Laziness and lack of trust among #Filipinos hinder progress in the #Philippines

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This attitude is precisely why the country is failing: the obsession with MONEY as the be-all and end-all of everything.

I live in a rural community where 80% of the men spend their days drinking, starting petty squabbles, or getting girls pregnant. They complain that they have no choice because there "aren't any jobs" (although, curiously, they always seem to find money from somewhere for Red Horse and cockfighting).

Every single one of them owns several hectares of land, and every single hectare stands either abandoned or laid waste (trees cut for charcoal, over-ploughed, or over-sprayed with poisons).

A dozen of those men could get together as friends and bring one man's farm to a productive state within three months. They could collect seeds from the hedgerows or from rotten produce at the market. They could repeat the favour for each member of the group. The only requirement for money would be for feeding the work team: at local prices, I'd say PHP100,000 would be needed to kickstart the process, which could be raised by selling half a hectare. Thereafter, it should be self-funding, or at least self-feeding.

Nobody will do such a thing, though. Firstly, they (rightly) don't trust each other to return favours, and secondly, they just can't be bothered.

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http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2015/06/a-skewed-sense-of-unity/#comment-1172304

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