My Vision For Mindanao

Introduction

Mindanoan cessation/independence has become quite the buzz for the past months. And, though I share similar sentiments as those who want it, I think it’s a last resort move, and something that will be done only if others force our hand, leaving us with no choice. Though, honestly, we don’t want to be involved in a proxy war so independence is sounding rather tasty at the moment.

Hopefully, you, reader, are possibly more open-minded than the spectacle-wondering, fad-loving, parroter that is most of the gossip-loving Filipino population, which is what we are led to believe should be our culture.

I went on a trip a few weeks ago and it opened my eyes to how far down we’ve gone as a nation. But also how far we can go. And why the call for independence is so strong.

And if you’re one of my non-Filipino readers, you might learn something valuable here, though it’ll be harder to relate to since I’ll be talking more about local experiences.

The DA

I went with my father. He, 2 of his other friends, and the Department of Agriculture’s Regional Director of Caraga Region (northeast Mindanao) are good friends; they graduated from the same school. In the same year.

The RD (Regional Director) invited us to visit him and the region he was assigned to see what we could do to help the local agriculture industry.

My role in all of it wasn’t much. I was mostly there to observe, learn, and see everything on the ground. I didn’t have the connections my father or his friends have to help, but I do have one thing, my writing, though insignificant through lack of readership, I have found it helpful to myself what others—who most would label as insignificant writers—have written of their own life, experiences, lessons learned, and attempts at problem-solving. So I write this, not minding whether or not it reaches important eyes, but hoping it reaches the right minds. The minds who are capable of doing important things with the vision and the need of my city, region, and country.

After all, who am I compared to the great college graduates whom our spotless and AMAZING education system has so well educated? (that was sarcasm, if you didn’t notice) Yes, I didn’t go to college, and if that’s a dealbreaker for you to continue reading, then you’re probably part of what’s wrong with our country. #SorryNotSorry

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow came up with quite the prevalent theory called the Hierarchy of Needs.

It organizes human needs into 5 levels:

1. Physiological Needs | Biological needs for human survival: food, shelter, clothing, etc

2. Safety Needs | Humanity’s need to feel order out of the chaos of the world: Jobs, income, social stability, health. etc

3. Love and Belongingness Needs | Human emotional and interpersonal needs: groups, friends, connection, etc

4. Self-Esteem Needs | Dignity and self-worth: achievements, reputation, mastery, independence, etc

5. Self-actualization Needs | The need to realize one’s potential: personal growth, experiences, knowledge/wisdom, etc

These needs typically have to be met from bottom (#1) to the top (#5) IN THAT ORDER. And while there is room to pursue needs simultaneously, most people wouldn’t value the higher needs if the basic ones haven’t been. But I propose a way of meeting our basic level needs by pursuing a more advanced need.

Mindanao’s Needs

Disclaimer: I am not an expert. As stated above, I haven’t even a college degree but I certainly have observations, thoughts, and experiences of my own and of others, that I use to fuel my writing.

Before the trip I went on, I had half an idea of what my island needed to improve politically, and economically, or at least what I heard people needed that I thought was a true need. But after the trip, I saw a fuller view of what Mindanao needs, and by proximity, and maybe by the same circumstance, the whole Philippine archipelago.

The following are, not in any specific order, what I think are the main issues that have to be fixed within Mindanao and the country.

1. Business/entrepreneur-friendly

The government has vastly improved in being more and more business and entrepreneur-friendly but not in the ways that matter. My example, because of my recent trip to Caraga DA, is rice.

We all know that rice is a major staple in Philippine households, culture, and cuisine. Even foreign celebrities rave about Filipinos having “the best rice” iykyk. So why, does such an agriculturally diverse and productive country such as the Philippines, a country where rice is a cornerstone of heritage and cuisine, have a SHORTAGE of rice? I’ll try not to go into conspiracy-type thinking, but legally, I’m only allowed to say ✨allegedly✨. But iykyk.

