Bench test
Last year, city officials in Manila were mystified by the steady disappearance of newly erected wooden benches along part of the Manila Bay pedestrian walk.
One day a bench would be there, the next all that would be left would be brackets on the ground. Unable to imagine termites working so fast, authorities posted patrols to secretly keep an eye on the remaining seats. Eventually, they nabbed a young man assiduously dismantling the benches and carrying off the wood. He led his captors to his house, where he kept the slats in a huge pile.
Asked why he had done it, the bench thief replied he just wanted to see if he could get away with it.
Assuming he was telling the truth, the man's motive would be understandable to his countrymen. Filipinos will never admit it, but the first impulse many of them have when they see anything involving limitations or restrictions is to figure out how to get around it. Foreigners new to the Philippines often hear declarations that all the people really want is a system that works. What they will not hear is that until they have a system that works, Filipinos will try to work the system.
So you will find motorists driving against the flow of traffic without giving much thought to it; residents blocking off two ends of a public road to create a basketball court; or a hacker subscribing to a high-speed internet connection meant for one computer and using it to set up a cybercafe with 18 terminals. One congressman was recently accused of using public funds to set up a money-lending agency run by his relatives, who were charging rates of 30 per cent. The politician blustered he was actually helping the public.
In a way, the Filipino penchant for beating the system, for studying loopholes and exceptions, is understandable. Very often, this country seems to be in the grip of incomprehensible and hostile forces: many government officials are corrupt; some police officers are actually members of criminal syndicates. Rules keep changing, or are applied erratically.
Perhaps, too, our colonial background shaped out attitudes. For almost 400 years, we were long-suffering subjects of Spain, who kept the natives exploited, superstitious and ignorant. We ended up not having much faith in government, regulations and laws.
So call it our coping mechanism, but we Filipinos have a natural flair for spotting a system's flaws and exploiting it. Two decades ago, Madrid had one public phone which had been altered so that anyone could make free calls. Lots of Filipinos knew about it - even the ones who did not live in Spain. About the same time, Filipinos in Tokyo discovered that the yen coins used for pay phones were the same size and weight as 25 centavo coins. This led to the phones being flooded with Philippine currency.
Developed countries have complex procedures and stiff requirements meant to stop illegal immigrants, but it does not seem to faze Filipinos. I have met workers in Europe who arrived there without any genuine papers.
And I know of at least one American who is thankful that Filipinos are so creative. An expat who was stranded in Kuwait when it was rapidly overrun by Iraq during the first Gulf war, he thought he was doomed, until his Filipino employees showed him how to cope.
They used vegetable dyes to darken his skin, then made him a 'Philippine passport' using potatoes for stamping the appropriate seals. Then they huddled around him and hustled the newly minted, unlikely looking 'Filipino' through a cordon of Iraqi soldiers. He made it out, too. Perhaps the Iraqi guards were impressed by the chutzpah.
