The Inherent Pinoy Culture of Borrowing Money

It is very common to have someone you know who ask if they can borrow money and pay you on the next payday. Their reasons for borrowing money are varied, too. The most common always have something to do with family, medical emergencies, special occasions, and other unexpected expenses.

The Inherent Pinoy Culture of Borrowing Money

Borrowing money is so common that it has, in fact, become a tradition of some sort. We all grew up seeing our parents borrow money from other people, one time or another. They would borrow money using a salary loan when money is tight and they need to send us to school, put food on the table, and pay the bills.

When you’ve grown accustomed to this kind of practice, it’s very hard to do away with it. Here are some more reasons why borrowing money is part of the Filipino culture.

One day millionaires

Filipinos have the habit of borrowing money because a lot of us are just naturally reckless and impulsive when it comes to spending. When payday comes, we pay our monthly bills and then blow off the rest on food, clothes, entertainment, travel, and whatever else we fancy.

This stems from our desires for instant gratification. We work so hard all week and take a beating from demanding bosses, crazy quotas, tight deadlines, and stressful co-workers. We deserve a reward for making it through the week, so we go right ahead and spend our money as we please.

Image conscious

Whether you admit it or not, we Filipinos like to show off. We care about our image and what other people think. Even if we cannot afford this nice set of jewelry or this 4 x 4 pickup truck, we will find a way to buy it to satisfy our need to have it.

And yes, we also buy it to make people think that we can afford it! We will charge it to our credit cards and pay in installments, or take out a car loan and pay it in the next five years. Unfortunately, even with this kind of payment arrangement, most of us are still unable to pay because it’s not the only loan that we are paying for!

Borrowing money to pay off another loan

A lot of us are guilty of this. We get a personal loan from BDO so we can pay off our old loans. And then we’ll just take out another loan to pay for this other loan. The loans just keep piling up until this becomes our default money management method. At the rate we are going, we will have loans until we’re old and gray!

Family first

Filipinos families are very tight. In fact, the Filipino family extends to best friends, classmates, office colleagues, roommates, and even neighbors. Most of us share our special occasions with them as a gesture of goodwill and camaraderie, or ‘pakikisama’. Even if we cannot afford a wedding for 400 people, we will borrow money to make it happen, because we don’t want to offend our aunts and uncles in the province if they don’t get invited.

You can say that this applies to every town fiesta, baby christening, eighteenth debut party, house blessing, ribbon cutting ceremony, graduation party, bridal shower, and baby shower that we will have!

You only live once

Live in the moment, because this moment will never come again. At least that’s what we tell ourselves when we buy something that we should not because we cannot afford it. But because we only live once, we can just worry about how we’ll pay for that impromptu Tokyo trip on another day. We can always borrow money from our parents or siblings, anyway.

This post is contributed by iMoney Philippines.