Gross national happiness

One often hears a Filipino or oneself saying, or chirping, “Mababaw lang ang kaligayahan ko.” When translated literally, it almost sounds like “My joy is shallow” when what it really means is “It takes so little to make me happy.” It, in fact, suggests that there is a deeper, fuller joy than what is apparently caused by that “little”.

There’s been much ado about the recent research findings that challenge the so-called Easterlin Paradox that has long been held—that happiness does not necessarily increase with income. That is, after a point of satiation has been achieved.

Now come the new research findings from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business showing “a clear positive link” between wealth and “subjective well-being” based on global surveys.

They show that the facts about income and happiness turn out to be much simpler than first realized. Namely:1) rich people are happier than poor people. 2) richer countries are happier than poor countries, 3)as countries get richer they tend to be happier.



I am tempted to exclaim, but of course! Does poverty make anyone happy? Well, it does for those who choose and embrace evangelical poverty and give up material possessions in exchange for a life of simplicity and oneness with the poor. But these special people who practice non-attachment are by no means destitute, they are simply non-attached to the trappings of wealth and power. Free, in other words. Free-er because they chose to be free, and therefore happier. Else why would they choose such a life?

In 1974 Richard Easterlin’s research findings made him conclude that: “More money does not make people happier.” And “Most people could increase their happiness by devoting less time to making money, and more to non-pecuniary goals such as family and health.” That became gospel truth.

Money can’t buy you happiness. But it sure can move you from below the poverty line to above the poverty line. And who among those who have crossed the line would say that it was better and happier below the line? I suspect there might be some—those who did violence to themselves in order to have more for themselves and their families, those who sacrificed the non-material sources of their joy in order to cross the divide.

What price money then? What price happiness?

Sure, it’s easy to say one is prone to happiness when the basic needs have been met—at least the most basic in Abraham Moslow’s so-called hierarchy of needs which includes more than just the material. And all other things being equal in people’s lives—which is definitely not the case—the one with greater purchasing power is happier. Not necessarily true, the Easterlin study would show.

As Filipinos we take pride in the fact that we are always smiling or laughing. This is supposed to be a gauge of our inner well-being. But are we happy because of, or in spite of? Are those smiles really indicative of our collective feeling of well-being as a people?

There are so many things that are not right in this country but suicide is not an epidemic here. What is it about us that makes us so resilient as a people? Our genes, the weather, our family set-up, our festive culture, our music, our religious faith?

Definitely not our politicians or our government. We would be a notch happier if they were not the way they are.

A good number of those who threaten to end their lives in glaring daylight in order to get out of their misery do not really intend to call it quits after all. Consider those despairing Filipino men who climb up the tall billboards and who send firemen running with their ladders. All they want is to air their grievances about their estranged wives, employers, oppressors. It does not take long for them to soften. A little attention is all they want. And they get live TV coverage too and promises to make things right.

But I suspect the Easterlin Paradox is more applicable to the Philippines than the new study is. Our gross domestic product (GNP) does not necessarily reflect our gross national happiness. Or to put it the other way around, our GNH is not necessarily a result of our GDP. The Easterlin Paradox might as well be the Filipino paradox.

Wharton economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers now contend that the Easterlin Paradox was flawed. Maybe the Filipino race is flawed?

The two economists found that the wealthiest countries in terms of GDP per capita ranked near the top in the happiness rating while the poorest were at the bottom. Also, within each country surveyed, higher incomes translated to higher ratings of life satisfaction. But Easterlin who is with the University of Southern California faculty is sticking to his guns and saying that recent surveys support his thesis.

Andrew Oswald who calls himself a “happiness economist” connected with several prestigious universities says the bulk of evidence is on Easterlin’s side and that “There is no extremely strong evidence that we are no happier than in the 1970s across the industrialized countries.”

“Economic growth,” Oswald says, “buys only the most marginal amount of happiness for a country that is already rich. But in developing countries, there is very little dispute—economic growth make people happier.”

On the other hand, the Wharton people contend that there is no evidence of a satiation point, that the rich countries that still get richer, become happier still. How much happier can they get? Would someone who has five cars become happier with six cars?

If research tools can measure happiness, can they measure true happiness? How happy are you? What would make you really happy?

Unsafe in banks

It was one for Truman Capote. The bank robbery in Laguna last Friday morning that killed 10 was one for the books. Nothing like that had ever happened in this country. I am not talking about the swiftness, the amount of money taken or the daring. I am talking about the naked cruelty of those who planned and carried it out.

