Perpetual Cycle of Life

To write is to lay bare one’s soul, in so many words, for all to see. To read a book, then, is to look into the soul of its author.

I have just finished reading Leon Maria Guerrero’s highly readable English translation of Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” and am now moving on to its sequel “El Filibusterismo”. My purpose in this, to look into Rizal’s soul, is to inquire about his ideas on freedom. I want to see how Rizal’s ideas of rights and freedom match either the socialist or capitalist notions of rights and freedom. Rizal wrote these novels in the late 19th century, about a couple of decades after Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital” and about a century after Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”. Was Rizal more influenced by “Das Kapital” more than by “Wealth of Nations”? Or was it the other way around? This question requires another blog piece, which I will write later.

The premise I start with is that Rizal was a genius, but like all of us mere mortals he was a slave to ideas he had been exposed to. Many people claim that they are practical and are not influenced by any abstract idea, not realizing that by going to church or watching any movie, they are influenced by one intellectual or another who is in turn influenced by an original thinker. The fact is that every belief we hold can be traced to an original thinker who has written about it in the past. Even great thinkers themselves had to start from truths already established before they contributed their own original ideas.

Imagine that you are an actor or actress in a movie. You assume the personality of a character, and every word that comes out of your mouth follow a script. In real life, we also follow our own scripts. We live our daily lives according to our script, a dynamic script that itself may or may not change slowly as we experience our existence. Life is a script, but we have the power to change that script. We can author our lives to be either contrived to be tragic or designed to be triumphant. Rizal has authored both his life and Noli Me Tangere to be tragic, but his genius is that deep within his tragedy is hidden a seed for hope and eventual triumph.

Small minds, in an attempt to hide their limited expanse, reduce the stature of great minds by focusing on the wrong aspects of a great person’s life. The documentary film “Bayaning Third World” focuses on the wrong questions as to lose the meaning of Rizal’s life altogether. One question that the film focused on is whether Rizal retracted all his writings just prior to his execution. One cannot retract full contents of books in a page of denunciations: it requires books to retract one’s soul laid bare in prior books. What exactly was being retracted? What logic was followed to arrive at an opposing conclusion? Rizal’s alleged retraction, even if it were true, is relatively an insignificant event compared to the structural beauty of his plot and the grandeur of the characters in his novels. Instead of focusing on his warts, we should rather be focused on Rizal’s outpouring of his soul in his novels and other writings.

Reading a book written by somebody who lived some time ago is like listening to a dead person, who comes alive through the pages of that book. Digital technology can help us push this idea of dead persons talking one step further: what if we can freeze Rizal’s script and play it in the present world? “Bayaning Third World” uses a literary tool in which a character in the present talks to another character in the past. Aside from the fascinating effect of making a dead person come alive, this poses in fact a real possibility with the advent of digital computers. When we Google a phrase, we are basically asking a question for all of the Internet to answer. Google basically searches the whole Internet to find answers to questions. We can come up with a smart program (smarter than the Google search engine) that embodies all of Rizal’s written materials, including all the logic employed in his thinking. This program can then be a static representation of Rizal’s thinking (by “static” I mean no emotions and no maturation process), a static version of the script by which our national hero lived. We can then ask this automaton (who thinks he is Rizal himself) any question we want. My very first question would be not about his retraction, but about his ideas on freedom.

There are two aspects to this book. On the one hand, the book does a very good job of narrating exciting history that is unfolding here and now.  It lucidly tells how both India and China have adopted free market reforms to jumpstart their economies. It talks about the modernizing effects of the free market in terms of dramatic improvements in physical comforts of billions of Asians like flushing toilets, cell phones, cars ,etc. On the other hand, the book also offers a prescription for the West (U.S.A. and Europe) to fix their inability to continue to lead the world in peace and prosperity.

I have no problem with the first aspect of the book. I agree wholeheartedly that free market principles, even when applied from the top down in a previously command economy, can work. My beef is with Mahbubani’s prescription for the West. He advocates what he calls “geopolitical pragmatism”. In Mahbubani’s view, the West is intellectually stuck in its superiority complex and cannot put aside its ideology even for a moment. The foreign policies of China and India, on the other hand, are held up as exemplars of effective geopolitics.

