Hardheaded

It is surprising to hear the government join in the chorus condemning Filipinos as "hardheaded" because they fail to obey the rules of the quarantine. It is unusual to hear the government whine about the people when it's usually the other way around but I digress.

I'm sorry but Filipinos have always been lawbreakers even before the quarantine so let's not pretend that we're only noticing this now. However, I think this complaint is inaccurate. Filipinos are not "hardheaded". They know what the law is and that is precisely why they are adept at dodging them. No, it is better to say that Filipinos are "selfish". They break the rules because they are selfish.

What is the point of rules? For the most part, rules are there to impose order and the point of order is to make sure that things are fair for everyone. For example, traffic rules exist to make sure that everyone can move in an orderly fashion. Everyone gets their spot. Everyone gets a turn. In the broader sense, laws exist to protect the rights of people from being encroached by the government and by others. All the rules, regulations, statutes, etc., exist with the welfare of the individual or the whole of society in mind. Crimes are punished since they cause harm to people or society at large.

The problem with the Filipino is that he is selfish. He sees himself separated from the whole of the Filipino people. I wrote before that the Philippines was never one nation prior to the time it was forced on us by the colonizers. The Philippines remains a multi-ethnic hodgepodge of peoples with different cultures, languages, dialects, and religions, spread over multiple islands far apart from each other. Filipinos naturally put the narrow interests of their small circle of relations first, whether that be their family, their tribe, their religious sect, or their smallest political unit. They don't care about the greater whole of the "nation" because such a thing has never existed despite everyone pretending it does. Interest begins with the individual and radiates outwards.

Filipinos break the rules because it is in their best interest to do so. Their needs come first before the greater community. They fail to grasp, whether willfully or through ignorance, that the point of rules is to ensure fairness for others. But who cares, right? If your needs are more important than everyone else's, why wouldn't you cut in line? You're just earning a livelihood so the rules should be relaxed for you, you poor, poor, dear! Are you underprivileged (or at least feel you are)? Then go and be an asshole and count on people to take pity and give you special treatment.

It's wrong to think that people break the rules because they're stubborn. That gives way to thinking that the solution is just to be more strict or, God forbid, make even more rules. Hence, our constant flirtation with authoritarianism. The problem is deeper than that. It's soul rot caught from centuries of a dog eat dog existence - my people versus your people. No matter how many policemen you put on the streets or how many laws on the books, Filipinos will always break the law because "Filipinos" don't exist. It's only ever just "me" versus "them".

So now in a time of contagion, we see the toll of this cultural disease.