The Genius of the Filipino Poor | Thomas Graham | TEDxADMU

I arrived for the Philippines about five years ago our next assignment to like business and investment reports on this country one day one of the men I was interviewing he called me a parachute journalist what's the parachute journalist he says yeah you're one of these foreigners you come to our country you write a quick report and then you leave you don't really understand the Philippines how dare you I studied at top university in Europe and these reports go into prestigious international magazines I'm gonna show these Filipinos I really do understand your country so what did I do the next day I went to green hills and I bought the finest Baron Tagalog I could find and the following day I showed up at my interview and I expected the gentleman I was interesting to be very impressed with my new attire confused and concerned look on his face you do realize if you are a baron tagalog you really should wear an undergarment so imagine air conditioning on max there I am in this beautifully embroidered and yet rather transparent barong Tagalog don't imagine it too much now after that day I decided never to wear a barrel Tagalog again so I was this guy I was dressed in a suit and I was interviewing other people in suits or barons all across Metro Manila I was going from the business districts to malikan yang one day on the way to Melancon yang I was on Rockhouse Boulevard stops at traffic lights and some kids looks inside the window and they saw something of interest americano they said composing myself once more some other kids started tapping on the window and calling me Joe I thought I was a bit confused I thought maybe in some case of mistaken identity here they said some at the driver I said can I wind down the wind and tell these kids I'm neither Jew nor americano I'm Tom from England but the way he responded to me was very revealing he said all recommend you do that if you wind down your window these kids will probably rob you so I didn't wind down the window and I went back that evening to my 34th floor condominium in Sado Village but I had this thought in my head I said why would anyone bother reading my reports if I'm that disconnected from the ground I've had enough of writing these kind of false reports and I wanted to really write a report which told a more authentic story of this country and a story which would give me hope and so people started telling me you've got to meet this guy now this is Tony mulatto you're not familiar with who Tony Moten is I'm sure you are familiar with the organization he started coward killing ER so I did a bit of research on GK I fixed up an interview expected it to last about 30 minutes three hours later I'm staring back at this clipboard of questions and Tony had challenged me to see this country in an entirely different light in particular he said Tom you talked a lot about inclusive growth the only way we're going to achieve an inclusive growth in this country is if we unleash the genius of the Filipino poor of the poor it's genius in the poor then Y of a poor it didn't make sense Tony said to me don't take my word for it go and discover it for yourself it's time you ditched that shirt and time so I thought about it for a short while and I thought okay so I spent one year living in the communities of Goward Kalinga and that journey it was a life-changing journey for me and there's two key reasons why this one-year journey had such a major impression on me the first is by Annie Hannah now let me tell you how I first discovered what by any ham was so remember I had that car and a driver I had to give all of that up and I have to start taking jeepneys go wrong if a bridge takes a jeepney for the first time I've already messed up with the barong Tagalog right what could go maybe you think I don't know where the tea is going but there you re I did my research I learned the words ebar Bao and Eli Lim I learned other words I learned by ad Paul I even learned pad Apple and the strangest thing for me which I learnt coming from London was that if the driver can't hear you when you say parable you have to start whacking the roof very strange anyway I thought I was well prepared and my baptism of fire for taking jeepneys my very first evening experience was along Commonwealth Avenue in case you're not familiar this is 8 lanes of pure chaos the highway of hell so I stopped the jeepney and you may think I'm quite tall so probably I couldn't find a comfortable seat but I was ok I found a nice little seat squished between a couple of plump cheetahs at the back so it's actually quite comfy and then after about a minute I thought oh would do in that situation I'm sat at the back got a backpack on and I jump up and then I turn around and as I turn around I whack the teacher in the face with my back and then we're going about 40 miles an hour right now along the highway of hell and I'm making my way from the back all the way to the front treading on people's toes backing someone else in the face don't worry I remembered my line but my hand on his shoulder and I said bye had poor looks around a bit confused but I give him 10 pesos he gives me to faceless change and then I what happens I figured all the way back so I finally make my way to the back of achieve me and I had the impression I am the least popular person in the history of taking TVs ever to take a jeepney but I'm looking back everyone else in the Jeep me thinking you know what it's not my fault it's a stupid system in London we have an electronic card we paid a driver it's so easy and it's safe later another lady gets on opposite me I'm thinking to myself it's gonna have exactly the same problem I had something which surprised me from a pocket next to her and that person passed it it's the person next to them I'm watching this thinking oh so that is how you do it in the Philippines because of course it's possible to pay for a jeepney on your own I mean I managed it but it's a lot easier if you do it together right and this is the spirit of bayanihan how I first discovered it and if I think back to that first interview with Tony mulatto he said to me the Philippines has no excuse to be poor and I thought of course it has a lot of excuses to be poor as health problems infrastructure education corruption I could go on and on and on and yet today I know he's absolutely right because we don't have that spirit of bayanihan in the UK you guys have