The Philippines is an immensely fun dystopian society. It’s fun because on top of our country’s beautiful tourist spots, Filipinos are some of the happiest, friendliest, and most hospitable people in the world. Many foreign businesses also thrive here because Filipinos have traits that make them reliable workers.
Yet the Philippines is quite dystopian. Filipinos are also why it’s rife with problems. Their serious flaws have hampered them from becoming globally competitive. Expats should be aware of the following bad Filipino traits that can turn the workplace into HELL:
# 1 Filipinos are copycats.
Our accommodating nature has a downside. While it makes us open to many positive foreign influences, we Filipinos barely cultivate, promote, and elevate Philippine culture. For example, the Filipino food served in many Philippine restaurants taste like other foreign cuisines. That’s because we derived most of our recipes from our colonizers. I personally think that most Filipino desserts are bland, even the ones from my native province of Pampanga, the country's supposed culinary capital.
This is not just colonial mentality on my part. In a survey by YouGov, people of different ethnicities across the world dislike Philippine cuisine.
On the other hand, delicious distinctly Filipino dishes in the provinces are not promoted enough even among Pinoys. To be fair, we Kapampangans do have a lot of delicious delicacies that aren't given enough publicity.
Filipino cuisine also needs more sophisticated plating methods. So foreigners investing in Philippine restaurants must tell their Pinoy cooks not to put fish heads in the soup!
Being a copycat is far from being benign. This trait makes Filipinos prone to adopting hateful attitudes from other countries, such as the propensity to perpetuate cancel culture. Moreover, Filipinos often “copy” inefficient, and even obsolete, work-related practices due to complacency or the intense desire for conformity.
# 2 Filipinos resort to cutting corners as a primary coping mechanism.
Because of their penchant for replicating ineffective yet familiar ways of doing things, many Pinoys resort to unethical short-term measures instead of developing innovations that address the root causes of their problems. It’s the main reason why commuting is hell.
In my first year of practice, I had to take the MRT everyday to get to Mandaluyong, where I worked. The MRT broke down 2-3 times every single week that year. Multitudes of commuters spilled out of the stations, waiting there in EDSA for hours to get a ride. They chose to stay because the MRT was the most tolerable option for them given the heavy traffic, not to mention the skyrocketing cab fares.
How did the government respond at that time? By making the MRT run more slowly. Not by contracting competent engineers to fix what was wrong. Not by incentivizing software engineers to develop apps that would allow commuters to book cheap private vehicles. Instead, THEY MADE THE MRT RUN MORE SLOWLY.
# 3 Crab mentality is on a whole new level.
There are crabs in a bucket in every country, wherein people drag you down if they think you’re becoming more successful than them. What makes Filipino crab mentality insidious though, is that Pinoys actually think that they’re being noble by holding you back.
While growing up, some of my classmates excelled academically even if they weren’t doing their assignments or cooperating in group activities. A few of our teachers repeatedly praised them in front of all the students. They used to say to these kids, “Your grades are so high even if you’re not doing your homework! You’re smarter than the top students. I bet you’ll come first in your subjects if you put in more effort.” Of course, I felt threatened because I was either top 1 or top 2 in class.
Those teachers were probably thinking that they were just encouraging the lazy yet smart children to be more conscientious. The problem is that even if only a few educators were doing that, the message powerfully ingrained upon me a fixed view of ability: if you’re smart, you should be getting good grades without working hard like those bookish honor students.
A lot of Filipino millennials might have experienced the same. I reached this conclusion because by the time I got to college, my classmates and I were ashamed to admit how much we were studying. We’d often humble-brag to each other by saying things like, “I just studied the day before the physics test” or “I got two mistakes in the exam instead of getting a perfect score because I didn’t study.” The subtle message is that working hard is only for students with average abilities.
Such an attitude carries over to Philippine work establishments. It’s not uncommon for Filipino workers to make shaming comments that will discourage their colleagues from excelling in the guise of assuring them that it’s okay to relax. It’s indeed good to take it easy once in a while. The problem is that it can reach a point wherein Filipinos don’t want to venture into bigger challenges. They’ll just respond to new competition by cutting corners to keep their workplace afloat. In extreme cases, some employees might get sabotaged, bullied, or mobbed for pushing for positive changes that will make the others uncomfortable.
Like what I said previously, I’m speaking in generalities. I admit too that I recognize these tendencies in myself and I need to make a lot of conscious effort to overcome them. Our awful traits are also not a justification for expats to denigrate us Filipinos. Doing so will just backfire on foreigners. Nevertheless, we need to talk about these weaknesses if we want to help our country prosper.
(Photo by Gino)
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