In the Caraga Region, the moment you enter the territory, one of the first things you see is, dun dun dun! RICE FIELDS, rice mills, grain processing centers galore. One of the main rice-problems, nationally, is that, ✨allegedly✨, traders will buy unprocessed rice from farmers at an obscenely low price, apparently justifying it as the prevailing price because of competition with imports yet selling at an obscenely high price.

Now, I’m not one to go against good business practices of lowering costs and increasing profit. But note what you just read: “good business practices”. This implies that you serve the interests of both the supplier AND the consumer and profit from BOTH their successes. Do you think a transaction is a success when farmers can barely make ends meet and consumers have to break the bank to buy their daily needs?

Some of the large-scale rice traders of the oligopoly ✨allegedly✨ fabricate artificial market shortages to increase the demand to justify a higher price. Not to mention ✨alleged✨ higher-ups at the DA colluding with rice importers (probably part of the oligopoly). A CLEAR conflict of interest and thus would, in greedy logic, have the DA admins suppress local production to prioritize imports where they make more money off of the kickbacks they get; and this, ✨allegedly✨, doesn’t only happen when it comes to rice.

This type of corruption extends to most, if not, all branches, arms, and departments of the government.

2. BIR & Accounting Firm Collusion

Most of us know how taxes can fuck us over in the short and long term. I just found out that the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) requires you to keep records in books but not submit them, just keep them just in case they audit you in the future. Funny how, not just me, but along with other entrepreneurs, were never told that; whether it be by their accountant, bookkeeper, or even worse, THE BIR themselves didn’t inform any of us.

But that’s a small fraction of corruption compared to the next few paragraphs. My number 1 observation of MOST Filipinos is that they are afraid to question those they deem “superior” to them, the systems that they encounter, or how things are run. Which is understandable, that’s how most of us are taught; to be quiet and obedient sheep. A quality that isn’t exclusive to Filipinos but is certainly a prevalent quality in the Philippines. And bureaucracies, especially the government, will take advantage of that weakness.

Some people close to me experienced the corruption and collusion between their accounting firm and the BIR (I won’t mention any names for the sake of privacy). I, a private accounting consultant, and a few others saw the books for ourselves and this is what the consultant told us (paraphrasing): when SOME accounting firms submit the reports, payments, etc… for their clients to the BIR, they purposely leave holes, delay payments, leave out information, so the corrupt BIR bureaucrats who are in charge of auditing companies will come after them after some debt has accrued. Then the company comes running to the accounting firm for help. And all the accounting firm has to do is tell some half-baked story and have their clients pay inflated fees fabricated by the colluding parties to extort.

They handled it, paid a “tuition fee”, but handled it. I can’t imagine the victims of these things who couldn’t handle it, who had to take out loans, raise their prices, or even file for bankruptcy. And even worse, not one of the probable victims would question a thing.

3. Pork Barrel & Liquidation by Certification

In my perspective, there are 3 main sources of corruption in the Philippines, pork barrel and Liquidation by Certification are 2 of them.

Pork Barrel: “the use of government funds for projects designed to please voters or legislators and win votes.” It’s similar to Lobbying, which I think is another form of Pork Barrel.

Liquidation by Certification: certification submitted by legislators stating that they have used government funds consistent with their duties as legislators or “naayon sa kanilang katungkulan bilang mambabatas”.

Let’s break down Liquidation by Certification first. This basically means that Senators and Congressmen don’t have to provide receipts of any allocated funds that they have spent. which means a lot of the money you pay through taxes are being spent willy-nilly, probably being put right into the lawmakers’ pockets, and maybe even being pork-barreled into the next election.

COA (Commission on Audit) auditors themselves are uncomfortable about approving expenditures in audit simply upon presentation of a certification. They still did it because it was “the law”.

If you want to learn more about Liquidation by Certification, go to hindimooeyanpera.org.

Some on the pedestal of their academic ivory tower say that those who question Liquidation by Certification are slaves and fanatics. Saying that it's prudent, legitimate, and legal. FIRST OF ALL, it CERTAINLY is prudent, because it gives more opportunity to line the pockets of the corrupt with barely or without any accountability AT ALL; second, it most definitely is legitimate, it's been happening for almost 30 years, IT MUST BE LEGITIMATE! (sarcasm); third, just because something is legal doesn't make it right; if murder was legal, would it be okay for me to kill an orphanage?

