placed them on the tray. While doing this, I noticed the people on the next table giggling and I heard one whisper, “pa-bibo” (show off).
I don’t get it. Why ridicule the people who follow rules but applaud the ones who break them? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? And why do people who break rules get mad at people who follow them?
Case in point: passengers who get mad at jeepney drivers for not stopping at “No Stopping” zones.
Herd mentality
Let me tell you another story. This happened the last time I was driving in The Philippines.
I was at the intersection, waiting for the light to turn green. As soon as it did though, I didn’t move. This was because, after a year and a half of driving in Australia, I got used to strictly following the road rules, one of which is to not queue across intersections.
So while I was sitting there, waiting for the traffic ahead of me to move forward before I cross the intersection, several cars behind me started honking. I tried fighting the urge not to move but eventually, I gave in. This was because I realised that if I didn’t move, the cars behind me would just overtake me and they would still be queueing across the intersection and traffic jam would surely still ensue.
And this is exactly one of the reasons why Filipinos find it hard to follow rules. Herd mentality.
“Everyone is doing it, so why shouldn’t I?”
Now let’s go back to the Filipino international tourist or the Filipino expat. Their environment is different, the people around them is different, and the mindset of everyone around them is different. Now they see everyone following the rules and they suddenly get the urge to be a law-abiding citizen. To be, you guessed it right, just like them.
Not only that, it’s way easier for them to follow rules now that no one is going to tell them they are “pa-bibo“. No one is going to honk at them even though the light is green. Because everybody, or at least the majority, knows the rules and the general mentality is to follow them.
Summary
To be fair, not all Filipinos in The Philippines are hard-headed. Mind you, we Filipinos have heaps of adorable qualities. We are hard-working, generous, hospitable, and resilient. That and many more. Minus the ability to follow simple rules in our own country and being punctual.
But I would say that in general, yes we are hard-headed. And yes, there are more factors than what I outlined here. These are just what I observed and concluded. Regardless, we need a lot of work to do to correct our mindset and our culture if want to progress not just as a nation but also as a people.
Mind you, we Filipinos have heaps of adorable qualities. We are hard-working, generous, hospitable, and resilient. That and many more. Minus the ability to follow simple rules in our own country and being punctual.
What about you? What do you think are the reasons why most Filipinos in The Philippines are hard-headed? Let me know in the comments.
Cheerio!
PS. I may get a lot of flak for writing this article but what the heck, it’s the truth. And as they say, the truth hurts. And I’m not talking about a particular group of Filipino people either. I’m talking about the Filipino people in general. But hey, if the shoe fits, feel free to lace that shit up and ramp down the aisle.