The book was written in 2008, the dawn of the Obama regime in the U.S. Let’s review some of the more important policy prescriptions recommended by Mahbubani, determine whether Obama is following each one or not, and check the results so far:

Engage with Muslim Fundamentalists

India is more effectively dealing with the problem of Muslim fundamentalism by its humility (although it has not been spared from Muslim terrorist attacks). China has been equally silent in its diplomacy towards fundamentalist countries, eschewing the use of any propaganda construct such as Bush’s “axis of evil”.

Obama’s foreign policy is 180 degrees out of phase with that of Bush. As Mahbubani has prescribed, “Obama has consistently said he is willing to meet, without preconditions but with preparation, the leaders of Iran” (source: Obama-Biden website). He delivered a speech in Cairo in June of last year that was clearly in line with what the book says America should do: admit the West’s failings, praise the merits of the Muslim faith, and even sprinkle the speech with quotes from the Koran.

There is no evidence that Obama’s foreign policy is improving relations with Muslim countries. In fact, there is evidence for the opposite effect: a couple of polls have indicated that hatred for America among Muslims has not abated. Terrorist attacks have not decreased either. Could it be that the Muslim religion is irreconcilably incompatible with prevailing Western ideals? Mahbubani, like Obama (and even Bush himself), would not even entertain this possibility.

Strengthen the United Nations

Mahbubani reminds the West that it is the bearer of the wonderful gift in the form of the U.N. Charter, and that it only makes sense for the West to continue to uphold the charter and strengthen the U.N. The West has instead ignored the U.N. Charter by imposing its will through the Security Council.

Obama is also in favor of strengthening the U.N. and agrees with Mahbubani that the U.S. has been inconsistent with regards to its objective of spreading democracy. In a September, 2009 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Obama declares that “Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside. Each society must search for its own path, and no path is perfect. Each country will pursue a path rooted in the culture of its people and in its past traditions. And I admit that America has too often been selective in its promotion of democracy. But that does not weaken our commitment; it only reinforces it. There are basic principles that are universal; there are certain truths which are self-evident — and the United States of America will never waver in our efforts to stand up for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny.”

Bush has left the Iraq war in much better shape for America than at any time during his tenure. When Obama took over, out of respect for the sacrifices made by American soldiers, Obama should have used America’s unquestionable influence in Iraq and made sure that the last election resulted in a stable government. Instead he focused on drawing down the number of troops (as he promised) and so until now there is no clear leader in the Iraqi government. Terrorists have taken advantage of the situation and have killed scores of civilians while the draw-down is occurring. Obama’s policy here is consistent with standing up “for the right of people everywhere to determine their own destiny”. However, he is himself inconsistent in this regard because he has clearly intervened in the case of the Honduran coup d’etat when his administration sided with Zelaya and ignored the judgment of the Honduran supreme court.

Give Up Stranglehold on the IMF and the World Bank

The capital initially used for IMF and World Bank loans came from the West, and so it made sense for the West to require that the heads of these institutions be either European or American. However, Mahbubani claims, after borrowing countries have repaid their loans, leadership of the IMF and the World Bank should now be based on meritocracy without regard for country of citizenship. The money in these banks now consist mostly of interest paid, and the original capital has diminished its ratio with respect to the total, thereby also diminishing the right of the West to assign executive leadership.

Judging from how much importance the Obama administration has given to the G-20, we can surmise that they are in favor of this policy prescription.

This has not happened yet, and so the result is unknown at this point.

Amartya Sen

Mahbubani subscribes to the ideas of Amartya Sen. He views freedom in layers, with freedom from want elevated as the most fundamental freedom: “A human being who cannot feed himself or his family cannot possibly be free.” This view is clearly the neo-liberal view, at odds with the classical liberal definition of freedom: basic individual rights protected by the state. Before any human being can feed himself or his family, the food he needs has to be produced first. History has shown us that if the state is given the power to distribute the fruits of labor in any society, production can diminish to famine levels.

Obama is a neo-liberal and likewise can certainly agree with Amartya Sen.

