Futurism and the "Bahala Na" Culture | Guillermo Santos | TEDxLyceumPhilippinesUniversity

I want to start from here because I am the present the old one I think I'm the oldest in this room I'll begin with pleading guilty to be 86 and I'm going to talk about the future but hearing our last speaker you know there's something that really struck me I'm an optimist so I said if you have Alzheimer's you have one advantage over all the other people every second although there are only two of you in the room you have a new friend you have to look at things very positively right but the other side of things is he's saying a lot of people are going to be Alzheimer's stricken in the next he didn't say when but in the next 2050 the next 50 years you are going to really have so much of that disease around why because by then the total population of the world is going to be 10 billion 10 billion so think think of the old guys China which has 1.4 billion now has only one child policy yet they're getting old Japan is about the oldest so you will find that there will be some good things about the future after hearing all her our presenters this morning this today I'm going to ask you is it possible really to see the future what's your answer yes or no it is possible yes but it requires a lot on the person it is now practiced actually by some people in the corporate world they call it the corporate eg planner they isolate themselves for three or four days at a row in a row and they plan how are they going to make the company much more productive profitable and above all they are going to have all the benefits for their shareholders that's not bad that's not bad that's not too bad but they also think of what they call corporate social responsibility and this is what makes corporation useful legal citizens of the world now however earlier we were talking during the break and on the roundtable and the people around me what we're saying there's something wrong with pharmaceuticals there's something wrong now with the doctors the doctors are leaving their good bedside manners and always in a hurry you know that the patients are now getting to be more demanding and so forth now but what happens then how is the whole business of medicine affected this is something else that you have say you have to look at and when we look at medicine we are also looking at artificial intelligence the advent of artificial intelligence now let me go to the school's the school's called the Futuristics in them as curriculum planning every year they get together again isolate themselves and look for any avenue that would increase enrollment increased profitability increase usefulness to the community and most of all to the development of the nation which every nation there the diplomats and soldiers call this strategic intelligence gathering it is the main and vital factor and the difference between war between losses and war and victory the national government leaders call it the performance budget presentation Congress goes over the budget recommendations of the executive department or the prime ministers and they look at the the goals what are the what are the objectives of the government so that the company the country is going to progress economically don't forget that in this 21st century the race the competition among governments is to accede to excel economically speaking and when you have economic speaking economic progress necessarily by geopolitical requirements these government's go into an arms race this is exactly what is now seen in the asia-pacific region with North Korea and South Korea the US China Russia and Iran don't forget there's another factor Israel but that's a very complicated thing I'm not going to deal with that here I merely mentioned it so that you will have an idea how wide in scope is Futuristics the architects and engineers called this master planning they draw up the blueprint then they follow it to the letter and they have a timeline when they're going to finish the construction as any as in any architectural or engineering projects they do stick to the time limits managers of changes in any organization I don't care whether it's non-governmental profit or nonprofit organizations what they do is they call it risk management mitigation the only different terms now when the circus comes to town you have another type of Futuristics people these are the ball gazers the crystal ball gazes and they're going to give you what you want to hear what's your future whether you're going to travel whether you're going to be ill whether you'll have a new sweetheart or a broken broken family life whatever but actually there is nothing mysterious about predicting the future in simple terms let me put it this way we have this slide this is the future it is the sum total of understanding our national history what does that mean you imbibe me you vibe every chapter of the national history so that you will understand why and what you are today by understanding that you will know and you will be equipping yourself empowering yourself to be accurately and currently informed of domestic regional and international developments so that you can sew them up all together all events in the world regional international or even domestic have linkages this you cannot avoid it's only a matter of knowing where the are then you can cross it then you can use it to your advantage both for your personal purposes or the national goals then we can determine the local trends and changes what's going to happen our last speaker just told us Alzheimer's is going to be here for a long time so from that you project you can easily make it and therefore after having all those you can now lay down the different or possible probable scenarios arising from those situations if this condition is followed through what is going to happen the very simple example I'd like to use all the time is you look out of the window when you wake up in the morning you see dark clouds what does that mean in the short term future in the very near future in the next minute it will probably rain therefore what are you going to do because determining the future or looking into the future looking into the possible future gives you the armament to take the best option that is for you in this case you see it's going to rain what's the best option I'll probably take a raincoat or an umbrella or take a ride with somebody if I don't have a car or not go out at all I'm going to do some of my writing here at home you know and therefore you can have your coffee and your meals and you can even play with your pets if you want to depending on what you have in other words in other words playing cleanly stated it is the art of using the current true accurate information to promote your own national interests or to get further into your goal in life allow me to let me share with you some true stories that I've experienced I've seen the Vietnam War before that I've covered the Korean War before that I saw the world war number two as a boy gorilla I shot my first Japanese soldier and I was 11 I threw my first hand grenade when I was 12 in ambush of a convoy of Japanese troops of Japanese troops in Iloilo in Penang my father was the intelligence officer of the peralta gorillas in pnai at that time and one of my Jobs was to watch at the breakwater of Olivia between aluminum Arras Island how low or how high on the water were the Japanese transport ships coming in if they were high in the water that means they were not fully loaded or they're empty which means they are probably going to take out something out the video to get somewhere if they're very low in the water that means they're delivering arms armor armaments bullets or or whatever it is that that they were bringing and I didn't know that that was my job it was just I was I was relating this to my father and my father were get where was wrapping vinegar and whiskey to be sent to the to the town of Macau which was more than 25 kilometers out of Villa villa and I was one of those kids who were taking those brought those whiskey or her whatever it was hard drinks for the people in in Macau now knowing that at night the forces of General MacArthur was coming in in submarines in a submarine commanded by Admiral