PROF ARGONZA’S TV5 INTERVIEW ON FILIPINOS’ HAPPINESS

PROF ARGONZA’S TV5 INTERVIEW ON FILIPINOS’ HAPPINESS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Good day, fellow global citizens!

Yours truly was interviewed anew by the TV5 program Tayuan Mo at Panindigan, with the topic focused on Filipinos’ happiness. Hosting the episode were Aida Uy, Wilma Dosent, and Izza Litton whose magnetic stage presence did give life to the occasion.

Interestingly, an urban poor woman agreed to be interviewed too, as a living witness to what makes Filipinos happy. She brought along her four (4) daughters who joined her in the customary Pinoy ‘salo-salo’ treat to guests offered by the Channel 5 network.

The latest research of the National Statistics Coordination Board or NSCB, chief government survey agency, showed that Filipinos put top priority on family, health, and religion in that rank order, when asked what are the topmost indicators that make them happy. The same research showed other important happiness sources as friends, financial security, education, love life, and work. Sex was among the bottom 5 happiness indices, which surprised the NSCB.

Being the sociologist/expert for the occasion, I was asked to explain the patterns that make Filipinos happy. I first had to weigh the results of the latest research, before I could present my own analysis.

In standard sociological discourse, values provide frames for individual choices. Values are those matters that people regard as social premiums, they are the core foundations of culture, and they are largely shared across classes and ethnicities. They are also the ones that define what is happiness for persons and aids them in prioritizing happiness indicators.

Filipinos put a great premium of relationships—to fellow Pinoys, family members, God & divine beings. Kapwa and loob are the pillars of our values, with kapwa governing the interpersonal domain while loob guides the intrapersonal.

By social relationships we refer here to the personalistic, traditional, informal ties in the domain of the ‘private sphere’. That contrasts to the that are impersonal, segmented, utilitarian valued highly in Western, industrial societies, ties that may enable one to shine career-wise but do not necessarily make people happy.

Happiness, as a positive intrapsychic state, can range from contentment to euphoria and bliss. Jobs and money do make Filipinos happy, but they matter only insofar as these enable Pinoys to have the means to face people, satisfy the needs and caprices of their fellows, and pay homage to Supreme Deity (payback through some donations to church or humanitarian groups).

Asked about the ranking of Pinoys in the global happiness surveys, I shared the facts that Pinoys would rank in the range of middle-to-high ranks. Pinoys never fell short of the middle range in happiness, and are among the happiest peoples in Asia.

No wonder that suicides don’t occur in the Philippines as high as they occur in Western/industrial countries, where as high as 5,000-10,000 deaths per year happen in major cities. Loneliness and depression are often the driving forces behind suicides, so the message is clear that Pinoys don’t do suicides a lot given their middle-to-high happiness inclinations.

It was another truly informative exchange of ideas and opinions. TV5 audiences surely will have much to benefit from such an informative program as the Tayuan Mo at Panindigan.

[Philippines, 07 July 2011]

RIZAL: MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

Erle Frayne  Argonza

Visionary genius, patriot, martyr for Philippine independence, Gat Jose Rizal was a man too far ahead of his own time. So titanic was the luck that came upon this blessed archipelago, the Philippine islands, for the embodiment among its humble people of this encyclopedic mind, Dr. Jose Rizal. He is impeccably a ‘man for all seasons’. And he is the national hero of the Philippine nation.

Most nations declare among their top patriots a warrior or military leader as their ‘national hero’. But for the Philippines, ours’ is a genius, an intellectual giant, a mind capable of engaging in issues so recondite and subjects so diverse that, in so short a span, he was able to pen an enormous variegation of topics that befit, in their totality, an encyclopedia. At the age of 35, he was terminated by the demonic imperial forces of Spain, but he never died in vain. On the contrary, his death continued to inspire libertarian patriots here and in other Asian lands, an inspiration that continues for our youth till these days.

Mystically gifted, little did people know that he was actually transformed into a spiritual guru before his death. His guruship was unique, in that he mentored his fellows on the wisdom of nationhood and patriotism. One of his avowed readers if not disciples, Mohandas Gandhi of India, followed in his steps and became, upon his transformation into a spiritual master, a mentor of nationhood and patriotism just like Rizal.

So mighty a mind Rizal possessed, without doubt, that till these days his works overshadow the combined works of his own fellow patriots, including those who’ve gained double doctorate degrees and published widely in academic circles. Rizal’s following is solid, he need not further articulate nor gesticulate thoughts in the vogue of a desperate social marketing campaign, for even long after his death, youthful and scholarly minds read him, try to follow his ethical precepts, and emulate his exemplary patriotic behavior.