The result of this policy, although applied domestically in the U.S. and not as part of foreign policy, is Obamacare. Obamacare is a horrible usurpation of one-sixth of the U.S. economy by the government. It will eventually lead to rationing of health care.

Long term memory in the brain is realized partly by weakening irrelevant connections and strengthening relevant connections among neural cells. Connections that become strong can still become weak if not exercised. Our long term memory is not like computer Read-Only Memory that can be burned once and then assumed to hold forever.

Why this foray into neurology? It took me some time to understand some ramifications of the dictum that “we are creatures of habit”.

We now know that, although difficult during adulthood, bad habits can be broken, and good habits can be formed. Good parents know that good habits are easier to form in kids than among adults, but even adults can regress. We also know that, as much as there are good and bad habits, there are also good and bad ideas. I was of the impression that good ideas, once discovered and elucidated, can speak for themselves. Surely, some kids already know what is bad from good, so why do they still do bad things? It was not clear to me that certain habits like angry reaction can make us forget what is good and what is bad. Good ideas need defending. Good ideas need reminding. You can program a computer once and expect it to behave exactly the way you programmed it. But humans need periodic memory “refresh”.

I also thought that history should have taught us what we know today. After all, we do have collective memory in the form of books (and now also films and the Internet). I expected the world to have learned the lessons of how dictators come into power, and not make the same mistakes again. But dictatorships have come and gone again and again, causing a lot of suffering and the subjugated people to lose decades in their march to progress. The fact is that good ideas and lessons learned are not points in history to be checked and simply assumed to be henceforth practiced. Good ideas like freedom need constant vigilance. Good ideas like liberty and the free market need to be defended from one generation to the next.

We can only wish that we can build an infrastructure for freedom and assume that it would continue to exist without nourishment. But the institutions for freedom that we build are not static structures, they are more like plants that need constant nourishment and care.

I feel very excited because these thoughts have led me to decide to participate in the battle of ideas, defending freedom, property rights, and the rule of law. A year ago, I looked at myself as simply a beneficiary of free market ideas, an entrepreneur in technology. My idol was Bill Gates, and I prided in being practical and so have pursued a career in software engineering. Now I realize that there are heroes out there more worthy of emulation than Bill Gates. Right now my idol has become Jose Rizal: he fought for freedom in his time, and even died for it. I am now into the eighth chapter of Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” and have been jumping around chapters of two other books (Dr. Palmer’s “Realizing Freedom” and Mahbubani’s “The New Asian Hemisphere”). I feel that my life has just started, and I believe I can make a difference.

Have I turned into a Quixotic idealist? The Philippines has long been mired in intellectual purgatory. The ideas of “social justice” still prevail,and only Nonoy Oplas’s Minimal Government has recently challenged it. Ideas have consequences as evidenced by the pervasive intrusion of government into people’s lives, in spite of debilitating incompetence on the part of government tentacles like the police. We are only to blame for this because we continue to believe that the government is the answer to any problem. I aim no less than to change this intellectual climate. This is not a short-term objective, to be completed in a year or two. It may take decades, but I have proven myself to be persistent.

Local communists and other rabidly anti-American elements claim that American influence on Filipino culture is so pervasive but subtle that we ourselves are not aware how most of our personal decisions are symptomatic of a culture vanquished by imperialist America. Never mind that “imperialist America” is a vaguely defined term because for communists, anything capitalist is imperialist. Such terms can never be defined precisely owing to the communist’s view that even word definitions (nay, language itself) are influenced by one’s material condition.

The process whereby one culture influences another does occur, but it certainly does not conform to Marxist theory. First, there has to be osmotic pressure in order for the process to even start. Osmotic pressure exists when one society is clearly superior to another, so that the two different levels of societal evolution create a potential difference. For example, we can say that the United States is a superior society not in one outward aspect but many: it has the most powerful military in the world, it leads in commerce, it has the highest concentration of gold in the world, it has the most successful technology companies, and so on. China was similarly superior during the centuries before Christ came, so that Japan was highly influenced by China in most of its early history.