Pork Barrel is where I have to speak in ✨alleged✨ terms lol, for legality’s sake… Let me give a bit of background:

The proper process of obtaining government funding for department projects is roughly—and in very lay terms—as follows: government department heads submit project proposals to DBM (Department of Budget and Management) → and then DBM approves or rejects their proposals/requests. And this process is still legitimate, it’s the SUPPOSED way of doing things.

But the prevailing, all too common process, legitimate, sure, but very suspect, seems to be roughly this: ✨Allegedly✨, Legislators dictate the projects and requirements that gov-dep heads “need/want” WITH inflated budget stipulations → then the gov-dep heads comply for fear of getting removed from position.

Let’s add the ✨alleged✨ “ghost projects” that some of these lawmakers propose funding for and we’ve wonderfully put the cherry on the cake of our country’s corruption.

Dishonorable mention:

The above atrocities are just SOME of the things our nation suffers from. I could add here the corruption of the DAR but I’ll be brief about it. Maybe the administration that ultimately passed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program in ‘98 was too naive about how their new proclamation and the affected Department would be used for corruption and borderline communism, (this is me being very forgiving and giving them the benefit of the doubt) but it’s caused MAJOR problems in the agriculture industry of the Philippines. If actions truly speak louder than words then the CARP and the consequent DAR mishandling and corruption can/should only be described in 1 word: HYPOCRISY. And if not hypocrisy, then COMMUNISM.

Survival Mode

As we all know how a third-world country is, most Filipinos would be in a state of survival. Trying to make ends meet, trying to get to the next month with a good amount (and quality) of food on their tables. And in terms of the above-mentioned Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, most of us try to pursue multiple needs despite it the pursuit getting harder the more needs you pursue.

And for those who are saying that the Filipinos aren’t in survival mode, asnwer me this: WHY DAFUQ ARE PEOPLE BENDING OVER BACKWARDS to get the smallest wages?????

And even when not getting the smallest wages, even when people have broken through their financial struggle by climbing the corporate ladder (or gotten lots of people as their downline lol), with bad spending habits, lack of financial literacy, or with just plain psychological/trauma issues, people are still in a pseudo-survival mode or mindset.

But DESPITE being in survival mode, the Filipino people do try to care and pursue higher needs, we hold rallies, protests, we argue online (to no avail but it’s still something), and we post blogs like this.

And whenever we do that, we express a deep longing for something better, for our politicians to do better, for ourselves to do better. And those expressions are rooted in a small vision we all have of our country and of our lives. A little over 50% of Filipinos are in financial struggle. And a lot more are in a survival mentality, and rightly so. But we need to go a little bit beyond survival to see improvement. And it won’t cost much, just a little time to think things through, to think of a vision.

A Need For a Vision

The reason people are poor or in survival mode isn’t because they don’t have money. Complex situations are rarely attributable to a single cause. Some people are better with no money at all because if they had they’d spend it on things that would make their lives worse. Believe it or not, there are worse problems than being poor.

The major reason why people STAY poor is because they lack a compelling vision for themselves to sustain them through life. Without a good vision, they fall into habits and mindsets that keep them in the cycle of poverty.

A study conducted in one of Canada’s major universities had students develop a vision for 90 minutes—which was done sometime before the start of their college life—resulting in a lowering of student dropout rate by 50% and an increased grade-point average by 35%. The study: https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/42187/1/HEQCO-Formatted_EPRI-Mohawk.pdf

I was in the middle of amazing conversations; conversations on how we could help the agriculture industry, how change could happen, how change should happen. One of those conversations was about how “the younger generation doesn’t like to farm. The younger generation are lazy”. This came from people who are around Gen X age. Ideas which I used to believe but now I question wholeheartedly because of the following: There may be a lot of people who don’t like to farm, but that’s come from all generations; Gen X taught us that we should get jobs or find secure sources of income, farming has never been one of them; when Gen X was our age (late teens, early 20s), did they have a drive to become farmers?????; lastly, the agriculture industry has been manipulated so imports are much cheaper than local agriculture, thus making it, 9 times out of 10, unprofitable to pursue farming, so why would we pursue it in our state of survival mode?

