Defined in Psychology as “how well a person adjusts to tough internal and external demands,” resiliency is seen as a much-desired trait in people from all walks of life, especially among marginalized sectors of society. But this trait is not all positive, and some critics have pointed to its regressive role as a safety valve for socio-economic pressures that would otherwise have led to actions for fundamental changes.
As a case in point, Filipinos are admired by many foreigners as a resilient people, being able to bounce back and cope from natural calamities, economic downturns and pandemics. But this is not a national trait, it is in fact characteristic of people in the Global South, where poverty is multigenerational and economic crisis is chronic. Its existence in the Philippines only becomes remarkable because Filipinos smile and make fun of themselves and their misery during dire times, a spirit of fatalistic bravado that masks much more than it reveals.
This devil-may-care attitude also keeps us sane in an insane world, acting as an opiate that seeks to numb us from fully recognizing our country’s festering social realities. Other ways of escapism are illegal drugs, alcoholism, karaoke, gambling and online games, all of which are rife in every corner of the country. They keep us from seeing the need for urgent and deep-going changes, and bonding together to form movements that can push for paradigm shifts.
Resiliency is often mistaken for grit, which focuses on long-term plans and goal attainment. The former delves on surviving the present, not on creating the future. One cannot even look at forward trajectories when preoccupied with the moment, which for many Filipinos is a daily, life-and-death situation. People who have grit are those who believe they stand a chance in achieving their goals within the present system, with a good dash of hope thrown in.
Filipinos should be praised for more than resiliency; we should be praised for having plenty of grit. We don’t just hanker for survival; we also want to get to the top. The only time people settle for resiliency is when they have settled for a kind of life that merely waits for death. Grit reaches out for the very essence of Life itself, and defies even the gods of convention and the status quo in order to reach it. THAT is what Filipinos have in abundance.