What’s most interesting about the intellectual osmosis between China and Japan is that in this particular case the process was highly selective. In other words, rather than imitate just the external ramifications of Chinese superiority, the Japanese made a conscious and deliberate adoption of Chinese culture, politics, and commerce.

Like the Japanese in much of its history, I think we Filipinos have to be selective in what we adopt from American thinking, or American politics and culture. By this I do not mean that the government ought to select what we adopt by law: the intellectuals should be vanguards in this regard, outside of the power of government to coerce.

For example, with regards to the arts, it saddens me to see dance and song shown daily on Filipino TV that are clearly influenced by the American style. I see little originality; and things like hip-hop and rap imitated here are just pure copies. Even fashion is similarly influenced: I can’t imagine how some pop music bands and dancing teams can bear to wear jackets in this hot and steamy weather just so they look like their American counterparts. In architecture, we are similarly blindly influenced: I can’t stand to live in my rental place because it’s as Western as it can possibly be: all walls are solid concrete, designed such that the place is uninhabitable without air conditioning. I would much prefer designs with open walls, which is most appropriate in this tropical climate.

Intellectually and ideologically, it saddens me to see that, we are influenced more by the Democrats (liberals) than by the Republicans (conservatives). In this we are very much like the people of India with respect to the British: Milton Friedman observed that because socialism was prevalent in England at the time of India’s struggle for independence, socialism has become part of the Indian psyche until today. At the time of our struggle for independence, we were similarly influenced by American liberal ideals of equality of outcome and other socialist concepts.

As an example of liberal influence, the current Philippine constitution (1987) requires that the State “protect and advance the right of the people to a balanced and healthful ecology”. This vague provision which clearly resulted from an environmentalist influence has been judged inoperative by no less than the Supreme Court.

As another example of liberal influence, I would have very much wanted to reform the 1973 constitutional concept of property rights which is that of a “stewardship” (an untenable Christian Social Justice idea) rather than that of full-pledged, inalienable, primary rights protected by the constitution itself. Alas, this stewardship concept has remained in the 1987 constitution. Property rights are therefore subordinate to the “common good”. This has far-reaching consequences: like Robin Hood, the government is given the power to grab land from one citizen to another under the so-called “land reform” laws; land titles are not sacred documents, but can be revised according to one’s influence in any local office of the registry of deeds; squatters are given almost equal rights to land they occupy as the original owners; land price depends as much on the defensibility of its title as on its physical location; and other sad results.

Excessive regulation is another liberal influence in the Philippines. I have just started to setup a local corporation to do business. The contrast between the American process for corporations and the Philippine process is night and day: I spent less than an hour to fill up a form and less than $200 to setup a corporation in Washington state; while here in the Philippines I have spent countless hours talking to a lawyer and drawing up the necessary papers and complying with SEC reguirements, and I am just starting.

I have several unanswered questions about the Philippine process for setting up a corporation:

1. Why does the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have to be involved at all? In the U.S., as long as a corporation does not sell its shares to the public, SEC registration is irrelevant. In the Philippines, SEC involvement centralizes the administration of all corporations, and thereby increases red tape.
2. Why does the SEC require a minimum investment with respect to authorized number of shares and subscribed number of shares? This basically amounts to price control of startup shares. No matter how innovative an idea as reason for setting up a corporation, the same price is given: from the most mundane corporatization of real-estate assets to the most high-tech of startups. This removes the incentive to establish startups for highly innovative ventures. It also expands the power of the SEC over banks, because banks are being used to enforce the minimum paid up capital requirement.
3. Why can’t I start a corporation by myself? Why are four other incorporators required? Why not six? Why not ten? What’s special about the number five, the minimum number of incorporators required? This rule is so arbitrary that it defies any explanation. In the U.S. any person of legal age can establish a corporation by himself.
   Both the minimum capital requirement and the minimum number of incorporators required make it highly improbable that a corporation based on new ideas is formed in the Philippines: no Microsoft, no Intel, no Google, no Facebook, or even Baidu for us.
4. Why is the SEC also in charge of naming corporations? The SEC requires that corporate names are unique nationwide. The SEC website features a name registration facility that’s supposed to check for name uniqueness, among other things. This name registration is required, and it comes with a small fee. However, it doesn’t seem that the uniqueness facility works. I reserved the name “Centerus Cebu”, and paid for it at a local bank. I checked on my reservation, and the name did not appear as a reserved name under my account. I tried reserving it again, and the system allowed me to register the same name again.

