Is a Filipino Lee Kuan Yew desirable?

Both FVR and Deng Xiaoping were reported to have minimized the breathtaking accomplishments of Lee Kuan Yew by pointing out Singapore only has five million people. Yes, there are more complicated problems here and in China but they still sound like sour grapes to me.

Lee Kuan Yew is about a leader with a vision, the determination and pragmatism to see the vision become reality against great odds. It is about leading by example, a selfless dedication to the good of one’s country with little or no thought of personal gain. It is about strategic thinking and how to move one’s country amidst stiff competition and changing times.

An article in Foreign Policy calls LKY a political streetfighter more respected than loved. FP also describes Singapore’s economic miracle as perhaps the most miraculous.

“In a small, speck of a country cast off from Malaysia in 1965, without natural resources or a common unifying culture, Lee accomplished more in a generation than anyone thought possible.”

Some of our politicians say LKY was successful because he had dictatorial powers. True but Marcos had dictatorial powers too. 

The big difference is that LKY was honest, had integrity. He used his powers to discipline his people into thinking of common good above self interest. Marcos used his powers to enrich himself and his cronies.

 There was a time when I suggested, not just in jest, that we should hire LKY after his retirement to help us replicate what he has done for Singapore. Maybe we could offer one of our smaller islands, Masbate, Romblon or Marinduque as a laboratory for LKY to try to replicate what he did in Singapore. I wanted to rule out any inherent cultural malady that prevents us from aspiring for First World status.

Unfortunately, LKY himself thinks culture has a lot to do with Singapore’s success. In his book, “From Third World to First: Singapore and the Asian Economic Boom”, LKY points out how Singapore succeeded while we failed:

“The difference lies in the culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged the country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics...

“Some Filipinos write and speak with passion. If they could get their elite to share their sentiments and act, what could they not have achieved?”

Bull’s eye! Lee Kuan Yew saw the problem: our parasitical elite. “The people at the top, the elite mestizos, had the same detached attitude to the native peasants… in their haciendas…

“They were two different societies: Those at the top lived a life of extreme luxury and comfort while the peasants scraped a living, and in the Philippines it was a hard living… They had many children because the church discouraged birth control. The result was increasing poverty.”

What’s worse, LKY noted, “millions of Filipino men and women had to leave their country for jobs abroad beneath their level of education.”

But LKY respected the quality of our OFWs: “Filipino professionals whom we recruited to work in Singapore are as good as our own. Indeed, their architects, artists, and musicians are more artistic and creative than ours.

“There was no reason why the Philippines should not have been one of the more successful of the ASEAN countries. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the most developed…”

So, what’s wrong with us? For LKY, “Something was missing, a gel to hold society together…” And he thinks the transplanted American style democracy is a bad fit given our culture and our level of development.

The transcript of Fareed Zakaria’s interview of LKY way back in 1994 reveals LKY’s way of thinking. In gist, culture is destiny for Mr Lee.

FZ: Would it be fair to say that you admired America more 25 years ago? What, in your view, went wrong?

LKY: “Yes, things have changed. I would hazard a guess that it has a lot to do with the erosion of the moral underpinnings of a society and the diminution of personal responsibility.

“The liberal, intellectual tradition that developed after World War II claimed that human beings had arrived at this perfect state where everybody would be better off if they were allowed to do their own thing and flourish. It has not worked out, and I doubt if it will…”

On the other hand, LKY pointed out “Eastern societies believe that the individual exists in the context of his family. He is not pristine and separate. The family is part of the extended family, and then friends and the wider society. The ruler or the government does not try to provide for a person what the family best provides...

“...There is a little Chinese aphorism which encapsulates this idea: Xiushen qijia zhiguo pingtianxia. Xiushen means look after yourself, cultivate yourself, do everything to make yourself useful; Qijia, look after the family; Zhiguo, look after your country; Pingtianxia, all is peaceful under heaven. We have a whole people immersed in these beliefs…

“...We have focused on basics in Singapore. We used the family to push economic growth, factoring the ambitions of a person and his family into our planning. We have tried, for example, to improve the lot of children through education.

“The government can create a setting in which people can live happily and succeed and express themselves, but finally it is what people do with their lives that determines economic success or failure. Again, we were fortunate we had this cultural backdrop, the belief in thrift, hard work, filial piety and loyalty in the extended family, and, most of all, the respect for scholarship and learning…”

 “...If you have a culture that doesn’t place much value in learning and scholarship and hard work and thrift and deferment of present enjoyment for future gain, the going will be much slower.”

LKY’s pragmatism contributed greatly to Singapore’s success. He told the New York Times in Aug. 29, 2007:

 “We knew that if we were just like our neighbors, we would die. Because we’ve got nothing to offer against what they have to offer. So we had to produce something which is different and better than what they have. It’s incorrupt. It’s efficient. It’s meritocratic. It works.

“We are pragmatists... Does it work? Let’s try it and if it does work, fine, let’s continue it. If it doesn’t work, toss it out, try another one. We are not enamored with any ideology.”

What is the cost of an incompetent government? “… asset values will disappear, my apartments will be worth a fraction of what they were, my ministers’ jobs will be in peril, their security will be at risk and their women will become maids in other people’s countries, foreign workers. I cannot have that!”

Araykopo!!!

Singapore is close to my heart. My son worked there, until very recently, for six years. In my frequent visits there, I have seen a government that works, provides basic services and security for its people with the efficiency unheard of in our isles.

I know the younger generations of Singaporeans are uneasy over how they are governed. They do not fully appreciate the miracle produced by LKY. They have taken for granted a lot of things we can only dream of. They yearn for first world freedoms, choices and space.

Indeed, maybe it is time for Singapore to loosen up. The young generations demand no less. What’s wrong with chewing gum? In an era of smart phones and social media, their newspapers should be allowed more breathing space. 

Even South Korea and Taiwan, both Confucian like Singapore started with authoritarian regimes but became more democratic with no damage to their growth momentum. It is time for Singapore to start trusting its own people.

Will the post LKY Singapore be as free wheeling as western societies are or heaven forbid, as exciting as ours? Or will they evolve into a society that combines the best of the east and the west in a city state less than the size and population of Mega Manila?

A Filipino LKY sounds like a wishful contradiction and more so in today’s social media world. Being a journalist under such a regime would have been frustrating if not dangerous to one’s health, the reasons I stopped being one during the Marcos dictatorship… a real downside to the LKY model. But maybe we can use a little less excitement and get a lot more things done to improve the lives of our people.

For now, I condole with the people of Singapore for the loss of their founding father… the kind of intelligent, selfless leader we not too secretly wish we have.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco