Consumerism, Conformity, Indifference: Can The Philippines Be Saved?
A social exploration of The Philippines’ creative decline…and why we need to start forging new habits.
I sat in a park watching people go about their business. For a couple of hours a steady influx of students, families, colleagues, and friends gathered, barely any one of them interacting with their companions. Watching them brought me a sense of defeat. Before coming here I’d wondered if the tropical islanders had learned better habits. As locals of all ages scrolled endlessly on their phones while tearing open plastic-wrapped snacks and slurping sugary drinks, I sighed. Welcome to The Philippines.
What changes did I think I would witness this time? What are the parameters of progress in 2024? Am I being hypercritical? I questioned my biases. To get a feeler for the social climate I typed in “Philippine creativity” on Google. I thought I may be seeing things superficially and that there might be more under the surface. Something…hopeful.
The first Google result bore the headline “Creativity and Innovation in Philippine Business”. The snippet below says “Filipino creativity shines in many areas like fashion and food…”
Fashion and food retail industries are large polluters. Adding like-for-like businesses to these already saturated markets is anything but innovative or creative.
The second result was from PhilStar, a national paper. Its headline announced that the Philippines ranks bottom 4 as creative thinkers, globally. The extract expounds that the country “has landed in the bottom four of a global test for creative thinking, ranking student performance in the country as one of the worst in the world”. (June 2024)
The third result was from the Department of Trade and Industries: “DTI launches website for Philippine Creative Industries” it says, and tells of the “country’s efforts to promote creativity as a driving force for economic growth and cultural development”. (September 2024)
My sentiments being echoed online was weak balm to my despair. While the severe lack of originality and imagination is finally being acknowledged, the causes are not. I’ve sat with this for years. Filipinos’ resistance towards change feels ominous.
Conformity + Compliance: A Culture Built on Fear, Guilt, and Shaming
Philippine population is made up of 100+ ethnolinguistic groups. It’s a tribal country. Anthropologically, multiple tribes migrating to multiple islands need to get along. Common decency is applied, as is conformity. This mentality discourages individuals from expressing themselves too differently. One might be ok being seen as ‘the other’ but would not want to be perceived as ‘the strange other’.
Even in homogeneous communities, fear of disapproval runs so deep that a teenage girl falling pregnant out of wedlock would rather marry a brute than become the subject of chismis (gossip) in the neighbourhood.
A young woman would rather dig herself a grave of debts to keep up appearances than be deemed unworthy of certain friendships. (Though to be fair, this is a global disease.)
An older woman nearing the end of her fertile years wouldn’t consider a partner who’s non-Christian because the prospect of disappointing her parents would be worse than sacrificing her opportunity for motherhood.
Morality and guilt are used as bait to get everyone to stick to archaic ideas of “being good”.
What if we redefined goodness as a trait of playfulness and expression, rather than obedience and repression? Wouldn’t we have more nourishing conversations?
Food + Media Consumption: Numbing Agents
What would you do if your identity were firmly locked with your community and your freedoms are decided by your family? If dressing a certain way was taboo. If presenting unconventional ideas were rude. If enjoying your sensuality was sinful. If anything you did for your personal future was selfish?
You’d encase yourself in a protective shell and roost in silence. You’d be cleansed of inspiration. You have no artistry in your individuality. You’d be too scared to share your ideas in case they were deemed too wild or inappropriate or heavens forbid — progressive.
With your sense-of-self decimated, your curiosity tanks. You stop asking important questions. You lose motivation to engage in endorphin-boosting activities. You start eating for comfort.
It’s hardly news that people with high chronic stress levels tend to engage in emotional eating.
38.6 percent of Filipino adults aged 20–59 were diagnosed as obese or overweight (DOST-FNRI, 2021). Those who can’t afford to binge-eat are binge-scrolling on their devices instead. The Philippines has ranked #3 among the highest average screen time worldwide (ElectronicsHub, 2024).
If we’re not rotting our gut, we’re rotting our brain. In most instances, we’re doing both.
Distraction: A Sneaky Poison
As Filipinos spend a chunk of their days scrolling on their devices rather than, say, exploring and testing ideas, people’s minds are not creating new neural connections that are beneficial for personal and communal growth.
Where are the young and prolific artists? Why are there so few and why are their works largely unknown? Where are the music festivals? Literary festivals? Independent art exhibitions? Do we know what’s happening to our lands? Our oceans? Our wildlife? Our food systems? What are the country’s new, original, and aspirational contributions to the global community?
We know nothing of the sort yet I would wager that many Filipinos are up-to-date with celebrity news and the latest neighbourhood juice.
We’re so distracted that we haven’t even noticed the amount of plastic we’re using and discarding on a daily basis. The Philippines is now the largest ocean polluter.
Breaking The Cycle of ‘Bahala Na’
We can no longer blame politicians and corporations — that’s a lazy way to wash our hands off the collective shame of poor creativity and environmental neglect, among other culturally ingrained issues.
The responsibility of Change is ours and we must own it. Accountability is empowerment. By holding ourselves responsible for the current mess we’re in, we could start forging healthier habits.
We must have a sense of urgency. Our planet is about as ill as our minds, our bodies, and our communities. We cannot afford to sit by the sidelines as we deplete our resources from our growing populations and glorify consumer capitalism.
We have lived far too long in ignorance, palming our problems off to God. If we carry on the way we do, it will truly become less fun in the Philippines.
