The #Philippines lacks a strong tradition of #honesty and #integrity

Honesty is the most important character trait of a person. It has something to do with integrity, or the totality of a man (and woman). Dishonesty, in whatever form, chips away whatever character there is in a man, and in severe form, could mean the practical disintegration of a man — he would lose respect of himself and thus, would have an anti-social view of society. Integrity has something to do with values, responsibility, priorities, mentality, and attitude.

If we look at some of the most common quirks in a Filipino, we see why honesty is immediately compromised. (a) Filipino time, being late in appointments — most often this is analyzed as lack of responsibility in Pinoys, but see how this is being dishonest with others and with oneself. (b) Failed promises (e.g. our exporters are notorious for not meeting delivery deadlines and are instead known for being creative with excuses, our banks have the highest rate of bad loans, etc) — these are direct attacks on honesty, and see how this is affecting the entire country. (c) Bahala na, total mediocrity — this is not giving the best, it is cheating on the service that should be renderred, and we should be totally shy about this trait and should jump into the Manila Bay or into the Philippine if ever we are accused of this. (d) Pwede na yan and tommorow na lang — again, the same as (c). All these are not just lack of professionalism, they are attacks on honesty.

(e) "Pinoy Pride" — I don't understand this. Every race, every nation… have individuals that excel, but I don't see in the Net this or that pride. Isn't this riding on somebody else achievement, and we are being dishonest with ourselves. (f) Balat Sibuyas — the immediate reaction of Pinoys to any criticism is to repulse it, instead of thinking of the golden opportunity to correct ourselves — again, this is not being honest with oneself. See why our erring officials don't resign because the flipside of the same coin is being "kapalmuks"

(g) etc, etc. ……….. and we wonder why Pinoys are perceived as being dishonest, without even considering that our three branches of govt are criminal syndicates in and of themselves.

Problem is we take personal responsibility lightly. We have too many mama's boy in the society, and this not just true in the lower class bracket; in fact the higher you go, there are more mama's boy in the upper echelon (PNoy?, Mar Roxas?, Jinggoy?, Bong?.. wealthy guys, aren't they?) But, not taking responsibility is in itself an attack on integrity and consequently on honesty. GRP might want to spend more time unpacking these things. It has wide and direct implications on what priorities are being pursued by the society and individuals, on attitudes, and on mentality, and maybe on the national psyche itself. Maybe, the way to go is to continually attack the honesty of our media, so that they pick up the topic itself.

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http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2014/12/law-abiding-filipinos-are-getting-sick-of-law-breaking-filipinos/comment-page-1/#comment-1021529