PINOY CRAB MENTALITY IS A MYTH

Back in the Philippines there is a commonly held belief that Filipinos are afflicted with this socio-psychological disease called “crab mentality.” It means that wherever they are they tend to put one another down. This behaviour, as the prevailing opinion goes, is the reason why we are poor as a country and why we as a people don’t succeed in another country.

This is utterly wrong.

First, the Philippines is poor not because of any single factor. National poverty is a complex and complicated phenomenon. There are too many moving parts that even the greatest minds and leaders of the world are barely able to understand it, much less suggest ways to eliminate it. (But if you ask me I’d say curbing corruption in government is a good way to go.)

As to the second assertion that we don’t succeed abroad, well, this is totally false. In Canada alone, many Filipino immigrants have made a name for themselves, and thus made our country proud. There are also countless unnamed Filipinos who have quietly but happily made Canada their home (surely a measure of success for diaspora families).

To be sure, crab mentality as a behaviour exists in other parts of the world. According to Dr. Aggie Carson-Arenas, a US-based clinical psychologist and author of the textbook Introduction to Psychology: Understanding Human Behavior (published by Rex Book Store in the Philippines), crab mentality, or utak talangka in Tagalog, is a “social phenomenon that prevails in any society whether sophisticated or otherwise.”

He adds: “This ... is also found in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and United Kingdom, where it is known as ‘tall poppy syndrome’, in which an individual demonstrating genuine merit is resented, abused, or criticized simply because he is better than the rest!”

Thus, to attribute it solely to the Filipinos as a racial or cultural characteristic is utterly wrong.

My own experience with fellow Filipinos in Canada attests to the absence of crab mentality among them. Not only were they happy to see another Filipino land in Canada to settle for good, but they were also full of stories about Filipinos who have made big achievements here, proud that another fellow Pinoy was making a good name for both Canada and the Philippines.

After all, wherever we are in the world, or in Canada, we remain Pinoy, and happily so. As one popular Filipino song goes, “Pinoy ako, Pinoy tayo!”