Filipinos cannot build a strong nation because they are incapable of cooperating with one another

Filipinos are renowned for being utterly unable to co-operate. Even within families they cheat and abuse each other. Nobody trusts anybody else for a very good reason: most Filipinos are untrustworthy. They’ll stab you in the back if they think there’s some short-term gain in it.

This is a hole that’s very hard to dig yourself out of. Nobody can offer to help his neighbor, or his neighborhood, or his country, because he knows that sooner or later one of two things will happen: he’ll be slapped down for failing to conform to social expectations, or he’ll be ripped off so often that he’ll just give up.

So exactly how do you suppose a strong, independent nation is going to be built upon that? It’s impossible.

Strong societies are strong because they learn to co-operate among themselves. There’s nothing shameful about teaming up with others for mutual benefit: in other words, helping each other. But the Filipino sees everything as a power play. He cannot comprehend the idea of win-win co-operation, or interaction between equals. He must either debase himself or assert himself with arrogance.

Somehow, Filipinos need to adopt the values you ridicule: that is, the motivation that encourages “meddlers” to offer to help. While I agree that those meddlers rarely have any clue what they’re talking about, some of them do; but because the Filipino adopts the motto “trust no one”, without attempting to evaluate the individual, he can never be helped, and he can never help himself. All he can ever receive is charity, and all he can ever give is fealty.

Paradoxically, then, the Filipino version of “strength” – we don’t need you meddling meddlers! – ends up making the country weaker than it needs to be.

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