Most Filipinos would like to believe that the outrage they feel (or are encouraged to feel by their “activists”) about excessive displays of wealth comes from a deep need to see social justice delivered. Thus, the typical screeching lament we hear when such “social justice warriors” (SJWs) are confronted with displays of wealth goes like this: “If [so-and-so rich person] had donated the money she spent on [so-and-so expensive thingy] to the poor, [so-and-so social injustice] would have been solved.”
When will these “activists” get it? It is a tired old “activist” cliché that, for so long, has utterly failed to move people.
‘The Rich Owe the Poor’ mentality is what keeps Filipinos poor.
(Source: Bib Macasaet on Twitter)
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The truth is, given the opportunity, most people would prioritise conspicuous consumption over altruistic initiative. That’s just human nature. And therein lies the whole trouble with the “socialist” ideology that underlies the Philippines’ liberal “activist” community. They preach things that go against human nature. They focus on harping about what society owes its “less fortunate” members rather than on what sort of capabilities people need to acquire as individuals to help themselves earn what opportunities society has to offer.
What Filipinos need to unlearn after 30 years of being fed liberalist drivel by their church, their media, and their “heroes” is that the rich owe the poor jack shit.
Who contributes more value to society: a person who makes $100,000 or a person who makes $20,000? If this question is at all difficult for you, it’s because you’re secretly at war with yourself. You despise people who make a lot of money, yet you daily affirm the social value of making a lot of money when you pay more money for the things you want more.
Liberal “activists” will insist that acquiring wealth is beyond the imagination of most Filipinos because there are “social” forces that prevent them from achieving such levels of prosperity. The alternative view is, to be fair, quite confronting — that, perhaps, most people lack the inherent capability to imagine, much more achieve at such levels.
Filipinos should get over their obsession with what the rich have that the poor don’t have and, instead, focus on what it takes to have what the rich have. People are poor not because they are “victims” but because there is something they or their ancestors had not done right. That is where the real lessons on how to eliminate poverty lies — not in the drivel written on placards raised along with pumping fists by so-called “activists” in their quaint street protests.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
How about we start with the same opposition full of hypocritical moral crusaders that said Martial Law should not be used for Mindanao, because keyboard warriors and fat political crocodiles from Manila knows what’s best or maybe the idiocy of VP Leni to “preserve” ruins as a Monument to the sacrifices of the soldiers she did not give a damn about, or how about them blaming Duterte for “inflaming” the poor terrorists that even the last President admitted that the next one would inherit the problem of Islamic Terrorism that he ignored, or maybe the opposition should focus on the real issues like the 5 billion pesos of savings for government employees being used to buy 3.5 billion pesos worth of Dengvaxia that killed a dozen kids with faulty science and bad mathematics used to justify making 830,000 kids as lab rats, but “Deflect and Redirect” is their forte to defend the “integrity” of their yellow messiah Noynoy, this is partisan bullshit and it disgusts me.
Well, that’s another fascist bullshit. Think of Jeff Bezos, currently the wealthiest person. This year he is making around $30b. Does that contribute to society? No, it’s due to a perverted economic system. Jeff Bezos is the CEO of Amazon and Amazon has about 400,000 employees allover the world. Most of them get a low salary, barely enough to feed a family. Now, just give each employee just $1000 mer month additionally. This would be a fair share because they would have enough to feed a family, move out of an informal settlement etc. And Jeff Bezos would have to sacrifice just 4.8 billion out of his 30.
You may now argue that it’s fair though because Jeff Bezos made his billions out of nothing just through hard work. Well, that’s the fairy tale of the American Dream. However, Jeff Bezos did not get that rich out of nothing. In Western societies it’s more important to be born into a well established business networks. Woman also have the opportunity to marry into these networks. So did Jeff’s mother who married the Exxon manager Mike Bezos.
