4
Casting Away the Myth of Filipino Submissiveness
(A Journey from Colonial Mentality to Co-op Autonomy and Independence)
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Colonial mentality is an adapted idiom for the attitude of willingly surrendering one’s cultural, social, economic and political ideals, to those of the colonizers (aristocrata, castilaloy, stateside, imported, yata yan).
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Autonomy and Independence - Co-operatives are autonomous, self-help organizations controlled by their members. If they enter into agreements with other organizations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their co-operative autonomy. – Fourth Co-op Principle, ICA Statement on the Co-operative Identity.
Among the obstacles that stand our way towards recovering our cultural dignity and economic self-reliance, colonial mentality was supposed to be the least of our worries. The Filipino people are freedom-loving people. They are naturally gifted, creative, industrious and a great achieving nation. We thought that colonial mentality resides only among a few who feel that they cannot attain and maintain positions of leadership and power without the benevolence of the colonial master.
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Unfortunately, it seems that from the ranks of these remaining colonially-minded few arose the nation’s post-martial law Presidents in succession. And we began to ask, is it really colonial mentality that ails the Filipino nation? As we observe it, following the first EDSA event, the nation’s political stability seems to be precariously connected to its economic policy. All Presidents of the Republic after Marcos sought a U.S. state visit both for political and economic reasons.
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The Co-op movement therefore, needs to continuously dream on for ways of taking the nation’s economy in its own hands to truly liberate the Filipino people from submissiveness and dependency, Now we admit that submissiveness does not necessarily issue from colonial mentality alone but rather from economic reality. Further, we confess that the Journey from Colonial Mentality to Co-op Autonomy and Independence remains one of the most critical journeys we have to go through.
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This Co-op principle of Autonomy and Independence was promulgated against the background of vast state power exercised by governments worldwide in terms of taxation, economic and social policies. The ICA report admonishes Co-operatives to be vigilant in developing open, clear relationships with governments…It asserts that the Autonomy Principle addresses the essential need for co-operatives to be autonomous, in the same way that enterprises controlled by capital are autonomous in their dealings with governments (ICA Report, 1995, p.21).
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A proud people forced into subservience by economically and militarily superior nations should seize every democratic space to recover total social, economic and political dignity. The Co-op principle of autonomy and independence should affirm and strengthen our ideological ideals to finally cast away the myth of colonial mentality that has hounded us too long.