it it's beautiful and yet there's so much inequality but what's more I saw in the communities of Gao filling that I visited I saw how slums really were being transformed one community at a time into colorful and peaceful communities like this that's the first value by any Han the second is Wei Liang you banana now when I first came across this expression I checked out in the dictionary I was like okay no one left behind okay that makes sense I can understand that until I fully grasped what why lying even and needs the end of my one year journey in these communities it was Christmastime and a major typhoon had just shocked the Philippines and I was stuck on an island in one of the affected areas all on my own and all of my family and my friends had gone back to Europe my Filipino friends of course were with their families so for the first time in my journey I felt a little bit left Hinde so I asked a friend I said what can I do this Christmas time it's Christmas Eve why don't you go to the local gk village well okay it's better than being on my own at Christmastime I wasn't super excited about it I've got to be honest I was feeling a bit miserable he said don't you worry I'm gonna sort it out so I don't know he had globe and he sent a message to the community that had smart or son I got remember which one and probably because the typhoon had struck that message never got there so I jump on the back of a howl howl or a motorbike and I make my way from the touristy area of the island to the far side of the island and I jump off the Hubble Hubble at about 6:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve Merry Christmas guys one of the first expressions I learnt in the Philippines when I arrived here was most people you can imagine the situation there was three or four minutes of panic I come from why is he not with his family what do we do with him now and the capita hyoeun president of that community he came up to me and he said um we weren't going to celebrate Christmas this year we lost everything in the typhoon but now you're here we're gonna make a party so there was one gentleman in the community he was a fisherman earlier that day he'd caught a squid so he put the squid on the barbecue yet another guy he had a Nokia phone not a smartphone but one from like 2001 and it played music that was the important thing and he took don't you worry sir I'd be DJ and we had someone else there was no power in the community right but we had someone with a flashlight and he spent three hours flashing off on off on off on off on off and it was the disco lighting and this was me Christmas Eve in anti an island in Cebu this was before the temple I came out it really is more fun in the Philippines right if you can create so much fun out of so little resources more than that because that night I went to sleep in one of the community houses and I was sleeping in a in a guru killing a house the bed was not the mattress I was used to of course it was a plank of wood but unfortunately this plank of wood hadn't been cut for Caucasian dimensions what does that mean it's too short so there I am trying to sleep on this bank of wood and my legs are dangling off the end after a couple of minutes I start ours I started to feel a bit sorry for myself again I thought you know what I should have just stayed in a resort tonight I'd be so much more comfortable and I went to the CR and on the way to the CR in that house on I saw the mother and father lying on the floor and I realized I couldn't see the stars because I was in the only house in the entire community that still had a roof so I was in the best house in the community and I was sleeping in the matrimonial bed of the best house in the community and for the next two hours I couldn't sleep either because I was physically uncomfortable very emotionally challenged by these people got me thinking if someone is to show up on my doorstep on Christmas Eve from a faraway country in the East and say hey can I come in can I have dinner with you spying can I sleep in your bed by the way what would I do I owe you anything I'd give them a mince pie that's what we give it Christmas and then I say on your way didn't leave I might well call the police challenged me to become a better version of myself because I learned what well Lange un animun because while Langer went on from the translation meant me as a relatively rich person giving a little bit of what I have to the poor this community had nothing and yet in that moment that one moment of my journey where I was left behind they gave me everything but they possibly could so these stories appear in the book I wrote and we published that book it was trying to get back to reality I had to get a pension plan I had to get a serious job and I had to go back to London you know what if I'd stayed any longer in London I would have probably got depressed where was the Welling UN and a bayani Hanna genius of the poor in London I couldn't access it and I was getting sad you know what English people do when we get sad we go to the pub I was down the pub I was drinking beer and there was one particular day I was drinking probably on pint number three or four and I was getting increasingly emotional about my time in the Philippines I'm starting to sound like Tito Tony himself my friend he put his arm around my shoulder and he said look Tom if it really makes you feel any better I will double my subscription listen to my stories were to read my book I want him to come and experience the genius of these communities for himself so that's where I got my next idea I thought I'm gonna set up a social tourism platform mad travel we're going to create fun and fulfilling experiences in Gao killing of communities and other communities all across the Philippines not just for foreigners let me stay because just like the butterfly who perhaps doesn't know quite how beautiful his own wings are I wonder if it's time that Filipinos themselves are reminded of the potential for genius all around you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 1,205,211

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Hope, Society

Id: v-JxeTd8kAw

Length: 15min 7sec (907 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 28 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/BlueMinderz]

Sometimes ted talks are to much Radical and Irrational leftist and liberal for me

I hope ours don't fall in that trap.

[u/pelito]

fluffy fluff piece