Bipolar nation
Bipolar nation
Updated 10:55pm (Mla time) Dec 02, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 3, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
LAST year I was asked, on a radio talk show, if I thought we were suffering from national depression. I replied, "Not quite. I think we're more bipolar or manic-depressive, swinging from one extreme mood to another."
Mind you, I have nothing against bipolar people. One of my best friends is bipolar, and in a very extreme way. When she's down, you can almost see a dark cloud hanging over her head as she walks -- no, I should say plods -- around. Then she'll shift to an "up" mood, and I mean up: she'll call and ask me to go shop with her so I can rein her in, lest she end up buying two Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) bags at $1,000 each (yup, the genuine ones) -- same design, one for back-up -- like she did several years ago in a manic mood.
You're born bipolar and you learn to live with it, with the help of a good psychiatrist and a social support network. But when a whole nation goes bipolar, that's another matter.
From Winnie to Yoyong
The idea that we might be a bipolar nation came back to me this week because of the way we've responded to the series of typhoons.
When Winnie was approaching the Philippines last weekend, BBC's weather reports already warned about the storm and another tropical disturbance they'd spotted on their meteorological maps. That other disturbance has developed into Yoyong. Okay, so maybe the British are obsessed with weather, but their warnings were in such sharp contrast to an almost complete silence in the local media, despite the fact that just the other week, we'd been battered by two other typhoons, Unding and Violy.
Maybe because we get more than 20 typhoons a year, we tend to become rather cavalier about each approaching storm, our attention caught briefly by the letter of the alphabet in its name, rather than impending danger.
Even when Winnie finally struck, most of us in Metro Manila were not too concerned, partly because its wind speed was low. So the rains kept coming and some of Manila's streets were flooded. But then flooding is so much part of our lives as well, so we shrugged it off as another inconvenience of life in Manila. Were we shocked to find out, after Winnie left, the number of lives it had claimed.
From our down mood before Winnie struck, we've shifted into a manic frenzy with Yoyong. Day in, day out, we've been surrounded by the shrill voices of radio and television commentators warning about Yoyong. Classes were suspended even before the storm landed, while television and radio crews went around the markets, warning about high prices. I caught one TV host announcing that “bangus” [milkfish] had gone up to P120 a kilogram, only to turn to a vendor who insisted she was selling her bangus at P100. I'm sure that after the TV crew left, prices all soared to fulfill the doomsday prophecies.
Then there were the vultures feasting on Winnie's victims: politicians condoling with relatives of the dead and proclaiming their indignation over illegal logging while reporters went around interviewing mourning women and children and asking them how they felt. (One particularly callous reporter asked a young boy in a hospital why he was sad, right after the child had recounted losing two brothers to the floods.)
Early warning
Alas, after Yoyong leaves, I suspect we'll slide back into lethargy until next year's new typhoon season. The righteous politicians and reporters will take up other issues and we will forget about the need to set up effective monitoring and warning systems.
A few years back, I was in Hong Kong (which is as vulnerable to typhoons as we are) when a strong typhoon lashed in. Even before the typhoon struck, television and radio kept flashing warnings and updates, including what precautions were needed to be taken. There was a sense of urgency, but not of panic and frenzy like we're seeing now for Yoyong. When the typhoon finally struck, the updates continued, again without the hysterical and shrill voices. The public was advised on which streets to avoid because they'd become flooded, but people remained calm despite the ferocity of the typhoon.
We need to have such a system in place to deal directly with the threat of typhoons. But we also need to link typhoon preparedness to environmental monitoring systems, so that places already environmentally damaged can be given top priority not just for warning announcements but for actual evacuation. Here we'd need trained social workers to mobilize people; with the last three typhoons, residents were known to resist evacuation even after the rains began.
Another kind of typhoon
I worry about another kind of typhoon about which we're being too complacent, with the possibility that we'll swing to the other manic extreme in a few years.
I refer here to the population problem. Last Wednesday, a team of economists from the University of the Philippines issued a paper warning that poverty will continue to plague us if the government doesn't face up to the population problem. The economists pointed out that we would need to double our current economic growth rates if it is to keep pace with population growth. But such doubling is unlikely to happen, so poverty levels will continue to be serious. The economists named all kinds of problems related to this poverty-population link, from a lack of jobs to the problems of responding to disasters like typhoons.
This was the same group of economists who had warned, a few weeks ago, about an impending fiscal crisis. The response to that first paper was, well, manic, with no less than the President calling for increased tax collections and government austerity. Other politicians hopped into the bandwagon with all kinds of proposals such as the Bayanihan Fund.
The manic mood around the threat of a fiscal crisis was short-lived. The President announced, like some miracle worker, that the threat was over. Our wise members of Congress agreed with the President's diagnosis, blocking increased taxes on tobacco and alcohol and stubbornly clinging on to their pork barrel. And the nation slipped back into national depression ... or is it national coma?
With the UP economists' new white paper, the public response has been anemic. My own beloved Inquirer buried an article on Page 4, with hardly any mention of the paper itself and focusing instead on the responses of a Catholic bishop and a University of Asia and the Pacific economist, both of course denying that there was a population problem. Other dailies missed out completely on the paper. Only BusinessWorld gave it front-page coverage.
I predict we will continue to wallow in our present "down" mood. Given that the population typhoon is already with us, we seem to be content with retreating into our individual cocoons to weather the raging storm, occasionally peeking out and whining about the congestion but hoping it will go away eventually. Unfortunately, we will reap the consequences of this denial, reaching a point several years from now, when we might shift to the other extreme: to a manic backlash that will include draconian population control measures. Sadly, even those measures may turn out to be too little, too late.
