Philippines: Most EMOTIONAL Country

We are not only branded as the "Worst Airport and Aviation safety" and [one of the] "Most Corrupt Country", but we are also now the "MOST EMOTIONAL COUNTRY". Not to put a negative concept on the title, it might be good for the image of the country as well. Actually, it has good and bad effects in our country and to our individuality on a micro concept of the society as well.

GALLUP, a U.S. based poll/survey entity revealed that 60% of the Filipinos responded positively in the recent survey of "Countries with Emotions". Meaning - how people perceive and feel their way of living, given the economic stability of the country, freedom, openness, and general setting of life. 

Some of the questions are:

1. Did you feel well rested today?

2.Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?

3. Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?

4. Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday?

5. How about (enjoyment, physical pain, worry, sadness, stress, anger)?

While Singaporeans are ranked the lowest at 36% which is the trade-off of an industrialized and prosperous society where emotions are very limited because the focus of the government and society are all about sucess; the Philippines got the top spot.

In spite of that statistics and ranking, what is the effect of this in the Philippines? Yes, it is true, that we are one of the most happy places where you would see people laughing in every corner and in anytime of the day; but how about dealing with other emotions - pain, worry, sadness, stress?

In my perception - being engulfed in so many emotions affects the society in a good and a bad way. I created a list of my PROS and CONS on how Filipinos carry their emotions in different situations and manner.

ADVANTAGES:

1. Most Filipinos can adapt to any stress. Naturally happy, Philippines is famously known of smiling despite problems. The high poverty rate, together with calamities, made the Filipinos tough enough to surpass many life's challenges. So SMILE! :D

2. Our nation can symphatize. We are easily affected by someone's tragic event. Just like in the series of typhoons that we had, Filipinos are kind enough to reach and to give anything that we have in our hands. This kindness unite us and the whole nation in time of crisis. This results to our BAYANIHAN system.

3. We are united. Filipinos are very close to their families and relatives. Family ties is very important to us and we do treasure them a lot. 

DISADVANTAGES:

1. We are too emotional. When bad things happen, we tend to over react. When someone's been hurt - we get FURIOUS. When someone succeeded - we are ENVIOUS enough to drag them down; which resulted to CRAB MENTALITY. 

A perfect example is the AMALAYER - she rant out of a public place just because she failed to comply with the security checks. On the other hand, netizens bombarded her with harsh and cruel words just to point her mistake. 

Because we are too emotional over almost everything, we FORGET how to be LOGICAL. How to use our brains and get them working whenever needed and highly appropriated.

2. Filipinos exaggerate gratitude (UTANG NA LOOB). We are helpful to others - it is a fact. However, it is not always a good thing. When the time comes that we need to return the favor, no option is there but a YES. Even when the favor being asked is totally wrong and inappropriate, most of the times we couldn't say NO because we are indebted to that person. Our capability to think is again SUPRESSED. 

3. We give and do favors a lot than necessary. Political dynasty, Palakasan system among other bad Filipino traits happen because of this. Since we value our ties, we often favored wrong people. Like in politics and business, 90% of the time, we choose our family and friends rather than picking the rightful one. This is again driven by our emotions than critical and logical thinking.

4. We are always concern with someone's emotions. Mostly in business, we are not straight forward because we always overthink what harm it can do to a person. We cannot point what's wrong directly and go long routes of flowery statements. 

Overall, being too emotional hinders our growth - personally and economy wise. Every decision is affected by our emotions thus, intelligent thinking is clouded most of the times. We supressed ourselves to succeed and prosperous by putting our emotions first. Filipinos have this system when doing something critical - EMOTION + THINKING = EMOTIONALLY DEPENDENT DECISION. For once, why don't we change the formula? THINKING + EMOTION = WISE & LOGICAL DECISION. It is true and only proper that brain is higher than the heart because you need to think first, subsequently feeling your own decision [putting yourself in someone's shoes] and filter or revise any inhumane and harsh parts of your logic before arriving at your final judgment. 

References:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-20/singapore-confronts-an-emotion-deficit

THE P12-BILLION AMAN FUTURES SCAM

The Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur is on RAGE nowadays because of the very heat topic of a P12-Billion investment scam that hit the Visayas and Mindanao; the poor, politician, and business men alike. The culprit is a Malaysian Ramon Amalilio, the head of the Aman Futures Group Phils.  It must be the biggest financial scam ever happened in the Philippines. It is also a very controversial as the Pagadian Mayor is humored that he used the taxpayers' money as an investment.The poor sector lend money just to invest and I also watched a father giving the money [to Aman Futures] while his child is very sick in the hospital and the money is needed for the treatment.

However why this thing happened? There are a lot of regulations to avoid this and learned from the past (Bernard Madoff Scam, Ponzi Scheme, Enron, AIG, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac) that resulted to stricter Laws to avoid further money fraud but we still end up with a MASSIVE amount of money ($290 million). There are at least 15,000 people affected by this 2012 Financial Fraud and the leader has fled the country to Sabah, Malaysia and after searching, it was now known to authorities that the 32-year old Malaysian fled from Malaysia to unknown territory. NBI and DOJ already formed a committee to investigate and captured the mastermind of the scam (as of the moment the directors and officers have been captured - Manuel K. Amalilio, Fernando “Nonoy” R. Luna, Lelian Lim Gan, Edward L. Lim, William L. Fuentes, Naezelle M. Rodriguez and Lurix Lopez.). They also asked the help of the InterPol and Malaysian Embassy to help with the search. Though some of the members has been captured and cases of estafa has been filed the money is still out there with Amalilio. 

The question goes back to WHY? Why did the 15,000 Filipino citizens were victimized in a large scale scam? Lets look on the oppurtunities presented by Aman Futures Group to the locals.

1. HIGH INVESTMENT RETURNS. For every p1,000.00 that you will invest, the rate of return will be 70% after a week. This was the promise of the company to low-income household, retired employees, or those in poverty.

The amount was raised soon [from a thousand to P200,000.00 thousand] when it earned popularity. The business was doing good at the start. The investors are receiving the returns as expected and all are happy. Big names and personalities started to invest also. 

However, it all vanished momentarily. The happy money was short lived. People are devastated and some are committing suicide due to great depression. The father of the sick son is in agony when he learned that Amalilio is missing and so his money. His son died because the treatment was never paid to ensue. 

Now lets see why of all those people, no one ever doubt or even check the legality of the operations.

1. GREED. People will never have enough. For those with less, the will always aspire for more. For those living averagely, they want to be greater, and for those with almost everything, wants to be the greatest. For most people, contentment is far from what they had in their hands. They will always ask for more and not what is enough to live. 

This is what happen when we want to much. Though some of these people really need the money, we shouldn't be blinded by the large sum of money offered to us. 

2. LARGE RETURNS? With the present financial situation globally, who in their rightful mind will be deceived that 70% rate of return + the principal amount will earned in one week? Well, yes those 15,000. The current economy is in trouble and investments are affected. Even bonds, stocks, or UTIFs cannot achieve the 70% return but no one in that 15,000 ever realize that. They are surely blinded by their greediness. 

3. IGNORANCE. Always remember that "IGNORANCE EXCUSES NO ONE". Before investing, they should have checked the investment schemes of the company. Where does the sum of money go? Is it invested in Fixed Income, Equities, Commodity market etc? Where are the legal documents? What is the history of the company? How about our certificates and payment schemes? 

For sure, it won't be hard, given the present technology to check with BSP, SEC, and other financial regulatory and business agencies the substance of AMAN FUTURES GROUP PHILIPPINES. Money is important, so is knowledge. 

Amalilio and the company must really be sued and be punished for their wrongful acts but those 15,000 individuals or companies have faults also for being so gullible that they were lured by these people.

Always remember that according to a Filipino cliche, there are only two types of persons in these cases - "Ang MANLOLOKO at ang NAGPAPALOKO".

Source: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/56132/thousands-gypped-in-p12-billion-scam
 http://ph.news.yahoo.com/police-chiefs-relieved-over-multi-billion-peso-scam-184543106.html