Professional Ethics for Filipinos

 

By Dr. Romulo Bautista 

Here are some Filipino traits that are bad for the professional manner in which we conduct our work. Due to personal and social pressures, even professionals act in an immature way. The reason may be cultural. Below are some typical traits. In the succeeding section, I will also explain the importance, value and purpose of a code of ethics for professionals. 

1. Padrino system is practiced in a business organization or in running the affairs of government to the detriment of the greater good of many or the community. For example, an applicant for a vacant job in a particular company, his closeness to the hiring officer almost assures him of getting that vacant job. Preference is given to relatives and friends in hiring even if they are not qualified for the position. Or a family member may be exempted from following hours of work and standard procedures in a company or given special privileges or favors. 

2. Palusot - Some Filipinos have difficulty complying strictly with standard procedure designed to preserve order and discipline in an organization. Thus, they oftentimes have little respect to traffic regulations and will violate any rule to get to their destination quickly. When his attention is called for violating a rule, he will often find a convenient excuse and will not readily admit his guilt. In vernacular, it is called palusot.

3. Ningas Cogon means cogon grass burning and losing fire or heat very fast. Like cogon grass, Filipinos start out a project or endeavor passionately, with full enthusiasm and interest, only to die down, leaving the goals or objectives unaccomplished.  The reason is a matter of motive. But most of the time, it can be due to a lack of support or enthusiasm. 

4. Manana Habit is the Filipinos tendency to procrastinate. He postpones or delays accomplishing a task today for the simple reason that tomorrow is to come. He has a penchant for doing things at the last minute. Time is not important for most Filipinos. For this reason, such limits the ability of the country to grow and become progressive because of such a bad habit.

5. Ambisyoso. Personal ambition, personal vested interest and quest for power and status, drive many Filipinos to act without regard to the common good. Thus, they oftentimes resort to unfounded charges and malicious criticisms to bring down others. It's called crab mentality. The local crab, when put in a container, will try to grab down another wanting to get out. The end result is nobody gets out of the container. A man simply wants another to suffer with him. 

6. The "Kanya-kanya" attiude creates factionalism in an organization. In many cases, it is difficult to unite warring or conflicting factions in an organization and direct their efforts to a common direction. Disagreement over issue are taken as personal: and the other party espousing contrary position is taken as an enemy. This results to a lack of trust and commitment in the organization. 

7. Inggit - It is not uncommon for a Filipino to generate a feeling of envy toward a peer that has gained recognition for exemplary performance or a sterling accomplishment. The person who achieves something is oftentimes judged wrongly. The problem is that people who have this trait cannot accept their limitations and so, they cannot be truly happy for others. For this reason, they suffer immensely when others succeed. Clinical intervention is desired in such cases. 

Principal Coverage of Professional Ethics

What is the nature of profession and that of occupation? What makes one a professional?

A profession is distinguished from occupation in that it is learned. Its members possess a special competence based upon a long period of rigorous theoretical training. Note that special competence alone without exacting intellectual preparation is not enough. This definition of a profession modifies the ethics requiring that persons be treated as ends. This modification takes several directions. Ordinarily the layman can be the trusted to be the judge of whether he is being treated as an end, whether his best interests are being served by another.

Self-reliance in judging ones own interest works reasonably well as long as both parties have approximately equal knowledge of the probable motivations and consequences involved in social interaction. But obviously this is not the situation when  a professional exercises his peculiar competence for a layman The professional knows so much more than the layman that the latter is almost completely at a disadvantage to determine whether the professional service he is receiving is to his best interest or not. As a matter of fact, only the professional has a sound basis for judging the best interests of the layman

General Ethical Principles of Professional Ethic

There are general ethical principles which could be invoked to guide the conduct of professionals. These are principles of professional ethics, and as such, observable and enforceable in all kinds of profession. But the question arises whether such general principles are enough or whether the practices of different professionals present special circumstances which require some added qualification of general ethical principles. 

Categorical Imperative of Professional Ethics

If the professional person were to consult only the maxims of general ethics he would have at hand a very good rule by which to guide his relations with laymen seeking his services. That rule is embodied in every persons categorical sense of moral obligation: Do good and avoid evil.  We sense what we ought to do, irrespective of the consequences. 

Such a sense of absolute moral obligation is termed the categorical imperative (as opposed to a hypothetical imperative, which says what you need to do in order to achieve some chosen result). The categorical imperative can be expressed in various ways, but it amounts to this according to Kant: "Act only on that maxim (or principle) which you can  at the same time - will that it should become a universal law." This amounts to the principle that whatever one wishes to do, one should be prepared for everyone else to do it as well, If you cannot  wish that your action should become a universal rule, then you should not do it in your individual circumstance.

To this Kant adds a second principle: "Treat every person, whether your own person or another, as an end and never as a means." This most general principle follows from the golden rule  to do to others only that which you would wish them to do to you. Every person has an intrinsic value, and as such, he should be treated as subject and never as object. The professional person, therefore, should act with the other fellows best interests in mind. 

There may be circumstances in which a professional person,( for example, a nurse  may assist to kill a patient (euthanasia) without wishing for killing to become universal. Following Kant in this case, one would need to argue that you could wish that any one in an identical situation should be free to kill (a judgment call of situation ethics), without thereby willing that anyone in any situation should be free to kill.

Conclusion:

Ethics is important in the workplace. A lack of professionalism is something that is apparent due to bad habit like inggit or crab mentality. Professionalism signifies special competence based on a long period of rigorous theoretical training and exacting intellectual preparation that demands the obligation to abide by that kind of training. Hence, the professionals should always endeavor to excel in their professional work. A lack thereof shows a sense of immaturity and lack of self respect.