Updated 10:55pm (Mla time) Dec 02, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the December 3, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
LAST year I was asked, on a radio talk show, if I thought we were suffering from national depression. I replied, "Not quite. I think we're more bipolar or manic-depressive, swinging from one extreme mood to another."
Mind you, I have nothing against bipolar people. One of my best friends is bipolar, and in a very extreme way. When she's down, you can almost see a dark cloud hanging over her head as she walks -- no, I should say plods -- around. Then she'll shift to an "up" mood, and I mean up: she'll call and ask me to go shop with her so I can rein her in, lest she end up buying two Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) bags at $1,000 each (yup, the genuine ones) -- same design, one for back-up -- like she did several years ago in a manic mood.
You're born bipolar and you learn to live with it, with the help of a good psychiatrist and a social support network. But when a whole nation goes bipolar, that's another matter.
From Winnie to Yoyong
The idea that we might be a bipolar nation came back to me this week because of the way we've responded to the series of typhoons.
When Winnie was approaching the Philippines last weekend, BBC's weather reports already warned about the storm and another tropical disturbance they'd spotted on their meteorological maps. That other disturbance has developed into Yoyong. Okay, so maybe the British are obsessed with weather, but their warnings were in such sharp contrast to an almost complete silence in the local media, despite the fact that just the other week, we'd been battered by two other typhoons, Unding and Violy.
Maybe because we get more than 20 typhoons a year, we tend to become rather cavalier about each approaching storm, our attention caught briefly by the letter of the alphabet in its name, rather than impending danger.
Even when Winnie finally struck, most of us in Metro Manila were not too concerned, partly because its wind speed was low. So the rains kept coming and some of Manila's streets were flooded. But then flooding is so much part of our lives as well, so we shrugged it off as another inconvenience of life in Manila. Were we shocked to find out, after Winnie left, the number of lives it had claimed.
From our down mood before Winnie struck, we've shifted into a manic frenzy with Yoyong. Day in, day out, we've been surrounded by the shrill voices of radio and television commentators warning about Yoyong. Classes were suspended even before the storm landed, while television and radio crews went around the markets, warning about high prices. I caught one TV host announcing that “bangus” [milkfish] had gone up to P120 a kilogram, only to turn to a vendor who insisted she was selling her bangus at P100. I'm sure that after the TV crew left, prices all soared to fulfill the doomsday prophecies.
Then there were the vultures feasting on Winnie's victims: politicians condoling with relatives of the dead and proclaiming their indignation over illegal logging while reporters went around interviewing mourning women and children and asking them how they felt. (One particularly callous reporter asked a young boy in a hospital why he was sad, right after the child had recounted losing two brothers to the floods.)
Early warning
Alas, after Yoyong leaves, I suspect we'll slide back into lethargy until next year's new typhoon season. The righteous politicians and reporters will take up other issues and we will forget about the need to set up effective monitoring and warning systems.
A few years back, I was in Hong Kong (which is as vulnerable to typhoons as we are) when a strong typhoon lashed in. Even before the typhoon struck, television and radio kept flashing warnings and updates, including what precautions were needed to be taken. There was a sense of urgency, but not of panic and frenzy like we're seeing now for Yoyong. When the typhoon finally struck, the updates continued, again without the hysterical and shrill voices. The public was advised on which streets to avoid because they'd become flooded, but people remained calm despite the ferocity of the typhoon.
We need to have such a system in place to deal directly with the threat of typhoons. But we also need to link typhoon preparedness to environmental monitoring systems, so that places already environmentally damaged can be given top priority not just for warning announcements but for actual evacuation. Here we'd need trained social workers to mobilize people; with the last three typhoons, residents were known to resist evacuation even after the rains began.
Another kind of typhoon
I worry about another kind of typhoon about which we're being too complacent, with the possibility that we'll swing to the other manic extreme in a few years.
I refer here to the population problem. Last Wednesday, a team of economists from the University of the Philippines issued a paper warning that poverty will continue to plague us if the government doesn't face up to the population problem. The economists pointed out that we would need to double our current economic growth rates if it is to keep pace with population growth. But such doubling is unlikely to happen, so poverty levels will continue to be serious. The economists named all kinds of problems related to this poverty-population link, from a lack of jobs to the problems of responding to disasters like typhoons.
This was the same group of economists who had warned, a few weeks ago, about an impending fiscal crisis. The response to that first paper was, well, manic, with no less than the President calling for increased tax collections and government austerity. Other politicians hopped into the bandwagon with all kinds of proposals such as the Bayanihan Fund.
The manic mood around the threat of a fiscal crisis was short-lived. The President announced, like some miracle worker, that the threat was over. Our wise members of Congress agreed with the President's diagnosis, blocking increased taxes on tobacco and alcohol and stubbornly clinging on to their pork barrel. And the nation slipped back into national depression ... or is it national coma?
With the UP economists' new white paper, the public response has been anemic. My own beloved Inquirer buried an article on Page 4, with hardly any mention of the paper itself and focusing instead on the responses of a Catholic bishop and a University of Asia and the Pacific economist, both of course denying that there was a population problem. Other dailies missed out completely on the paper. Only BusinessWorld gave it front-page coverage.
I predict we will continue to wallow in our present "down" mood. Given that the population typhoon is already with us, we seem to be content with retreating into our individual cocoons to weather the raging storm, occasionally peeking out and whining about the congestion but hoping it will go away eventually. Unfortunately, we will reap the consequences of this denial, reaching a point several years from now, when we might shift to the other extreme: to a manic backlash that will include draconian population control measures. Sadly, even those measures may turn out to be too little, too late.
posted by Dante at 7:55 PM
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