The “Culture of Entitlement”

By Apolinario Villalobos

The “culture of entitlement” has made many Filipinos, especially, the youth, dependent on their expected inheritance from rich parents and generous relatives. The expectation has resulted to their indolence and loss of drive to strive on their own. This culture was never a part of the Filipino life prior to the arrival of the Spaniards. Early Filipinos were expected to work hard for survival because of the striated society. Instead of “entitlement”, the early Filipinos were “awarded” for their hard-earned accomplishments.

In grave contrast, the western nations, especially, America, are devoid of the aforementioned culture. In America for instance, soonest as a member of the family reaches the age of 18, he or she is expected to move out of the house of the parents to be on his or her own. And, even children of billionaires work hard to earn their living.

In the Philippines, children of OFWs and those with high positions in private companies and government tend to take things easy as they are assured of comfortable life, anyway. Some of them even lost interest in pursuing their studies, and develop a vice, instead. They are so conscious about the obligation of their parents to support them, by all means, that some of them even have the courage to ask for their inheritance in advance! Children of some OFWs do not even give a thought to the difficulties that their parents have to hurdle just to be able to send home hard earned money.

Unless the attitude of dependence or the culture of entitlement is softened a bit, the character of the Filipinos in general shall continue to be on its downhill trend. But then, some of the parents can be blamed for this attitude for having pampered their children. Some of these parents who have suddenly experienced a bit of affluence due to finances that trickle from abroad give their young children the impression that they are rich which expectedly, has been deeply impressed in their mind. As these children grow, they speak and act as if they belong to rich families!

Finally, the aforementioned culture has created chaos in homes as children tend to think that they are not loved by their parents who, on the other hand, think that they have brought up ungrateful children.