at that time he was he was a captain captain cheek Parsons who had a hardware store here in Manila that was this that was how we went all through that now the Allies won over the axis because of Futuristics practice remember in our history the forces of the the Baron of Africa was defeated by the British because they did not know that there was going to be some kind of harsh weather coming in a sandstorm coming in they did not know that and therefore it was the intelligence gathering of the Allies and the British the British were heading it and that's how they annihilated the the Nazis in the desert in the Sahara Desert then you have this really case remember the Israeli six-day war in 1967 because of intelligence or information or futuristic s-- planning strategic planning the Israelis hardly six million people surrounded by more than 60 million Arab states precisely by Syria by Jordan and by Egypt Israel annihilated the entire Egyptian Air Force in less than four hours they combined the striking capability with their own intelligence network again Futuristics then they occupied the West Bank they got the Sinai desert and they even got the Bekaa Valley of Syria then in 1981 this is a true experience mind experience now in nineteen 1981 there was martial law in the Philippines under Marcos and the businessman did not know where Mark was was headed he was bringing the country he was leading the country nobody else so what did they do they formed what they called the Philippine futuristic society to determine the trends to determine the the forecasts of the business the economy the politics even the environment and that's what we worked on at that time it it was we transformed it into what we call the center for Philippine futuristic studies in 19 2007 so that we now included the students and the first students our members are from this University they are now members the futuristic society China is also doing Futuristics how they have copied what the Americans and the Allies have done immediately after the war at the height of the Cold War in fact and they are now getting into what they call the Asian infrastructure investment fund and that is to get everybody linked through railways that's one area that they can use to avoid being blocked on the South China Sea although they are claiming and toto the South China Sea Sea you have to understand how that started it was not started by Mao Zedong in 1949 no it was started in 1950 by Generalissimo Chiang kai-shek who had to flee to Taiwan because multi-tone defeated him and the he was supported by the Americans remember the Americans the British the French the Russians and the Chinese who were then originally under Sun yat-sen under the command of general Generalissimo Chiang kai-shek threw off the the Chinese emperor Qin Dynasty and however lost too much at all to be able to get a strategic position in the region they claim at 12 my 12 - line claim on the South China Sea when the Chinese Communists took over China finally 1958 in the United Nations then Chinese communist thought of how to do it how to get their own strategic position in the South China Sea that is forward thinking that is Futuristics and that is what they're doing right now they are not they are not minding anybody condemning them for taking over the South China Sea or militarizing the South China Sea why because they know pretty well there is no enforcement agency of the United Nations that is going to check them none at all so again this is a foresight of the Chinese and to them we must give them we must give the credit I am here to tell you the importance of futuristic s-- not to support the Chinese Communist Party [Laughter] now we come now to the question if you are so help on futurism how come this country has deteriorated constantly immediately after the war the Philippines were the second biggest economy next to Japan in Asia when I went as bureau chief of the Associated Press to Bangkok in 1962 by God everybody was looking at the Philippines as the training ground everybody was saying the peso is so good you know but now what is it out of the ten country members we are number six were not number two anymore in Asia and we are not number one Singapore has a better site has a better view of the future they copied what was here before that was the baton export processing zone and they now have the Jurong complex I covered it when they launched the Jurong complex and what is it now Singapore's the top honcho in the ASEAN ten again futurism now what holds the Filipino from practicing futurism all of the some of these people in the audience are my students and they know what they want that's why they're in there they're enrolled in the College of international relations some are in journalism they know what they want but if you go to the province in the Philippines you ask them how what do you want to be when you are twenty five you know what they say Baja Lana ho Maharana Kong began settling juice oh whatever God gives us we must welcome we must not turn down we must feel lucky and this is the religiosity of the Filipino that is holding down it is an anchor on the economic progress of the Philippines so what I'm saying here is that should be revised the mentals the mindset must be revised but what did what we do what do you have to have to revise the mindset you see revising or changing the mind means you are trying to change the thinking of the people and that will require a minimum a minimum of fifty years in some cases it might even require a bloody century you know can we afford it you have no way of doing it otherwise because as an as a Futuristics man you must be realistic you must work with what is possible what is probable then you lay down your options what does it that's best for you that is what you have to do because when you see what is coming is not favorable to you then you must act now act now not wait later you know you must have that sense of urgency in time the filipino by enlarge does not have that kind of mentality in the ballina la Habana memory buca's phenomena so that kind of mentality is really debilitating and is holding down the economic progress now where I come from if you talk a lot you're fired now if you cannot put down in writing what you have to say in one in one page you're fired also that is that's the kind of writing that the international wire services require so I am going to go no much further I'm going to put down here what are the qualities of a Futuristics man aside from being an optimist you have to have the maturity the maturity in age in experience to be able to render stable stable emotion free decisions and judgments on issues particularly if it concerns yourself number two you must have the analytical and critical mind don't stop asking how and why it's easy to know what and who and where that's easy you don't have to ask that but you have to ask how did it start why was there such a development there must be a reason for causing it is it against me it against my country is it against our group yeah those are those have to be asked then you have to have a well-rounded background and this is the hardest part of it you must have to have a well-rounded background and experience in politics in economics in social cultural science behavioral science in technology and in the environment asking too much right you become a jack of all trades and a master of none but it's going to help you the number four you must be an effective communicator don't ever use the same word you are defining don't say the art of listening is actually the art of listening when somebody stopping power then again you must be able to deal with reality because reality is what you have to deal with you cannot get away from meaning your geography your country your politics your religion whatever it is so that you can now work in harmony with your environment because you cannot get anywhere you cannot leave this planet and most of all you think global and act local thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 20,978

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Global Issues, Development, Foreign policy, Future

Id: MYZGaMntMuE

Length: 26min 49sec (1609 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2018