The opposite example is the story of Andreas Pavel. He was a native German, grew up in Brazil and moved later to Italy where he designed the first portable music player ever. In 1978 he patented it in several Western countries and in Japan. But he was not networked and so so was impossible for him to obtain venture capital to market his invention. In 1979 Sony started copied his invention and started selling it under the brand name Walkman and made billions with it. Pavel sued Sony for patent infringement but with limited funds he could barely stand against Sony’s army of lawyers. The case was settled for an unknown amount after Sony founder Akio Morita passed away.
I son’t question the tact that there are some poor and some rich but I question that the difference should be that big. The huge wealth of a few is now increasingly harming the global economy since it is impossible to buy consumer goods for more than $30b per year just for one family, even if their lifestyle is extremely lavish. They are desperately looking for investment opportunities and this causes a bubble economy. At first the dotcom bubble in 2000 followed by the subprime bubble in 2007 and the current Bitcoin bubble.
What would happen if leftists take over the world and start taking money from the rich and give it to the poor? Well, the poor would start spending that money. Same may invest in a small business. Others may rehabilitate their homes, send their kids to college, buy a car. All this would burst the global economy more than the rich could do. Though some may remain passive and waste it all for cigarettes and booze, even this would create additional opportunities for tobacco farmers and liquor distillers.
However, Philippine leftists target the wrong ones. Isabelle Duterte is not that rich on a Global scale. A ball debut is aonce in a lifetime event which justifies an expensive goan.
>> Well, the poor would start spending that money. Same may invest in a small business. Others may rehabilitate their homes, send their kids to college, buy a car.
We’re talking about Filipinos here. They wouldn’t do any of those things. I know this for a fact because I’ve seen any number of poor people obtain money from here and there, and they waste it. Six months later they’re poor again.
Poor people are poor because they want to be. More specifically, tthey aren’t prepared to do the things that would prevent them being poor.
>> People are poor not because they are “victims” but because there is something they or their ancestors had not done right.
Exactly. The Philippines IS undoubtedly an unfair society, but most of the poor people I meet are not ACTUALLY poor. They have a lot of assets that could, in theory, generate a lot of wealth. For example they often have land and a bunch of big healthy sons who could be out there improving that land. But they’re lazy and stupid, so those assets stand idle.
Silly comment. Bezos didn’t “make” $30bn, his assets grew by that amount, it’s not money in the bank. If he would sell that amount of AMZN stock immediately it would cause it to crash, effectively that $30bn would turn into something like $10bn or even less. Then it would be taxed as well.
Most likely if he gave $1000 to every employee, some would buy a bigger TV, some would go on a holiday, others would buy drugs. You make it sound like Amazon employees are starving which is untrue. You also have a very rosy, glamorized image of the employees as if they’re oppressed.
With Andreas Pavel, he eventually won in court and had a settlement worth over $10 million, happy ending after all.
This blog and many others you wrote in the past about the poor is like preaching the kind of elite aristocratic mentality in the government. You are no difference to your so-called enemy liberal party. Instead of helping the poor because they have few opportunities in their lives, this Benigno and other supporters here are blaming them all the way. You are adding misery in their lives that of instead doing the act based on your education and knowledge, you are comfortable with using your knowledge in vilifying the poor down to sink.
You have no sympathy to the poor just like the aristocrat. And you are fun of waiting for others to do the act, rather than you create the act.
I can’t imagine you benigno and others here when you are in the poor community hating and murmuring against the poor people. Judging them on what you see instead of knowing their real story in lives and offer them what you can do to help them. You are most comfortable of generalizing the poor situation which is a no-brainer because it does not requires effort and time for you.
Again, reflect yourself in the mirror and ask what’s the difference between you and elite greedy who are unsympathetic to the poor? The answer to that is: NONE.
I hope you Benigno make time to really make a difference in helping your poor kababayan. Enough of hating.
That’s exactly what I am doing — pointing out what causes Filipinos to be poor. It is what this article is all about. The poor don’t need “sympathy”, because they already get that by the truckload. One of the planet’s wealthiest and most powerful religions — the Roman Catholic Church — trades on that sympathy, as a matter of fact. So there really is no shortage of that “sympathy” opiate you prescribe to these poor sods.