We’ve given younger generations a vision where farming doesn’t exist. Where farming is the poor person’s job. Money, money, money.

While money is important, DUH, it can’t be the SOLE aim. If it were, you either need true economic success (which means uplifting EVERYONE around you and not being myopically selfish), OR you’re corrupt and greedy beyond comprehension and you’re probably contributing to our country’s downfall.

Your vision has to be holistic, money as a priority is fine, but it being the ONLY priority is dangerous. The school system doesn’t, if not, SUCKS at teaching us how to develop a vision; PLUS the fact that most of the world’s school system, including our own, was designed to produce “obedient workers” and it hasn’t been updated for more than 100 years. Obedient workers shouldn’t have good visions because they wouldn’t be so obedient if they saw that their boss was contradicting their visions.

A Vision Within Reality

Part of developing a vision is by getting out of the “mahiyain” or “It’s impossible for me” mentality. For a lot of people, it’s literally impossible to build their own high-rises, farm 1000 hectares, or be the best lawyer in the next 10 years, though a lot of people have done crazier things in shorter periods. But we need to get out of the neo-colonized, self-deprecating, west-influenced mentality that is so prevalent in our country; a mindset that removes agency from our lives, and a mindset that puts others down because they’re starting to find success.

A good vision si within your scope of reality and is compelling to you. That’s why “new age” spiritual hubbub has been saying “healing your inner child” or whatever. That’s because our school systems pound our inner visionary out of us in place of a cubicle job to click-clack the rest of our lives away.

And you shouldn’t be afraid of developing an imperfect vision. As long as you have one that encompasses your whole life, not just one aspect of it. Develop a vision that would make you disinterested in other people’s achievements, ambitions, or states in life. Not in an aloof, bitter, or antagonistic way, but in an I-have-my-own-thing-going-on-and-I-don’t-really-mind-anything-else type of way.

It also helps to develop an anti-vision, which is a vision of what would happen if you DIDN’T get what you envision yourself getting, essentially, it’s the future you don’t want.

I have to clarify my own vision, and it’ll always be a work in progress. But the point of this article is not my vision for my life, but my vision for my locality, Davao, Mindanao, The Philippines.

My Vision for Mindanao

Disclaimer: I haven’t been to 100% of Mindanao and I probably will be missing a lot of major cities and opportunities out of the following, this is also an imperfect vision, I might even update my vision for Mindanao in the future.

I don’t own this map; it’s from from iammindanao.wordpress.com

A lot of what the country imports are things we wouldn’t actually need to import if major importers, politicians, and whoever’s involved in the corruption, would stop manipulating local markets for the sake of their cut from importation, tariffs, etc. So for the sake of this hypothetical, imagine a Mindanao that has done away with our local & national corruption, and manipulation by Imperial NCR (National Capital Region), and are left for ourselves…

Mindanao as a whole:

• We would be perfectly self-sufficient in terms of our agriculture, maybe even exporting some of our produce.

• Our cities would be used strategically for their location, dominant local production, and environment/climate.

• Each port city would be used to import from and export to the most advantageous location it is relative to.

• The whole of the region is interconnected with robust highway and train systems that would make the transport of goods from a region to a far away ports, processing plants, or markets optimal.

• Each of the important, major cities would advance in sustainable infrastructure, architecture, and urban planning.

Region-specific:

• Western parts of Mindanao (SOCCSKSARGEN, BARMM, Zamboanga) would increase trade between the majority of Asia; Davao and Caraga would increase trade between the Americas and Australia; and Northern Mindanao, Zamboanga, and Caraga to the rest of the Philippines.

• West Mindanao (SOCCSKSARGEN, BARMM, Zamboanga) would be the fishing capitols.

• Caraga would be the grain and capital of Mindanao

• Davao would be the agriculture export capital of Mindanao

Note about Mindanaoan Independence

The call for Mindanao to become a separate country, independent from the rest of the Philippines, has, in truth, been, at least from my hearing and observation, in the minds of the Davaoeños for a LONG time and is among different generations. Not really as something to take seriously but as a dream that spurred from our longsuffering from Imperial Manila manipulation.

