Are they always better?

I grew up in Tundo. Played tumbang preso, langit-lupa, taguan-pong, patintero, teks and basketball in her streets. She was also a witness to my juvenile fist-fights :)

Her streets trained me before I entered school at age of six.

I went to public school.

By the time I was in Grade 3, I was given the opportunity to "jump" to Grade 5. They called it acceleration then. I spent my last two elementary years, still, at a public school. I went to General Maximino Hizon Elementary School. This is about a 30 minute commute ride from where I lived at 5:45AM. I was part of, then, Ministry of Education's Special Education program.

For the next two years, my section was "AC". No, it wasn't for Alternating Current. It was for "accelerated". We were housed at a wing called Silahis ng Diwa. For two years, my mind was shaped and formed by Sir Jordan, Ma'am Filoteo, Ma'am Borre, Ma'am Matias, Ma'am Beldas and Sir Terrado.

After graduation, I spent my high school in a private school. Nanay enrolled me at Colegio de San Juan de Letran. The school where my older brother, Elisalde, was enrolled too. I was one of the three "outsiders" who joined the freshmen Blessed Liem dela Paz section of June 1986.

Then, I was off to Mapua to take and to eventually finish a BS Industrial Engineering degree and then after seven years, got a graduate degree at De La Salle University.

And while I was finishing my graduate degree, I had the chance to go around the Philippines, visit some business hubs in Asia and be a part of multi-racial teams. I stayed long after the novelty "of being part of a multi-racial teams" had worn off :)

There's much to be learned from the West and from the first world countries. Just reading and studying their journey is already a treasure trove.

But I find it weird and a bit disturbing that most of us, Filipinos, more often than not accept that what they have, what they do and what they think is always better than what we have, what we do and what we think.

This is dangerous now and more so for the next generation.

Just take for example, diet.

Any country who has assimilated and adapted an American diet will have and will suffer diseases like heart attacks, obesity, diabetes and cancer. The American economic system and its corresponding healthcare system, no matter how broken it is now, can manage these diseases. But can the Philippine healthcare system handle such burden since our diet is very close to being American? Think Jollibee. Think McDonald's :)

Do we fully understand the danger behind the 'power' of nitrites?

Why can't we improve our supply chain of fresh vegetables, of fresh fruits, of fresh poultry, of fresh meat and of fresh fish so that we do not have to use nitrites?

I mean, the Philippines is literally smaller than the United States of America. Why can't we teach or allow our future supply chain designers with developing a supply chain map for Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao or simply just for MiMaRoPa? :)

Is it that hard to create a supply chain map for the Philippines that we are fine with studying the supply chain genius of Amazon.com?

Why do we limit our study to that?

Are we more impressed with the discussion of Amazon.com's or of Spain's Zara supply chain rather than the creative process of developing a supply chain for the Philippines that might actually help in improving the lives of millions of rural Filipinos because the apt infrastructure was made?

How about this.

Is there any American or Western practice that we can assimilate, since we love assimilating and adapting Western practices, that can handle the liver-disease time bomb because of the frequently-changed sleeping patterns of BPO workers?

The United States of America and Europe do not have this 'situation' at this magnitude and scale. Only the recipient countries, like the Philippines, of outsource work has this problem. Will insurance be enough?

Is there anything an Industrial Engineer can do? How about the Engineering Management graduate who majored in Service Management? Can he do something?

Or is he waiting for someone from America or Europe to write a research paper on it so that he can simply assimilate it? Copy it? Do I hear and smell OT? Sure pass? :)

Are they always better?

Always? That even if the problem is right before our eyes we wait for them to tell us what we should do?

Or are we simply afraid? Afraid to make a mistake that we let "them" commit it first, let them perfect it and then we copy. By that, we will always be shiny and happy people. Always correct. Always certain.

We could do that. And we are doing just that. But that also proves that we are afraid and irresponsible.

I grew up in Tundo. Played tumbang preso, langit-lupa, taguan-pong, patintero, teks and basketball in her streets. She was also a witness to my juvenile fist-fights :)

"... why think like mere men?"