If you stop to think about it, it is not sympathy that is responsible for lifting millions of people out of poverty. It is none other than good old-fashoned profit-obsessed capitalism that did the job that the Church preached but failed to achieve for two millenia. Only under captialism was wealth and capital mobilised to create the unprecedented productivity that drove economic expansion that led to the creation of millions of jobs and downstream livelihood opportunities that give “hope” to poor people that they need not be poor all their lives.
As I said, you need to unlearn the thinking that is the source of all the drivel you just wrote a above. It’s hard but it can be done.
What can you get in writing this kind of blog? You wrote hundreds of blogs that do not create the change that you badly wanted. Why? Because it is an anger mongering and hateful blog of ensuing further disunity is your main theme, and disguise them as helpful. You think this could help in changing the course of tide in this nation? The poor who are innocent and honest ones don’t need further humiliation lest you are not aware because you tend to generalize the poor as a whole lot bunch of beggars who are one of the reasons this nation remains poor instead of seeing them as an opportunity to help your people and prove yourself that you can make difference by proving your ability not just in writing and thinking but by also doing the act.
Sure, the government is mainly responsible in uplifting them. But thinkers like how you protray yourself to be has an added responsibility also. Use your emotion and empathy rather than being rational always. That would go a long way because it is healthy in a moral sense. Sometimes it’s not the reason that always fits. It’s actually emotions that the poor really wanted. By using your critical mind always you are distancing yourself further from them because you first criticize and insult rather than understand first where they come from and from there adjust yourself how to enlighten them.
This is what happened to our history. Those who are educated and learned individuals tend to criticize first and always as many times. And they distance themsleves and became apathetic to the plight of this nation. That’s why when they are in the position they make sure to serve themselves first rather than serving their constituents because they lack emotions and empathy. They are critical to how they see the poor who are not doing something meaningful and from there they will use deciet to corrupt and manipulate the minds of these poor folks and so they remain in power and continue to corrupt the public funds.
As you show in your blog, you are really one of them. No difference at all. You all have an interest to feel good yourselves at the expense of the innocent poor who are misinformed and lack sufficient education. And so majority of the population remains poor as a result. You are not enlightened as you think you are because your indifference and your pride is your priority always against this nation.
That’s the problem. Emotions are what the poor really wanted because most of them are incapable of thinking and they just wanted to hand them everything on a silver platter.
Unfortunately, YOUR emotions get the better of you and you’re missing the point of what benign0 is trying to do.
@PinoyCitizen: I get nothing “in writing this kind of blog”. Well, at least nothing that you can relate with.
And, no, the government is NOT “mainly responsible” for “uplifting” the poor. The POOR are responsible for uplifting the poor.
The reason the “educated and learned individuals” prefer to “distance themselves” from the “plight” of the poor is because life is too short. You either move forward or get dragged backward by emotional baggage such as what you exhibit in your comments here.
The difference between prosperous people and the chronically poor is that the earlier look forward while the latter wallow in the present and/or, worse, the past.
No. You are always the one who is wallowing in the past. All this time blaming the past presidents. But you yourself did not prove something to be a good emulation to everyone – the standard of being an effective leader. You look up yourself as if you know better when in fact you only think after your interest and your ilk, which is a good for nothing.
You and the corrupt politicians have a lot in common. They think of how they profit themselves from government funds and ignore those who are in need of their service and help because they are poor right and the “poor are responsible for uplifting the poor”? Ha! Bullshit! I believe that education has that poor side when it brought the kind of disease of condescension and cruelty by your emergence and those educated corrupt politicians. Same as the one when Jose Rizal criticized his comrades when he was in Spain. That good education brought cold-hearted in them rather than sympathy to those who are ignorant and oppressed left in the conquered Philippines.
You should have left the Philippines long time a go and never came back and never write something like making a blog like this because you really hate this nation and its people by your articles. Not that you care and you want change as you disguise yourself here, but for further creating division, hatred, and animosity in the minds of filipinos.
@Pinoy Citizen: Nope. What I do has nothing to do with “hate” — or “love” for that matter.
