The whole country ground to a halt last Sunday, as every living Filipino stopped to watch Manny Pacquiao flatten the hapless Ricky Hatton in the second round of their Las Vegas contest. The spectacular win cemented, as sports journalists worldwide reported, the PacMan?s claim to be the world?s best fighter PFP (pound for pound).
The Pinoy heart swells as Manny lifts the country once again from the quagmire of politics, poverty? and politics again. The Philippines is undoubtedly world-class in another form of PFP, too ? politics for politics? sake ? or more accurately, profit for politicians. But I digress.
It was billed as the battle of ?East versus West? ? and the East won by a knockout. Back here in the East, however (and to switch to a field other than boxing, billiards or beer drinking), other professionals are being knocked out right in their home venues.
I?m taking about professional Filipino architects, landscape architects, interior designers and planners. We (I am also a card-carrying member of a fraternity of design professionals) are being knocked out of our own rings by western foreign consultants. These foreign consultants have the fight for Philippine real estate development stacked heavily in their favor.
Foreign designers are here in droves because there are few new projects in their own countries and, unlike foreign fighters who have to seek official sanctions for licensing boards in the US or any other foreign country to fight, these interlopers are instead welcomed with open arms (despite having no permits to practice) by local clients.
Filipino designers have to play second fiddle to these (mainly white) Westerners and often have to suffer the humiliation of acting as ?architects or designers of record? to these imports. Filipino designers are resigned to fight in undercards where the pay is nowhere near the millions of dollars (I am not kidding) paid to foreign consultants by some real estate developers here.
Competing against these foreigners in one?s own country is a one-sided affair akin to being given lightweight gloves, fed mongo and made to fight larger opponents. Our competition is flown in via business classes, are given bigger gloves, billeted in five-star hotels and are pampered like gods.
Judging at contests to select between a foreign consultant and a local is also lopsided in favor of the foreigner. The judges often select the import because they feel that the public is more likely to buy into the project because of the presence of a Western (again mainly white) personality. It?s the market?s (or more probably the marketer?s) colonial mentality that is at fault for foisting imported brands on a gullible public.
A big developer recently advertised a new residential development beside the Pasig River as being designed by American architects and landscape architects ? in open disregard for Philippine laws that prohibit practice by foreigners in architecture and landscape architecture. Their pictures were plastered on full-page ads in major broadsheets. Not one of the many Filipino professionals involved in the project was mentioned or credited.
Many of these real estate companies purport to being truly Filipino firms and supportive of Filipino creativity and expertise. But this is all lip service as Filipino designers are beaten to the punch (and all major projects) by Americans or consultants of other nationalities.
Actually, most are American as (I suspect) this allows executives of real estate firms the excuse to take junket trips to the states to look for this talent ? this, despite the fact that abundant talent is already here. (Does Ambassador Kristie Kenny know that American professionals defy Philippine law to practice here, while no Filipino architect is allowed to practice in the United States? That?s one-way globalization for you.)
Even local officials are ignorant of the law on design practice. A recent bid for master planning services by a government bases conversion body for a huge Makati-sized new district allowed foreign firms to submit proposals for professional services. The situation is like having to fight your own corner men in between rounds. As one Filipino consultant remarked, ?Maraming kalaban talaga, pati yung kapwa Filipino kalaban, pati gubyerno kalaban.? (You have to fight everyone, even your own fellow Filipino, even your own government.)
Because of this demeaning situation, many Filipino professionals prefer to battle for survival abroad; at enormous personal and social costs. The Philippines needs good professional architects, designers, and engineers to design and build the infrastructure for a strong republic, but it is the republic itself that refuses to nurture its homegrown talent.
Filipino design professionals fight for jobs abroad because (like Pacquiao) they find little sustenance or support at home. Unlike Pacquiao, who reaps accolades and whose nationality is acknowledged (because it makes a good back story), Filipino architects and designers are nameless migrants, contributing to the improvement of other people?s environments.
The Philippines is a reality show where we have voted 10 million off the island and many more monthly. These displaced citizens are acknowledged only by a government hungry for the remittances needed to prop up a weakling economy and one that encourages the Filipino diaspora by spinning it as a heroic endeavor; making of us, who have ventured and continue to venture abroad, in reality, martyrs by the millions.
Filipino martyr/migrants? journeys don?t all end up like Arnel Pineda?s or Manny Pacquiao?s. Pineda (who now sings for the reformed band Journey) and Pacquiao are but two exceptions to the growing millions of Filipinos striving to survive the crushing blows of a fate Filipino society and government are in denial about.
What Filipino private businesses are in denial about also is the talent that the rest of the 80 million Filipinos who remain here possess. This is true, except for call centers, which, in any case, do far less to build a robust economy than the basics of producing real goods, real services and real value, for real citizens right here in our own country.
Answering calls from clueless foreign consumers does not address the fact that we manufacture little of what we consume, create relatively little of exportable value or are able to shield ourselves from the greed and hubris of established economic powers ? who, as we speak, are bailing themselves out of their own stupidity at our expense.
Because local companies or clients cannot (or do not want to) compensate them decently, we are losing not just architects and designers but also doctors, nurses (or doctors who turn nurses), lawyers, engineers and teachers. Even our own artists ? filmmakers, museum curators, painters, opera singers, ballet dancers, and actors ? have given up the fight here to earn and survive in the Disneylands overseas and the futuristic fantasy worlds of Shanghai or Dubai.
Manny Pacquaio wins by knockouts and ultimately elevates only himself. Philippine sport is buoyed up by his success but a world champion in boxing does not a vibrant economy or a modern country make. We have elevated sports to a national prominence that defies its proper and limited value as recreation and entertainment. Moreover, it is now salvation and religion, too ? pushing us back as a people further into cultural and social stagnation.
Going back to my religion, the design profession, I, as well as a number of other architects, landscape architects and interior designers, have ventured abroad and have achieved qualified success (winning awards and the respect of foreign professionals). But the minute we step back on Philippine soil we are all like Hatton ? suckers for that left hook.
We who have returned to rebuild our lives and contribute to the country just cannot see the knockout punch coming. This fatal blow comes from a society that does not care, private businesses that aim only for the bottom line, and a government that seeks only to perpetuate itself and its ill-gained profits.
Pacquiao may have won over a half billion pesos for his triumph, but it will not stop Filipinos from losing billions a year to rigged public works contracts, overprized noodles and the perennial pandemic of pork barrel politics.
Finally, it is a sad fact, shown clearly last Sunday, that Pinoys now seem to have only one joy left in their communal life, and their only remaining respite from suffering is ? you know it ? when Pacquiao steps into the ring.
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