He was the first Filipino. Before his time, the term Filipino was bestowed only on those Spaniards born and raised in the Philipines. The Malayan natives were pejoratively called Indios; Chinese, Sangleys; Aetas and IPs, negritos and montanosas; and Muslims, Moros. With scathing indictment of arrogant racism of  Spaniards most especially the friars, Rizal declared, with his mighty pen, that from this day on everybody born and raised in the islands will be called Filipino. That was how we islanders were to be bestowed with the name Filipino, a term that will stick till way into the distant future when a ‘Filipino race’ will evolve from out of a mere nationality today.

In his thoughts he pre-empted the political philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, the eminent Marxist leader of the Italian Left. Rizal mentored his fellow patriots that it will prove unwise to wage an insurrectionary campaign and seize political power, at a time when the ideas of nationhood haven’t permeated the private sphere yet. The most fitting strategy for that long-term goal—of building nationhood—is education. Build the new world’s ideas first till they become hegemonic, after which winning a revolution will be more facile as it was in the French revolution. That’s Rizal, and that’s Gramsci as well, but Rizal preceded Gramsci, let the world be made aware of this fact.

In gender relations, Rizal was no less ahead of his time. He scorned the ‘Old World woman complex’ so deeply that he chose to bury this woman in catacombs of history, which he did by killing Maria Clara, the Old World’s embodiment, in his novels. He advanced the idea of Modern Woman in the figures of the ‘women of Malolos’, even as he championed women who were civic-minded, actively engaged as co-partner in shaping the modern world, intellectually adroit and well-schooled. The Filipino nation he likened to the figure of Sisa in his novels, a nurturing mother who no matter under dire duress will never self-destruct but will stand out firm, tall and well-esteemed by fellows.

Amid Rizal’s liberalism, he never had any fondness for anarchism. Following Zola’s novel-writing tradition (e.g. Germinal), Rizal embodied the anarchist in the young bourgeois creole Ibarra who, at the end of his novel scripts, self-destructed. Anarchism can never be a substitute for prudent authority that should follow the Enlightenment principles of reason, progress, fraternity, and scientific verity. He was a true-blue liberal nationalist, never an anarchist.

We Filipino nationalists will continue to be inspired by Gat Jose Rizal. And his thoughts, the most treasured jewels of Asia during his time, will continue to inspire us, diadems that we magnanimously share to all enthused Fellows of the Planet, thoughts that mentor and serve as balm on the soul, like unto those writ by the most sagely personages. For these are the thoughts of a man no less sagely than the wisest of the days of old, thoughts that long after they are gone will continue to make waves into the minds of men and women of many generations yet to come.

Hail Gat Jose Rizal! Glory, genius, grandeur!

[12 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila] 

FILIPINOS COMPRISE 1/3 OF FRIENDSTER END-USERS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

I just came from the gym at this moment, and surfed a bit before my lunch break. Among the first news that greeted me was this one about Filipinos comprising 1/3 of Friendster users.

Let me quote the news below:

“Filipinos still make up big chunk of Friendster users,” Erwin Oliva, INQUIRER.net, First Posted 09:39:00 05/22/2008

MAKATI CITY, Philippines — A third of the traffic going to social networking site Friendster are contributed by Filipinos or at least the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are from the Philippines, an executive told INQUIRER.net.

Of the 39 million unique visitors recorded in March 2008, about 13.2 million unique users are from the Philippines, said David Jones, vice president for global marketing of Friendster, in an interview.

Jones said that if there are 14 million Internet users in the Philippines as of 2007, about 98 percent are going to Friendster.

These figures indicate that Filipinos make up the biggest population of Friendster users in the world, even surpassing the United States, where the service was originally launched.

Such numbers have prompted the social networking site to consider the Philippines as a major market for its services, including its mobile service, Jones said.

Typically, Filipino Friendster users are in the age range of 16 to 30 years old, with 55 percent of them being female. {End of quote)

Whether the news is good or bad is something to reflect on. For someone like me, who’s among the 13.2 million users from the Philippine end (there are also Filipinos overseas, remember?), the news is worth noting.

It means, first of all, that millions of fellow Filipinos now surf the internet, whether they their own DSL or wireless at home, or access cyberspace through commercial internet shops. This is already good news.

The 2^nd point to observe is that Filipinos do love to connect to people. We are a relationship-conscious people. And so our social networking is indicative of our contribution to make a high-tech world into one that is ‘high-touch’ at the same time.

I just hope that the Friendster company will provide some dividends to Filipino end-users for this meritorious behavior (as far as the company is concerned). Some other sites provide dividends based on the traffic of any user’s site alone, so why can’t the Friendster do the same.

Failing to do so, there would be reason later for the smarter newcomers (young ones) to skirt off Friendster altogether and proceed to the more reward-oriented sites. It’s already happening.  May the tribe of these smarter ones increase.

[Writ 22 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]