Credit cards and
culture shock

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

From the reactions to that piece on how I cut out my Citibank credit card last Wednesday, it looks like there are many similar cases out there, mostly complaints about how they were treated, how difficult it was to disengage from electronic debt, how unconscionable the interest rates and such.

All that, I think, are symptoms of culture shock, how the use of the plastic card, so commonplace in the First World, has yet to be truly embraced hereabouts and how it runs counter, in fact, to the Pinoy culture. How foreign, indeed, is plastic money to Pinoys, who for the most part, are not really accustomed to borrowing money in faceless, nameless transactions.

There is also something about having to buy things without forking out the actual cash. While it is more secure, and convenient, there is a psychological what, vacuum, there that encourages Pinoys to spend more while using their cards. Purchases done with plastic money do not immediately impact on our pocketbooks, or so we think, so it is easy to fall into the delicious temptation of buying more.

Those of you who have cards know what I am talking about, how indulging in instant gratification is so much easier with credit cards, how we fulfill our wants and wishes and not exactly our needs the instant they get into our minds because there is always ready credit available.

Somehow, Pinoys, or at least those who reacted to Wednesday’s column, have not truly realized, or maybe have not settled it in their hearts and minds that using credit card is really, truly, simply, borrowing money. It is, to use the dialect, still “utang” that needs to be paid at some time down the line, “utang” for which you pay interest on.

It may sound sosyal, or upscale, or even some affirmation of elevated social status but it is still, however you look at it, borrowing at interest rates the levels of which you may not even realize.

The sad part is that the convenience makes us dive deeper into debt without even realizing it, until I guess the collectors, and later the lawyers, start pounding on our gates or harassing us over the phone.

One of those who reacted to my story said she went through the horrors of being trapped in credit card debt she couldn’t pay right away, how the collectors over the phone increased not just in frequency but also in virulence and bad manners. Eventually, she said, the bad manners turned into threats, and when she still couldn’t pay up, they started showing up at her gate. They wouldn’t even listen to anything, but for her to pay up. When still she couldn’t pay, they started becoming verbally violent, intruding into her home even in the most unholy hours – 4 a.m., 11 p.m., 1 a.m. – she finally broke down and borrowed from someone else, at even higher interest, so she could get them off her back. She wasn’t even able to ask for better interest rates, she said, she swallowed everything just so she could get back her peace of mind.

Oh sure, there is no escaping the use of credit cards. We need them for emergencies, and in online purchases that are getting more popular these days. I know of some people who got out of hospitalization on credit cards because they had no money. It can be convenient and even necessary.

Now, if only we could always see it for what it truly is: borrowing, utang, that will have to be paid sooner, or later.*

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