Tall Poppies, Filipino Style
If the Australians have Tall Poppy Syndrome, we Filipinos have crab mentality—the urge to pull down anyone who dares climb higher. It’s practically a national metaphor, one we’ve repeated so often it’s become background noise. Yet, when you look closer, the parallels are startling.
Like the tall poppy, the “crab” is punished for rising above. We cloak it in humor or humility: “Wag kang masyadong magaling,” “Huwag kang maging Jollibee, bida–bida ka na naman diyan,” “Baka mayabang ka na,” or “Swerte lang siya.” But underneath those words is the same discomfort with success that Australians tried to describe with their floral metaphor.
Have you ever hit a major milestone — say, bagged a department, company, national or international award — and suddenly the office goes eerily quiet? Your boss avoids eye contact, your colleagues keep typing like nothing happened, and the group chat that once exploded over someone’s birthday cupcake is now dead silent. Hahaha. You can almost hear the sound of crickets where applause should be. It’s that subtle chill that seeps in when success walks into the room. Sadly, it’s not just a Pinoy workplace thing — it’s a global syndrome where envy quietly takes the driver’s seat, steering what could’ve been a supportive culture straight into toxic territory.
In Filipino workplaces, this manifests quietly but pervasively. The brilliant teacher whose innovative approaches make the department look good suddenly finds herself isolated in meetings. The young engineer who wins an award abroad becomes the subject of side comments about “connections.” The manager who turns around a struggling branch is rumored to have played politics. Achievement, in such environments, feels less like a celebration and more like a social hazard.
A study by Igorevna Dediu (2015) found that employees who perceive their workplace to favor the downfall of high achievers tend to perform worse. Decision-making suffers, creativity dips, and internal service quality declines. In short, a culture that cuts down its tall poppies—or its ambitious crabs—doesn’t just hurt feelings. It hurts performance.
Why Others Cut the Poppies
So why do others do it?
Psychologists like N. Feather (1991) point to self-esteem. In his study of high school students, those with lower self-esteem were more likely to rejoice when high achievers stumbled. It’s not malice as much as insecurity—a need to balance the scales by bringing others down to one’s level. Jisoo Kim (2021) added a cultural twist: in collectivist societies like ours, success is often defined in relation to others. When one person stands out, it disrupts harmony. Excellence becomes a social risk rather than a communal win.
In the Philippines, humility is a virtue—and rightly so. But humility sometimes becomes a disguise for self-erasure. We raise our children to say “po” and “opo,” to avoid boasting, to fit in. Yet, somewhere along the way, we confuse humility with mediocrity. When someone breaks the mold, our instinct isn’t always admiration—it’s suspicion. “Who does she think she is?” becomes the unspoken question.
Rebecca Webb (2023) suggested that one antidote lies in moral and spiritual humility—the kind that allows excellence and modesty to coexist. Her study in New Zealand found that when communities embrace humility not as self-deprecation but as self-awareness, tall poppies can flourish without fear of being cut down. (To be continued)/PN