What writers like myself present here are points of view based on observations and interpretations of those observation with insight gleaned from experience, education, and further reading applied to said interpretation.
See, the trouble with you is that you always look for an emotional response to what you read here instead of applying a critical mind supported by sound reasoning. Perhaps this inability to see beyond an emotional response is just some kind of chip missing from the proverbial motherboard between your ears. I’m not really sure if much can be done about that.
Yeah, points of view that don’t create solutions necessary for the millions of poor filipinos to move their butt because you already judge them without knowing their stories. Will that really work? You think? Who would want unsolicited advice when you first attack them with insult and degradation? They would only look at it as hostile rather than getting inspired. You don’t get it, do you? Or perhaps you look at them same level with your thinking? That’s why you expect them to follow you? Or you are only doing this to feel good about yourself? Because they are just an easy and vulnerable target? Or you are doing this to get money from your readers?
Or you protect some politicians? Whatever! That is exactly insanity.
The poor are the ones who make up the bulk of majority population in the Philippines. Ignoring or taking them for granted, not giving them enough opportunities to generate incomes sufficient for themselves and their family, and without encouragement and support from the government side and other important sectors will leave them astray. Alleviating their situation or measuring how many are the poor already overcame poverty and compare and contrast the data that was shown say 10 years ago is the major basis of seeing the direction of this nation. And see the result because of the programs, projects and livelihood opportunities from government with the collaboration from concerned agencies that there is difference on the way the economy is going will the only barometer of saying that this nation already reach its progressive part. It is the poor that is critical to take this country’s development to the next level. And yet you want to just leave them at that? And it is up to them to figure out because “the poor are responsible for uplifting the poor” not the government? That’s why I said bullshit. Open your eyes and research different studies from economic experts on what is their main basis on finding out that a country is already progressive? It is the common people’s standard of living first, not your ilk and not the below 5% rich people of this country or even their wealth for that matter that you always protect in your articles.
*sigh* it seems that you never read the whole article that you let your emotions get the better of you. Because you didn’t add this –
“The job of the government is to create the right environment for that to happen. Perhaps there is some work that still needs to be done to achieve that. But it is important that the right expectations are set so that the sense of entitlement poor people are encouraged to nurture in their minds is stamped out once and for all.”
This is no bullshit per se. Some work needs to be done means that there should be also a change in our society and culture. The other countries, especially in the West, are already progressive due to their culture and more importantly, they never play as victims and they always care for their own people at the very least. Unfortunately, victim mentality is rampant in our society.
Perhaps someone like Mahathir would never work for Filipinos. Since the bad thing about Filipinos is that we are too emotional for their own good, they’re gonna reject him on a whim.
Pinoy Citizen,
If and when other people will help me it will make me feel embarrassed and humiliated. I rather help myself. How? I can end my own poverty by not procreating. Whats the point in having kids living in the same terrible circumstances as I do? Why should my kids also live in poverty? So pls stop begging and stop procreating. Poverty will end there and then.
And by getting things (money) from others will not make me proud. I will stil be a loser if I do that (accepting money from others). It will make me proud if/when I achieve things on my own.
Since you know this thing, you can start doing the act because other poor individuals need the kind of helpful information. If you think they will not listen to you, then at least you did something and then move on to the other people and share what you know. In this case, maybe you become part of the solution rather than being part of the tribes of those who are only good at criticising.
Pinoy Citizen: I wouldn’t normally say this, but frankly, you’re an idiot.
For one thing, when did the word “elitist” become an insult? “Elite” means “the best”. If Pinoys all aspired to be “elite”, the country would look a lot better than it does.
I don’t know about Benign0, but I personally have plenty of experience with “the poor”. As I mentioned elsewhere, I spent several years attempting to treat them with respect, as equals, as human beings. Nobody likes unsolicited advice, but when asked, I have freely given time, expertise and money, and expected nothing in return. What I got back was abuse, disrespect, insults, overt racism, and harassment.