Warning: this is long and may be troubling.

met·a·mor·pho·sis [met-uh-mawr-fuh-sis]
1. Biology. a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism, as from the caterpillar to the pupa and from the pupa to the adult butterfly.Compare complete metamorphosis.
2. a complete change of form, structure, or substance, as transformation by magic or witchcraft.
3. any complete change in appearance, character, circumstances, etc.
4. a form resulting from any such change.

I remember reading a short story, as part of my literature class at Ateneo de Manila University, about a man who suddenly found himself transformed into a cockroach. I don’t remember the author, but the title is still in my mind: “The Metamorphosis”. Now imagine how scary it must be to find yourself transformed into something that is one of the lowest forms of animal. Sometimes I feel that kind of scare in me. I’ve had a good life, and everything has been so easy and rewarding for me, but sometimes being back here in the Philippines feels like being transformed into a lower form of animal and dropped in a dark forest.

Why am I opening up my soul here by writing about my deepest feelings? Today I attended a service at my friends’ Evangelical Church here in Cebu. During the singing I felt a metamorphosis, one of a spiritual kind, occurring in me, and I told myself I was going to write about it.

Ever since man learned to speak, we have had the urge to tell stories, just to declare our existence. Ever since man learned how to write with indelible ink on paper, the urge to write has lived in us. Not so long ago, man discovered that writing on a piece of paper is very comforting, not so much because he knows somebody will read it someday, but because he feels alive when he writes. This blog feels much the same to me. It is more therapeutic than exhibitionist. I do not write for the sake of writing, however; I would rather send what I wrote to friends, than just tear it apart and throw it in the wind.

I consider myself lucky and proud that I’ve lived my younger years at a time when there has been a great upheaval in the history of man. In a small way, I have been part of the magnificent personal computer revolution, and then the Internet revolution shortly after that. Like an old soldier who wears his medals proudly, I can say I’ve worked for Intel at the dawn of the personal computer age. I was a soldier in the great campaign to spread the use of the micro-computer chip. I was involved in spreading the use of protocols that allowed the Internet to transport video packets and telephone audio signals across the world. I did my part in announcing the advent of web services shortly after XML was introduced. I have also been a software engineer in the largest software manufacturer that ever existed, Microsoft.

I do not consider myself lucky with regards to my family life, however. Due to my own shortcomings, I’ve had the worst thing that can happen to a family, happen to my family: ten years ago I lost my second son, and then my wife divorced me. Even though I have since remarried and am happy living with my second wife and two kids here in Cebu, it still feels like a curse. Don’t get me wrong: I am not superstitious, and I would rather blame myself for bad things that happen to me.

I wish I believed wholeheartedly in God just so I can explain to myself what happened. Alas, I am a lost soul, and my story has its twists and turns.

Like millions of Filipinos, I was introduced into the Catholic Church at an early age, and I was a devout Christian all through elementary and secondary school. When I finished high school, I even applied to a seminary to be a priest, but was rejected. During college, I lost my faith after readings on Karl Marx and novels by Ayn Rand (nothing could be as diametrically opposed, but Ayn Rand won me over and I still hold the same Capitalist ideas). One day, during Holy Mass in a retreat, I decided to do an experiment: how would I feel if I took the Body of Christ during communion and chewed on it? Since my first communion, I have been taught to hold the Body of Christ on my tongue and let it melt there. As soon as I chewed the Body of Christ, something happened to me psychologically: I became happier and I never felt as free as that moment. I lost all intellectual inhibitions, and my world view changed completely. I remember it was a triumphant and happy metamorphosis.

