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Editorial
N. Perlas, 17 December 2004
This week, ABS CBN, the country’s leading and largest
television station, convened a Forum on the Filipino Future. It invited a
diverse range of thought and action leaders to present papers and discuss state
of the Philippines and its future. In the first week of January 2005, ABS CBN
will present the results of the Forum both in prime time television, which
reaches over 10 million viewers, and its magazine, Metro, which reaches almost ½
million readers.
The Forum participants discussed and debated many aspects of social life in the
Philippines. Topics examined in detail included poverty, fiscal crisis, crime,
corruption, education, adolescent sexuality, cancer, HIV, national governance,
the creative economy, moral norms, culture, overseas Filipino workers, business,
professionals, health care, globalization, liberalization, US foreign policy,
local government, law makers, media, environment and others.
Participants initially thought that it would be difficult to find a common link
among all the various topics. However they did find threads which ran through
all the different issue they explored. Of these, individual integrity,
commitment and leadership came out, again and again, in all the issues covered.
Why do we have poor education? Why is our national health declining? Why does
government seem irrelevant to the burning needs of many Filipinos? Again and
again, the answer, along with structural impediments, was the decline in the
quality of teachers, doctors, government officials, and so on.
In effect, one key result of the ABS CBN Forum on the Filipino Future converges
with last week’s editorial. If we want to solve burning national and global
issues, we cannot simply rely on technical, financial, and legal solutions. We
have to closely examine and develop the implicit cultural processes and
infrastructure that underlies these issues. And when we speak of culture, we
necessarily have to deal with human beings—their identity, worldview, values,
attitude and behavior, among others.
Many institutions in government, business, and civil society have an inkling of
this. They have set up “human resource development” (HRD) units or departments.
But the very use of the term, HRD, belies the lack of understanding of what it
will really take to help draw out the tremendous potential that lies in each and
every one of us.
The term, “HRD” raises many questions. “Resource”, for example, leads one to
ask—Is the human being simply a resource to be developed and then “consumed” by
somebody more powerful (the boss)? If so, then HRD just becomes a more subtle
version of ownership and slavery of the human spirit. Resource is a word, a
language connected with the process of reducing something of potential value
into a commodity. Is the human being then, simply a commodity to be enhanced and
bought and sold in the marketplace? Who is to “develop” the human being, and for
what ends? Are the talents of human beings to be “developed”, just like a
mineral resource waiting to be mined and exploited, and with no regard to the
deepest aspirations and intentions latent in human beings?
Or, do we, instead, want to support HD, or “human development”. HD starts from a
different premise. HD knows that, ultimately, the source of profound and
sustainable change can only come from the individual concerned, not an external
driver. “Outsiders” can only be there as a source of help, but a kind of
assistance permeated with respect for the other and guided by the real needs and
latent talents of the individual.
In HD, the institution is open to the reality that the awakened human potential
may be quite different from the kind of “resource” they had originally
envisioned the human being would be. HRD can be a cover for the unconscious and
unspoken fear that true human development can mean unsettling changes in an
institution and therefore greater risk. True HD advocates and practitioners take
joy in awakening human potential, and consequently human diversity and real
communities built by individuals who freely choose to be in that community.
Some may say that we are nitpicking with words, that HRD practitioners mean HD
in essence. But, to borrow a truism from Appreciative Inquiry or AI, a powerful
method for achieving individual, institutional and societal transformation,
“Words Create Worlds”. If we chose “human resource development”, we will build
an inner tendency to become exploitative and instrumental in our relations with
other human beings.
Once we awaken to the importance of culture and human considerations in the
great task of creating sustainable societies, we also need to awaken our
sensitivities to the kinds of words we use to describe our intentions. This
means also awakening to a deep appreciation of the importance of the language,
the words, we use to describe our reality. Our choice of language affects what
we see and how we behave.
HRD will no longer do. It is HD which will bring us closer to our vision of
changing our country by changing ourselves and helping others, in the language
of Gandhi, be the change they want to see in the world.
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