They didn’t just take the money and run. They made sure no one saw or recognized their faces and lived to tell story. They made the bank employees lie face down on the floor and fired at them one by one, execution style. They had planned it that way. Who were they? What kind of men were these?

One bishop compared them to animals. Unfair to animals! Animals are good creatures, true to their essence and have no evil human attributes.

Whenever I am in a bank waiting in line to do a transaction, a scenario always crosses my mind—a bank robbery unfolding before my eyes. And what do I do next, where do no crouch and how do I stay cool? Should I keep my eyes shut but my ears alert to the sounds and my nose keen to the scents? Should I play dead or feign a heart attack?



I am not the type who steps out into the world with thoughts of grim scenarios that would spoil my day but a journalist always has this nose for the tragic, the vulgar, the grotesque, and but of course, and why not, for the unusually beautiful and profound.

But on a clear day, things could turn awry and there you are in the crossfire or on someone’s crosshairs because you happened to be in a bank. One of the 10 victims in last Friday’s bank massacre was a messenger who was sent by his boss. All the rest were bank personnel.

A research statistics that I found in the Internet show that most bank robberies are staged on Friday mornings. This must have something to do with the cash stash. People deposit their earnings at the end of the week. Banks need cash to refill ATMs so people could withdraw during the weekend. And maybe bank people tend to be more relaxed. Friday is when they wear civvies.

There is no doubt that robberies are no longer the work of bank outsiders simply crashing in. There’s info from inside that gets out and used by robbers for their operation plan. An inside job—that is an angle investigators can no longer ignore.

If it is not the bank itself that is attacked, it is the bank client who has just withdrawn cash and is on the street and going back to the office or home with the payroll. Who alerts these criminals to pounce on their prey? It couldn’t be the bank teller or the security guard. There are other factors outside the bank’s control.

Cash in transit such as those in armored vehicles are another story. Traveling in broad daylight and well guarded, these vehicles attract attention and are less prone to attacks while they are on busy streets. But still, there had been attacks. The attackers didn’t just emerge from the bushes, they had done a lot of planning. They had information.

Cyber theft or phising is a different type of bank robbery and innocent lives are not put in jeopardy. Armed robbery still works if cold cash is what you’re after. Until banks do business on a totally cashless basis—which is unlikely—they will always be magnets for attack.

Technology can only work so far. While closed circuit TV (CCTV) cameras train their lenses on the outside, who is minding what’s going on inside? How much do bank personnel know that could be leaked out? Bank and security personnel would be naïve to think that the attack simply comes from outside, that it does not start from inside. The timing, the moves, the plan—these are all based on prior information and communication on the bank’s lay-out, the surveillance technology, the bank personnel on duty, who does what.

I pity the security guards who stand outside the bank entrance. In a lightning attack, they are the first to fall. Walang kalaban-laban, no fighting chance whatsoever. Why put them there if they will only die in the first volley of fire? They should be like sentries, like what the amazing meerkat do.

Do we have a maculation system (I don’t know how this works) that ejects dyes on stolen bills and makes the bills traceable and unusable? What about a tracking device like the one in the movie “No Country for Old Men”? These robbers are ordinary lay people like you and me but they are a step ahead of their victims and the law enforcers who are supposed to be knowledgeable and high-tech. Armored cars, time-delay lock systems, CCTVs, alarm systems, security guards. The smart robbers have all these figured out.

Last Friday’s assault was not a simple stick-up on one’s teller’s booth by some rag-tag amateurs. There was thorough planning involved. The armed men must have known or made sure that the CCTV and the alarm system were not working. They broke in and were inside before the bank opened. And they made sure they killed all before they escaped with the loot. That is the tragic part.

They had information. Someone gave them information.

But as one police official said, there is no perfect crime. And those men better realize that someone might have been eavesdropping while they were planning the crime. Someone. Someone has information.

Schools awash in enrolment cash should be on guard too. Last weekend, armed robbers broke into St. Scholastica’s Academy in Marikina, tied up the guards and axed the door to the business office. No one was hurt but the robbers ran away with some P300,000 and a computer.

Maytime

What’s May without the Flores de Mayo and the Santacruzan? What’s life without the childhood memories of May, of blazing summers and sudden downpours, of food and fiestas, of beaches and rivers and flowers and songs?

I know there will always be endless debates about the excessiveness in fiestas which are mostly celebrated in May. And there’s the churchy part that could also spark debates but most people choose to bask in its saccharine, flowery feel because it’s related to faith and worship and God and us. Or so we think.