I was eventually forced to conclude that “the poor” are 95% responsible for their own situation. Time and again I’ve watched them squander wonderful opportunities. The government hands them all sorts of free stuff that they waste, destroy, or let slip through their fingers. Employers will not employ “the poor” because they are unreliable, lazy, and entitled. They are a liability: they break stuff, steal, play the fool, disappear when nobody’s watching, and refuse to learn how to do their job properly.
Not only do the poor not want help, they are not interested in learning how to help themselves, investing in their own future, or investing in their kids. In short, what the poor want most is to continue being poor, and they want everyone else to give them a comfortable life while they carry on being poor.
I now keep myself to myself. I do not talk to “the poor” or interact with them in any way, since the only possible outcome is negative for me and for them. It is you, I suspect, who has actually done nothing to help the poor. If you had, you would be wiser for the experience, and you wouldn’t be writing nonsense about how the poor just need a bit of help from the rich.
You are more idiot because the elite i meant are the ones who are greedy, unaware of the plight of the unfortunate folks, and lack empathy.
As you’ve mentioned your ‘rich’ experience with the poor, you could have done more because as you understand not all poor people are bad and not all rich people are good. It is not for them that you did the act but it is for yourself, for what you know, what is right and what is necessary in applying and sharing your knowledge and education for the sake of making a difference. If they abuse the help, you could leave them and move to other people but don’t stop if this really is your advocacy which is helping.
I did not do much to help others because i have limited resources but whenever i can i am always helping and giving advice to those who came to me who need help. But at the same time i give freedom to them to make their own choice because i believe i cannot please everyone to convince the way i wanted them to change. But at least i did my part to help. I don’t lack empathy. And i don’t allow my pride and insult and anger overwhelmed me.
Pinoy Citizen: sadly, a MAJORITY of the poor people here are bad people. That is WHY they are poor. They disrespect others, they disrespect themselves, and they disrespect God’s creation. Exactly how do they think they’ll be rewarded for that? If you genuinely had empathy, you would be able to get inside their heads and understand why they do these things, and perhaps know how to fix it. However, you are confusing “empathy” with “sympathy”.
I have yet to meet a poor person who actually WANTS to do the things necessary to escape poverty. The funny thing is, everyone can see that I’m more successful than they are. They think this is because I’m “rich”. I’m sure a lot of them are full of jealousy (as benign0 describes) and sit around thinking “ha, it’s not fair, that foreigner is so rich and I’m so poor. I guess it’s OK if I steal his stuff”. Which they do. Regularly.
I grew up poor. I know how it feels to be hungry, all the time, every day. I decided I didn’t like feeling like that. I’m successful because I work hard all day, I read books to find out how to do things more efficiently, and I don’t sit around all evening drinking and watching dumbass nonsense on TV. I’m not interested in explaining this to anybody, because if they can’t figure it out from themselves, they don’t want to hear it from me.
Great comment. Poor Filipinos often seem to think you wake up one day and the country is rich. It doesn’t work that way. The people in those countries made a series of correct decisions and as a sum it created wealth over many DECADES or even centuries. Many poor Filipinos do work hard, few work smart. There’s no real concern for efficiency, it’s all about repetition.
Here’s something you need to know:
This is not hating. This is REALITY CHECK. Perhaps you should know about thoroughly dysfunctional our culture was, especially with our poor kababayans. Marius had good points, though. One of the reasons why there are poor Filipinos is because of their backward, dysfunctional attitudes. Try to connect the dots.
The ones you quote is wrong in its premise. The CCT actually helps while there is this process of improving infrastructures, fixing the business opportunites and providing jobs because these processess involve years to come to fruition before the poor to actually benefit. Bulding trains and roads even actually take years.
There are poor because the government and the leaders lack the basic emotions of sincerely helping the poor using government funds meant to improve lives and vital opportunites for the poor.
Actually, the CCT is also used as ‘dole outs’ more than those thing you wrote. So what’s your point?
Are you trying to tell us that the poor should never help themselves and just wait for the government to throw money at them? That’s not how it works.
