|
21
August 2003
'In fairness'
LATELY I've been
hearing more Filipinos, especially the younger ones, using phrases like
"in fairness" and "to be fair."
I've realized that the phrase's popularity is coming in from movie
gossip talk shows, where commentators seem to be dropping "in
fairness" every other second. After yakking about the latest dirt
in a celebrity's life, the showbiz reporter will add, "In fairness,
we haven't asked the celebrity for his side." It's a strange
after-the-fact application of the notion of fairness -- almost a way of
seeking absolution for gossip and backbiting.
I'm not surprised that we've distorted the meaning of
"fairness." Fairness is a difficult concept to grasp,
especially in feudal societies like our own, where the powerful define
fairness in terms of their own rights being paramount, above everyone
else's. Thus, when politicians appeal to the mass media for
"fairness," what they actually mean is: "It's okay if you
print bad stories about my opponents but don't even think about doing
that with me."
Notice we don't even have a strong equivalent Filipino word for
"fairness." The other week I was talking with a worker and
wanted to know if he thought his salary was fair. I found myself at a
loss for the proper word in Filipino and finally used the English term.
When I asked around for the correct Filipino word, people offered "patas."
But I don't think it quite captures the meaning of "fair."
Patas is "equal" but "equal" isn't the same as
"fair." When you ask a laborer if his salary is "patas,"
the question hangs there because "equal" needs a qualifier. Do
you mean equal to one's needs, or equal to one's work output?
"Fair" captures many different dimensions in one sweep, a fair
salary being one that considers both needs and skills of the worker, as
well as the employer's own investments and profit margins.
After graduating from college I worked for a few years with the social
action arm of the Roman Catholic Church. We had an amazingly simple
salary scale at that time: If you were single, your monthly salary was
600 pesos. If you were married without children, it was 700 pesos, and
if you were married with children, you got 800 pesos.
Many of you will probably say that's unfair. Well, as far as we were
concerned at that time, it was perfectly fair. It didn't matter that Dr.
Tan got 600 pesos and our janitor got 800 pesos because our janitor had
greater needs than I had, and therefore deserved more.
Although in retrospect I think that three-level scale was too
simplistic, not even quite reflecting the complexity of needs, I still
agree with the principle of fairness that was used, i.e., those with
more in life should be willing to work for less. Thus, I will in one
breath say that our salaries at the University of the Philippines (UP)
are unfairly low, but will also say that I think it's only fair to
continue teaching at UP since I've been more fortunate in life and my
needs are easily met.
Fairness is not built on a mechanical application of the notion of
"equal." Quite often, fairness may mean giving special
preference to those who have less to start with. This notion of giving a
headstart to people with a disadvantage is at the heart of
"affirmative action" in the United States. For example,
universities will increase admission quotas for members of cultural
minority groups, based on the recognition that they were marginalized
for decades and that society needs to make amends, giving them extra
opportunities to pull themselves up.
When I proposed an affirmative action component in our department's
admissions policy, I actually met opposition. One faculty member
protested, "But we are all minorities. There is no majority ethnic
group in the Philippines."
Here's an example of where "patas" falls apart. Sure, Tagalogs
and Tausugs and Tagbanwas are all "patas" in the sense that
they are all numerical minorities, but we know, too, that there are vast
differences in the economic and social status of the three groups, and
that a preferential option needs to be given to the Tausug and Tagbanwa.
Note, though, that "fairness" here is not reduced to a matter
of ethnicity-final admission will still depend on many other
considerations, including a student's capabilities. Neither does
fairness end with affirmative action in the admissions policy. Thus, if
we eventually accept a student from a cultural minority group, even if
his or her grades were not too good, it would be again be unfair to just
leave the student to try to survive alone. To be fair, the university
needs to give special support to help such students get through
university, through scholarships and tutorials.
We need to talk more about fairness in our daily lives. When a driver
creates his or her own counter-flow, driving down the wrong lane to get
to the next intersection, the principle of fairness is violated, the
moron having jumped the queue and, worse, possibly jamming traffic flow
coming from the other direction and wasting more precious time of
numerous motorists.
"Unfair" behavior is really cheating. When a student copies
someone else's work, he or she is being unfair to those who put in time
and effort to prepare for the exam. Similarly, on the part of faculty
members, it would be unfair to allow mediocre work to pass because this
"cheats" students who put in so much more effort into their
papers.
Eventually, we have to recognize that fairness is crucial as well for a
nation to develop. Our unfair system of patronage in the workplace and
in politics is a major reason why so many Filipinos leave the country.
There is the perception that one's chances of success are tied to who
you know, rather than one's skills or meritorious service. On a macro
scale, we lose many potential investments, from both Filipinos and
foreigners, because our system is seen as unfair, again based on
connections and patronage and rules and policies being changed midway
through a project.
It's interesting we adopted the Spanish "patas" to mean
"fair" when it's actually a term used in relation to games and
sports, referring to a tie or a draw. The correct Spanish word for
"fair" is actually "justo" (just). The sooner we
develop an ethos around fairness as it should be, tied to justice and
equity, the better it will be for our country.
|