Recently the Santacruzan, the Maytime procession that usually features celebs representing icons in biblical and Catholic Christian history, had its share of questions when Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales frowned upon and wished to ban Santacruzans that feature male gays dressed as female saints and the like. A church-related event was not going to be done this way, he said.

Many in the gay community raised a howl, saying this was a form of discrimination against them. Why, they said, also want to be part of the religious festivities and they are also children of God.



If I have to say my two cents it is this: The problem is not in the gays’ participation per se. It is in the act of impersonation and the spectacle that the event becomes. Sure, the female participants--children or grown-ups--are also impersonating (if I may also use the word) saintly female icons. But no one questions that because they all are female. But when the male gays do it something rankles. Why?

I asked myself why. I have nothing against gays. I have a number of respectable friends--male and female--from that sector. What seems hard to take and what makes the supposedly solemn event distasteful is when it becomes a spectacle. I am not saying these events were not so before the gays got into them. Even with only the straights participating, they are really hardly solemn. They’re more like a fashion parade, a tourist come-on. Nowadays especially.

Why? Because the celebrities do not really come dressed like the persons they’re representing, they come heavily made up and dressed in glittering gowns and stylized Filipino attires that make you think of ballrooms and fashion shows. People come to ogle and watch a parade, not to join a procession. That’s not a judgment. That’s an observation.

What’s wrong with that? Nothing wrong with that if you just call it a fashion parade of celebrities.

So while Archbishop Rosales has a point, he should go a little further. Are the Santacruzans as they are generally done even by the straights, really all that solemn and edifying? Or should the church just dismiss them as secular or pseudo-religious, much like the real-life crucifixions in Pampanga which the church does not sanction?

I think I caught beauty expert and gay advocate Ricky Reyes saying that the gays should not participate in the Santacruzan as sagalas but they could participate in the Flores de Mayo festivities which is in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The latter is more inclusive. I think they could just come as their regular every-day selves. To come in drag or costume, which is not their daily attire, might detract from the solemnity.
For true-blue Marian devotees, straight or gay, decorum is key.

I do not know the historical connection between the Santacruzan (which is about St. Helena’s search and finding of the Holy Cross) and the Marian Flores de Mayo but the two have become part of the Filipinos’ Maytime traditions here and abroad.

The Flores de Mayo (Flowers of May) honors Mary through flowers and songs. This was introduced by the Spaniards sometime in the 1800s after the proclamation of the dogma Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

Who is the Catholic Filipino who has not participated in the Flores de Mayo? This was part of my childhood. Every May morning we would gather flowers for the afternoon floral offering and singing. It was fun especially with friends. Rich kids, poor kids—it was a happy mix.

The Santacruzan celebrates the search and finding of the Holy Cross by Queen Helena whose son, Constantine became an emperor and convert to Christianity. Helena supposedly found the cross in Jerusalem and brought it to Rome. The Santacruzan was introduced to the Philippines by the Spaniards and has since transmogrified into the beauty pageant that it has sometimes become.

Here are some of the characters in the Santacruzan: The Reyna Elena (Queen Helena) is the most important one and the most lighted and florally bedecked. She walks at the very end of the procession and followed by a band.

Up front are the aging, ageless roaming character Methuselah followed by Reyna Banderada who carries a yellow flag that symbolizes the coming of Christianity. Then come the Aetas of the pre-Christian era and Reyna Mora of the Muslilms.

Reyna Fe carries the cross of faith, Reyna Esperanza carries an anchor and Reyna Caridad carries a heart. Reyna Abogada who is the defender of the poor and the opressesd carries a book, while the fettered Reyna Sentenciada represents the innocents. Reyna Justicia carries the scale of justice.

Then there are the special women of the Bible—Judith, Sheba, Esther, Samaritana, Veronica (her name is not mentioned in the Bible), the tres Marias—Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James and Mary the mother of Jesus.

They are followed by girls carrying the letters a,v,e,m,a,r,i and a. Then come Reyna de las Estrellas, Rosa Mystica, Reyna Paz, Reyna de las Profetas, Reyna del Cielo, Reyna de las Virgines and Reyna de las Flores—whose titles from the Litany of the Virgin Mary.

Yup, I too had my part in the Santacruzan when I was a chubby-cheeked 13-year-old. I was one of the Tres Marias. Argggh!

Rice notes

I texted my good friends Sr. Isyang and Sr. Emma whose Susi Foundation serves farmers’ rice cooperatives in Southern Luzon to ask if there are extraordinary stories in their area related to the current global and local rice price crisis. These award-winning nuns-turned-farmers have been working in a farm setting in Quezon for the last 30 years.

Sr. Isyang texted a reply: “Effect of high rice prices here is families spend less on merienda, parties & other nonessential expense. Dey can still eat 3x a day, rural kc. Small rice mills have less stocks coz of cost. Less going 2 cockpits of those saving 4 food. No xtra-ord stories.”

Our common friend Ika Laurel Loewen who was based in Germany for a long time is back for good to produce food and give hope through her little farm in Barangay Laurel in Tagkawayan, Quezon. (She was my former schoolmate at St. Scho who later left for Spain to study and then settled in the land of Beethoven.) This great-grandniece of national hero Jose Rizal has named her little place “Mi Retiro”. Sure, it’s a place for rest but definitely not for retirement especially when there is a food crisis.



Ika has her rice-crisis stories to tell, one tragic, one happy. The food crisis had turned one desperate man in her barangay into a killer. A man who had three young children and a pregnant wife was trying to borrow money from his friend. Three times he was denied. One day some men taunted him by saying he had stolen something from the man from whom he had tried to borrow money. Shamed and enraged, this man hacked to death the one who had refused to lend him money.

The good news is that Ika is doing all she can to make her tiny tubigan (rice field) yield rice that, she hopes, could be sold at a low price. Her farmer-aide agrees to going organic. It will give a good example and save on chemical pesticides and fertilizer, she told me. There is good water supply and the farm could have three rice crops a year. She’s also been planting veggies and trees, raising farm animals (two horses, a carabao, free-range chickens) in her place.

This is the time to produce and give hope, to make sure no one goes hungry in our little spheres. To live simply and well. Like this Belgian who lives in Baguio and wrote me this letter.

“Dear Ceres, Being named after the Roman goddess of agriculture, you seem to have been predestined to write about the cereal rice. In any case, your article entitled "What color is your rice?" (Inquirer, April 17, 2008) was very interesting indeed. (The word cereal comes from the name Ceres. – CPD)

“I am a Belgian living in Baguio, who, like you, has been eating violet rice for some time. A former bread eater (home-made), I shifted to rice and more particularly to the purple black variety called here balatinao, to which I became frankly addicted. So much so that my first chore early in the morning is to cook my daily ration of rice…

“The vendor at the rice section of Baguio's palengke assures me that her balatinao rice is free of pesticides but I only have her word for it. So, being like you, a health buff, I wish I could buy, for my own consumption, violet rice organically grown by those farmers affiliated with the Foundation for the Care of Creation in Cagayan…Best regards, Joseph Kostenbaum”

And here is a letter from former ambassador Bienvenido Tan Jr. who is a veteran of social development projects. Centro Saka please give him answers!

“I sat at a couple of meetings on the rice problem and read several articles including yours of May 1. There must be something wrong with the figures or my hearing or my reading must be bad because they do not add up.

“There seems to be some agreement as to the number of hectares devoted to rice production, i.e., 4,272,000. The reported average production of palay differs from 3.8 m.t. per hectare to 4.04. This means 9,740,150 m.t. of rice at 60% recovery or 11,363,520 m.t. at 70%.

If the Dept. of Agriculture figure of 4.04 per ha.is used, this translates to 17,258,880 of palay or 10,355,328 of rice (at 60% recovery) or 12,081,216 (at 70%).

“The National Food Authority will or has imported 2,100,000 m.t. of rice to make up for the shortfall of 10%. This means the country needs about 23,000,000 m.t. of rice to feed our 88.5 M people. This is DA figure re the country’s need: 33 M m.t. of palay or 23.1 M m.t. of rice at 70% recovery.

“Here is where I have questions:

1) The area devoted to hybrid rice is about 300,000 hectares or 2.1M m.t. of palay. Why raise a fuss (about hybrid) when this is but a fraction of what the country needs?

2) how many hectares are planted to good and/or certified seeds? If the figures of Centro Saka and Fr. Lucas are correct, we should have a surplus of rice even at 60% recovery as your article points out. Why do we have a shortfall?

3) if a farmer can increase his production from 4.04M m.t. to 10M m.t. why does he not use good or certified seeds? He can double his income.

4) If we produce only 12,081,216 m.t. of rice and import 2,100,000 or a total inventory of 13,181,216 m.t. and the country needs 23,100,000, where are we getting the 8,818,784 m.t.?

“There must be something not being said or disclosed. For me, we should not fight over the better procedure. Let each group do its thing and the country will benefit if we do not produce more children than the needed rice to feed them.”

Oh, I have learned that in some areas up north farmers have been told they will not get irrigation water unless they use hybrid rice being peddled by some agencies. What about those who have been working hard to go organic to help heal this planet?