Nick Joaquin is a famous Filipino writer who usually wrote about history. And, he has this essay about the Philippines in which he explain its smallness compared to the states and countries. Not literally the smallness in size, but he mentioned a lot in every way such as in culture, way of living, and adaptation to modernization.

In his essay, he mentioned how we are divided into groups. He compared how America divides its people into towns and states. But, in the Philippines, we have provinces, municipalities, barangays, and even barrios. To this matter, he pointed out how Filipino leaders and does not handle their people effectively that they needed to divide us into countable numbers. We are also aware of the colonization in our country centuries ago. Even if we fought for freedom and had it back to us, it is like we are still a prisoner of the richest countries to the world. He also emphasized the smallness of the Philippines when it talks about the economical agenda. He mentioned how we cannot adapt too effortlessly into better productions and how we find difficulty in going with the flow of modernization. We are too afraid of going beyond our limits because we are also feeling the smallness towards our works and ourselves deep down. He put this on a situation where some of our crafts were just small pottery and miniature artworks and it stopped there. Also, Mexico and Tokyo were also prone to earthquakes but still constructed taller buildings and better infrastructures, that the Philippines don't have. He added also how Filipinos woke up early in the morning to work and end late at night. The working hours were also compared to the working hours in other countries where they work less but have more earnings than Filipinos who work for hours but have less.

The spotlight was also pointed to the Filipino's mindset on being contented with having a little and does not look to a wider and broader opportunity that awaits them. It is something that will make someone bothered. This is a situation many Filipinos were still facing. We are known for being contented with what we have, even if it is not as much as the others have. There, we forget how to work harder and try other better opportunities. To support this claim, Nick mentioned on his work two concepts that is only happening in the Philippines: the “Tingi system” and “isang kahig, isang tuka”. The “tingi system” is about buying a certain product by piece — for example is buying just a stick of cigarette instead of buying a box of it, buying a piece of banana, and buying a head of garlic instead instead of buying it per dozen or per kilo. That is how it works. Buying stuffs by pieces instead of buying them by dozen, carton, box, or buying bulks of it. And the other is the “isang kahig, isang tuka”, which is eventually a norm to Filipinos. You work for a day to provide the basic needs of your family just for day too. It is more of surviving the day. This is a sad reality to the life of most Filipinos.

Looking around today, hearing the news, and scrolling up and down on social media, I can see that the smallness is still embedded in the Philippines, but not as worse as before. We had improvements, and still having little by little. We adapt modernization better now, just like the others outside this country. The sociological relation to the other countries were blooming and somewhat helps the country to work on its competitiveness to the production industry. The infrastructures are getting better and you can see the improvements too in the industrial and agricultural sectors as well. But, poverty is still present. The “tingi system” and “isang kahig, isang tuka” concepts will never be erased in this country and specially to the people. Maybe it will, someday, but it will took a long processing and more improvements to this country. The economical standard should be changes in the next decades before it the smallness could finally be just part of our country’s history.

Written by: @charmingcherry08

References for the images used:
https://pixabay.com/photos/salt-harvesting-vietnam-water-salt-3060093/
https://pixabay.com/photos/hong-kong-city-urban-skyscrapers-1990268/
https://pixabay.com/photos/children-smiling-asian-filipino-597471/
https://pixabay.com/photos/old-letters-quill-old-photos-pen-1082299/