Pinoy Citizen,
You don’t need sympathy. You need empowerment. Feeling sorry for you won’t help you get out of your predicament. It just makes it worse because it makes you the victim. This is exactly what the catholic church wants you to be: another object to be pitied so you can be under their thumb. Don’t fall for this. You may be poor but you are not a victim… unless you choose to be.
No. Both sympathy and empowerment are necessary and should come at the same time. Lacking one is insufficient for making change.
The church does not hold the public funds. It is the government and businessmen that create programs and opportunities for the poor are mainly responsible on how the state of this nation is going. If they fail, the poor also fails.
Ehem, even the church helped the opposition of family planning methods, which it will also helped on dealing with overpopulation, which is also one of the causes of poverty. They even vehemently opposed the RH bill until it was passed into law. So don’t say the church doesn’t have a hand on this because ‘they don’t have the public funds’. It’s more than that.
If it was true It should be different before acts of those “activists” you refer. But, unfortunately for you, it was not. As for whom is more useful for the society (those who make more or less) I have to tell you those who product more. And this, whom product, are usually the more poor. Especially on society been leaded by blood vacuums. Philippinos, as well as many others, are poor because they are ignorants. Please read the book THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY by Carlo M. Cipolla.
If you really want a further explanation compare Philippines with Vietnam and/or read Marx’s “the Capital”. Especially the part describes the “overrvalue”
To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible.
With those kinds of statement from the socialist liberal minded YellowTards. If we all go barefoot, and we all will be cloth with rags; the Filipinos will be one happy nation. Miseries, poverty, and all kinds of evils associated with being poor, will be commonplace. Because poverty is distributed to everybody.
It is a “carabao shit ” idea. How about the Aquino Cojuangco families. They got rich by stealing government money and lands . Kris Aquino, the “may tulo” and “may kuto”, used government resources during the term of his brother. She dominated the show business. Her face , her antics , her sex life and her husbands, are top of the news.
The liberal socialist YellowTards; the Roman Catholic Church and the Aquino Cojuangco political axis, did not raise any kind of criticism, during that time.
If you have wealth , enjoy it. The poor must be taught , to get out of poverty. Not just criticizing the rich. This is the reason, we must prosecute, jail or hang all those thieves in the government. They prevent most of us from acquire wealth !
They are poor because they have no skills and have very little to offer other than performing menial services
I AM CALLIN BULL SHIT ON THIS ONE, The poor of the country are poor for many more reasons than what is pointed out here. the economy is controlled by the rich, for their exclusive benefit. the poor simply haven’t a chance.
lack of decent paying jobs, sky high tuition in universities, the highest electricity rates in the entire world prevent people from opening business’s and being able to pay employees anywhere near a decent wage. the electricity rates alone are a HUGE detriment to the entire nation, as it drives down opportunities to open new business, so more people can not work, keeps downward pressure on wages of existing jobs because the owner of a company is paying the electricity bill and can not afford to pay higher wages and all of this while the people that can afford to buy stocks in the electric utilities sit back and get rich off of the bleeding of the economy through the ridiculously high electricity rates!!!
WHAT I HAVE JUST MENTIONED IS BUT ONE PROBLEM AMONG MANY, NO INDUSTRY IS ANOTHER, and all of these things have absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MASSA LISTENING TO ACTIVISTS BARK8NG AT THEM ABOUT HOW RICH SOME ELITES ARE.
This country is being bleed from every direction. The biggest factor i see here is lack of competition. and minimal foreign investment. Why would foreign business owners come here to be controlled by the rich pork barrel parasites. there are so many deterrents to foreign investment.
Totally agree about the electricity rates its absolutely robbery. In manila we pay $200 for a 50 sq meter apartment
Foreign competition is kept away by the oligarchs. The whole banning of foreign ownership is sold to the public under patriotism but it’s effectively costing every Filipino more money. Foreign competition would lower the prices dramatically.
The title of this article echoes what I’ve been saying all along since I started commenting on this blog. The corrupt Philippine society breeds arrogant and self-serving people, with an “Every Man for Himself” outlook in life, whether they are rich or poor.