I continued experimenting even with my kids in my first family. What if I never introduced the concept of a God to my kids, and I myself behaved like an Atheist? They both grew up just like any other kid in the U.S.: with a lot of freedom, but very confused during their teen years. I had very heated arguments with my second son. He had clinical depression, and has had several suicide attempts starting at an early age of ten. Now this part is very difficult for me to write about, and I still find myself crying even just thinking about it: One day, out of my anger, I said something unforgivable to him. I blurted in his face that if he tried killing himself again, he better do it right the next time and do it all the way. My second son was fifteen when he took his own life. My first wife divorced me not long after that.

Now I have resolved that with my second family, it is not a good idea to keep my kids from being introduced to the idea of God. They may still lose their faith when they grow up (just as I lost mine after being devout), but at least their ethics would be correct. I myself have changed my stance: instead of an Atheist, I am now an Agnostic. There is one big difference between Atheists and Agnostics: whereas Atheists are so sure of themselves and arrogantly declare that there is indeed NO God, Agnostics are much more humble and only say that there is an envelope or a limit as to what we know, and the question of God is unknowable. An Atheist looks down on believers, but an Agnostic can admire religions and those who practice them devoutly and peacefully.

I now say prayers in the evening with my two kids, Kristin 6 and Careu 5. Every evening before going to bed, we say the Our Father together, and then I ask them what they are thankful for about the day that just passed. We have been doing this for several months now, and it has become a habit like brushing one’s teeth. However, sometimes I do get in trouble: kids can discern one’s sincerity. I can feel that my explanation of what the Our Father means is lacking; and although they do their part in thinking about the good things that happened to them during the day, the good things that my wife and I would tell them were not really coming from our hearts.

Today, however, was great. I was really thankful for being at the Evangelical Church, and I suppose Kristin could feel that I was sincere. She surprised me by saying that she liked being at the Sunday School too. I was surprised because when we rejoined them earlier just after the Sunday service, she told me she did not like Sunday School at all.

I feel that by trying to be sincere to my kids, I am opening myself also to the Lord. I still feel uncomfortable writing about opening myself to the Lord; but today after the Sunday service, my nagging fears all went away. I feel I can survive here if I stopped worrying about myself and focus on serving others. I think a slow inner metamorphosis is happening, and may be with the help of my friends and more regular participation at the Bardford United Church of Christ, I can regain my faith.

After enjoying half of my life in the U.S., I came back to the Philippines with the idea of starting anew. After more than a year living here in Cebu, I say I love it here. I like the warmth of my friends and the sweat running down my sun-soaked skin every time I go to the beach or go sailing.

I have to work harder to earn a living, but I still think it’s worth it if only because I have not paid one centavo in taxes. So far my earnings are still in dollars deposited at a U.S. bank, and that’s the reason I have not been taxed yet. Soon I will start earning in Pesos, and will experience first-hand how it’s like being taxed like a slave. On the other hand, living expenses here are much cheaper than in the U.S., so probably I shouldn’t complain.

If only the taxes were two-thirds lower, then this country would really be the paradise it’s destined to be.

Politically you may classify me as a Libertarian, but I’d vote Republican anytime. I love Rush Limbaugh, and I also listen to Glenn Beck and Michael Medved.

Last week, while shopping at the Ayala Center Mall here, I surprised myself by conversing in pure Cebuano with a toilet attendant. He started it: “So who are you going to vote for in the coming election?”

“Manny Villar”, I responded with no hesitation.

“You believe he is really good for the poor?” He asked.

“Yes, I think what Manny will do will be good for the poor.”

“How will it be good for the poor?”

The question startled me, coming from a toilet attendant. Normally, the level of skill required to be a toilet attendant does not include asking How. I was then already washing my hands, and I wanted to get out of there quickly because I didn’t have change for the tip. It occurred to me that replying to the question would be worth much more than any tip. “Well”, I said, “Manny Villar will make it easier to start any business. He will change things so money will start coming in from other countries. With businesses and money flowing to those businesses, we will get more jobs. YOU will get a better job than just attending to this toilet. I know you are here only because there are no other jobs available, and I know that you have to fight for this job before you got it. Is this true, what I am saying?”

“It’s true.”

“With Manny Villar running things, I, Carlos Tapang, can personally promise you that in a year’s time you will get a better job because I know you work hard and you deserve it.” With that, I stepped out without waiting for a reply.