This is stereotypical thinking, which is widespread because of its “convenience” — it saves us mental effort and is a handy substitute for actual observation. The problem with stereotypes, however, is that they are usually false.
How indeed can island people be lazy? On an island you’ve to either fish or farm — or you die.
During the colonial era in Las Islas Filipinas, the Spaniards, “in wide armed lazy seats beneath punkahs,” also bemoaned the indolence of the “Indios,” or “Indians,” which was how they called the natives (thank you very much Cristóbal Colón, or Christopher Columbus, for the Yanquis out there). This “finding” was mercilessly deconstructed by the P.I.’s national hero, Jose Rizal, in an essay published in Madrid in 1890, La Indolencia De Los Filipinos: “The…indolence in the Philippines is a magnified indolence…an effect of misgovernment and of backwardness…and not a cause thereof. Others will hold the contrary opinion, especially those who have a hand in the misgovernment, but we do not care; we have made an assertion and are going to prove it.” And he did. “Peoples and governments are correlated and complementary,” Rizal said. “A stupid government is an anomaly among a righteous people, just as a corrupt people cannot exist under wise rulers and laws.”
In any case, some rich people, regardless of race, sex or creed, tend to believe that the poor are, well, not rich because they’re lazy. There are, to be sure, persons who are lazy and they seem to be everywhere around the world. And yet they’re lazy only about one thing — work — so they can do another thing which we, not so lazy people, consider less important in the grand scheme of things.
But this editorial is not about parsing the definition of “lazy.” We already know what it is, and locals are supposedly the exemplars of this character defect. What we want to know is if this assertion is true.
The locals’ supposed lack of work ethic is in stark contract with the gung-ho attitude of guest workers regarding their jobs. But this is like comparing apples to, say, paper. Guest workers are bound by annual contracts and they’re here precisely to work so they can remit money to their families back home. It’s either they work or they go home.
For their part, the locals who are supposedly lazy actually want to work — but not for the private sector which offers wages too low for U.S. citizens who have far better job opportunities waiting for them elsewhere.
Guest workers, if they have a choice, would also go to the highest bidder, which in the CNMI is the government; but unless guest workers are U.S. certified nurses, they can’t.
Locals can. Should we blame them for wanting to get more pay for less work? Isn’t that something everyone wants?
Clearly, the problem before us is not laziness, but the existence of an opportunity to not work for the private sector.
In the late 1990s, the bipartisan U.S. Congressional Commission on Immigration Reform asked CNMI lawmakers, Why did you let this happen? The panel was referring to the private sector’s dependence on guest workers and a government that served as an employment agency for voters. So why did it happen? Because no one — not even the feds — saw it coming. The CNMI economy was a creation of policies and decisions, big and small, dictated by short-term needs.
Still, as early as 1981, the CNMI government already wanted to reduce its dependence on foreign labor, hence the establishment of NMC. The problem, however, was that the CNMI government also chose to host a labor intensive private sector that required low-paying jobs. This led to the birth of a dual economy which the Fitial administration is now clinging onto like cold Calrose rice on Spam.
In other words, in its effort to reduce the islands’ dependence on guest workers, the CNMI government actually deepened it while creating more dependence on government jobs among the people who make decisions for the commonwealth — local voters. NMC and the government scholarship programs that were supposed to produce the islands’ future professionals and workforce only created future politicians and government bureaucrats who have to maintain the status quo because there are no realistic employment opportunities for U.S. citizens in the private sector. The solution to the problem compounded the problem.
So no, locals are not lazy. But they, unlike guest workers, have an opportunity to work for better paying government jobs that are basically sinecures. This, however, is now a huge problem for the CNMI, whose economy is in freefall. The commonwealth can no longer afford its obese government and all the generous entitlements, programs and services that elected officials have lavished on voters.
The governor’s solution is more of the same. The alternative is the initial shock that awaits the islands once labor and immigration are federalized.
Have a nice weekend!
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