Righting Wrongs
Growth Pains to Democracy
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
I had this extraordinary opportunity once of getting invited as an observer at a job interview. The special thing about the occasion wasn’t due to the fact that the employer was a friend of mine but because the job applicant was a surgical resident who for some as of yet unfathomable reason was leaving a reputable training institution on his senior year and transferring to my friend’s, which was just as reputable but had an added dimension of being riskier – a military dimension kind of risk.
It was a sensitive moment and although I was all ears, I tried my best to stay in the shadows and be part of the furniture during the entire interview. Then came the inevitable question. Was it just a sudden burst of patriotism that brought him to the halls of this military institution ? You could see through the knitted brow of the young doctor (let’s call him Tim) how he agonized with his answers until he came out with an admission of his “shortcomings”.
It was an enviable position, actually, where he was - top-rate private medical college , and as chief resident, he was the trusted right hand of most consultants, whose schedules were sometimes so tight that they left the matter of certain cash gifts or payments from a number of grateful patients, not to their secretary, but to Tim who earned their trust by “always coming thru.”
There was this one time, however, punctuated by a newly discovered unfortunate pastime – gambling – where he failed to “come thru”. To make a long story short, he gambled on his consultant’s money and lost – not only the money but his position and reputation as well. But Tim was facing the problem squarely and seeking professional help on his own.
When he left, my friend and I looked at each other and gave each other a grin of disbelief. Jeez. How could he do it – throw everything away and expect to have it all back? “What do they think this hospital is – a reformatory school?”, my friend remarked. We both looked at his academic record and were both impressed. But the issue had more to do with confidence rather than competence. I shared with my friend a little “trick” question which I picked up for evaluating senior residents. I would pose this question: “If you were the Chief and had to select between a competent senior fellow and a loyal senior fellow – who would you pick?”
Not surprisingly, a lot would pick competence, having in mind the quality of surgical care or safety issues for patients, I guess. But if you go deeper, and look at both qualities in general as a function of time (dynamically and not statically), you’ll find that competence can be reached by anyone given a certain amount of time (given his/her learning curve). As long as you, the Chief, hold supervision, competence really isn’t diluted by choosing a loyal fellow over a competent one. While Loyalty is an absolute. It’s either the fellow is loyal or not. Not everyone can be loyal. By Loyal, of course, is not really meant in the lapdog sense of the word where even your mistakes are hidden or rationalized just to spare you from embarrassment or court your favors. Loyalty, here simply means sharing your set of beliefs and living it with you, so that your loyal employee can without hesitation correct you or remind you of your course, in case you forget, as humans are wont to do. In other words, he stays with you come hell or high water because he believes in you.
I told my friend that although the gambling case could not be glossed over, one could actually consider his being given a second chance provided, however, that he be given hurdles to overcome in order to prove himself before being officially accepted. I didn’t get to know how that turned out, but that remarkable display of weakness of character at a young age did made me think about the national malaise plaguing this “young” country I’m visiting : Corruption.
During the time of the Dictator Marcos’s 14 –year reign, Filipinos were treated to a new byword – Unexplained Wealth, trying to focus ,among other assets, on the horde of gold declared by Ferdinand Marcos on his exile to Hawaii which he explained as being part the fabled Yamashita Treasure that he found and not the unaccounted gold treasury from the Philippine Central Bank.
How about the other part of the spectrum ? That of a young Philippines, on its supposed road to democracy 19 years after the Dictator whose northern and southern mountains yielded bountiful produce of gold, silver and platinum, - whose Iron ore and copper deposits rivaled the world’s leading producers ,- whose Nido oil wells in its southwestern region have just started to be tapped of its gas reserves, whose human resource are among the most educated in the region – how could this country not even have a functioning railway system , have an integrated steel mill that is in disuse due to debt, still after all these years of independence, have a struggling GNP of 5.2 and is considered one of the laggards in Asia’s booming economies when it was once one of the leading ones? What about Unexplained Poverty? The answers inevitably lead to corruption.
Presently, investigations on Corruption are being carried by the Philippine Judicial system implicating the purse-holders (Comptroller) in their Armed Forces . Other governmental heads are suppose to undergo a lifestyle check.
In Taiwan this link even explains how a strongman rule under Generalissimo Chiang-Kai Sek helped it edge out other southeast asian countries in development.(SEA & Taiwan) Link
Having been under a 50-year American occupation and tutelage (1898-1946) interrupted by some 3 years of Japanese occupation, before its official US release as a new democratic nation in 1946, it would be interesting to study the Philippines’ further development since this would give us a clue on how other countries presently under US occupation and tutelage (read Iraq) would fare out. Would a strong man rule emerge out of a post-US occupied Iraq? Will any length of US occupation in Iraq guarantee the absence of a strong-man rule in Iraq afterwards? Will a more Western-influenced Iraq be prone to state-wide corruption that would also stifle its growth after US occupation ?
In other words, if these (strong-man rule & corruption) are the inevitable growth fits and starts in democracy, why should the US occupy Iraq any longer ? Why should the younger country though it be a leading proponent for Democracy continue occupying another whose civilization is older than theirs when this older civilization has already shown the world that Iraqis can hold democratic elections despite the unabated provocations of Terrorism? Wouldn’t it be the wiser choice to allow this older civilization to discover its own path to Democracy? The US will always be around to help when needed anyway.
As in Tim’s case, would sheltering him in the secure confines of the military for the last years of his residency guarantee that he would’ve kicked his gambling habit for good or shouldn’t this have been resolved during the earlier years of character formation ? Wouldn’t it be better to allow him to suffer the consequences of his actions so that he could learn from it?
People learn better when they internalize things they themselves have experienced. Look at the US experience at Democracy. It wasn’t that smooth a road to the present Republic. Right after its war of Independence, it went into civil war. It had its moments when a return to strongman rule seemed tempting and also had its period where corruption was rife. You can’t have these internalizing learning experiences when you put people in a laboratory under a simulated environment,( as in a US-occupied Iraq). Put them in that situation longer, and they’ll never know how to make it on their own. Link