But if the Philippines adopts a more federal form of government, providing more agency and independence to each region (which also localizes destitution or hardship), will be more representative and democratic, and is implemented properly, calls for Mindanaoan independence would die out in a season. But if the imperialistic governance of the country’s capitol continues to ransack our nation’s people and halt progress towards prosperity, then Mindanao’s independence is the most logical anyone could think of.

Note on my Home Town (Davao City)

The cities that I’ve been to in Mindanao have detrimental cons/downfalls. Most of those downfalls can’t be ameliorated by human intervention; some don’t have a sustainable water supply, some have bad weather all year round, some suffer from calamity after calamity, some are constantly suffering from war/terrorism. But there’s one city I’ve lived in without detrimental pitfalls except for one.

Not to seem Parochial just because I was born and have moved back to it but I truly believe Davao City has SO MUCH F*CKING potential. Compared to the rest of the cities in Mindanao, it, in my view, has only one downfall, leadership/administration.

Davao City, like all cities, has it’s cons. But these cons were caused by leadership/administration. Not by the geological environment or native climate. It’s one of the safest cities in the Philippines—heck—the world thanks to its current dynastical leadership. But important infrastructure and development projects have been halted by said admin because of the developers’ affiliation with enemy parties, enemy drug traders, or enemy mafia-esque groups; just to point out one of the reasons.

And that same admin allows their inferiors to bribe, get paid out, or manipulate—using tax-payer money mind you—developers and businesses into half-assed projects that create bad infrastructure and work/school environments.

While Davao City has had developments, resources, and talent, we are waiting for a good leader, mayor, whatever, to utilize its potential and bring about ACTUAL, non-virtue-signaling, non-pork-barelly change.

An example, which isn’t exclusive to Davao City but is prevalent to it and it’s neighbor cities is how Career Executive Service Officers (CESO) who have worked in their department for YEARS, who are assets to the government and to the people (they enjoy tenure of office regardless of a new admin being voted in so that they can continue working on development regardless of who’s the new mayor, governor, etc) are left hanging or in a “floating” position under a new Mayor JUST because they worked under the previous, opposing administration. This halts or regresses progress and hurts the Filipino people. And for what? POLITICS, pride, self-deprecating fear?

And this, yes, is a result of corruption of the individuals responsible; corruption to the core. But Corruption is a symptom. You can’t just solve corruption by saying “stop being corrupt” or by imprisoning, banishing, or killing every corrupt politician or businessman because corruption stems from something much deeper than what any individual or group has, so deep that it’s in every single one of us.

Final Thoughts

I mentioned above that I propose a way of meeting our basic level needs by pursuing a more advanced need. If you haven’t gotten it from the rest of the article already It’s that you HAVE to have a vision first SO THAT you can pursue your needs well. And without a vision, or with a myopic one, you CAN’T do anything worthwhile.

Take a look at people with drug addiction, alcoholics, or anyone who’s a parasitical psychopath. These are some of the types of people who are better off WITHOUT money. Yes, there are worse things than poverty. Why? because the moment they get money, because of their short-term, hedonistic visions, they put themselves in a worse state than they were 5 minutes ago. Their myopic vision of the “future”, or more probably a lack thereof, is because of whatever they need to deal with psychologically. They CANNOT do anything else because they can’t see themselves doing anything else, realistically. And even if you’re not the most disordered person, the #1 trait of people without a proper vision is SELFISHNESS. Anyone with any logic knows that to be truly prosperous you have to help those around you become prosperous too.

So if you want a worthwhile job, income, marriage, relationships, friendships, community, city, region, country, you need to develop a long-term vision, that’s compelling TO YOU, and isn’t selfish.

This blog isn’t to say that most people don’t have a vision, on the contrary, Filipinos are one of the most visionary people in the world. But we either have to make it clearer, better, or less short-term.

And with a better vision will come a better life. For us, our community, our city, region, and surely our country.