On roads where most people drive big cars, I drive a sedan. And like most sedan drivers, I have been bullied on the road by the much larger cars almost every day.

The seven-seater MPVs are the least overt among the big baddies of the road. They will try to angle their way through you but back off when they realize you are no pushover. Then come the SUVs which, together with the pick-up trucks, are the most notorious of the bullies on the road. Their drivers know that they are in a bigger, taller vehicle and they will not let a measly sedan get in their way.

Let’s not forget, of course, the buses and the 10-plus-wheeler trucks. Long before the seven-seater MPVs and the SUVs were around, they have reigned as the hardiest of the road bullies. Although, you would be surprised at how some truck and bus drivers are actually very polite on the road. These days, it’s really those who drive SUVs and pick-ups who seem to need a lesson on road courtesy.

But this is not a column about road safety nor about driving etiquette. These instances of driver bullies on the road are examples of how a “one-upping-the-other” culture has become prevalent in the everyday lives of Filipinos.

I previously wrote about our tendency to opt for shortcuts in anything, and in that piece I gave a potential explanation as to how and why such a culture developed (TLDR: It is because our processes are unusually tedious that we have chosen to find workarounds, which even some of our leaders go for). A similar explanation can be given about this “one-upping-the-other” culture.

Filipinos, historically, have been one-upped by others. First the Spaniards, who robbed the natives of their gold (or their culture, some would argue) in exchange for everyday trinkets like scissors and other ordinary tools. Then the Americans, who took our freedom away right when the Filipino revolutionaries were about to take it back from Spain. Finally, the Japanese, who came just as we were in the process of securing independence from the US.

Or so we are taught. But whether these narratives paint a complete picture of the country’s history or not, what these have embedded in the Filipino psyche is a sense of being “kawawa” because of always being one-upped by others who seemed more powerful. This sense of being “kawawa” has seeped deep into our consciousness that it always takes a while for us Filipinos to fight for what is rightfully ours, allowing others to bully us or to “one-up” us at every step.

On the flip side, having been constantly one-upped, we have also developed an attitude of wanting to “one-up-the-other”—like a bad joke on paying it forward.

Seen this way, the cases of corruption begin to “make sense”—not because they are inherently sensible, but because it can somehow provide an explanation to the insatiable hunger of the corrupt. Corruption, after all, is a kind of “one-upping-the-other”, and may even be the worst form this negative culture can take. For the corrupt, it does not matter how the lives of others are damaged, often irreparably so, as long as he gets more—money, power, influence, and everything else that sets him up higher than the rest.

Corruption is one-upping at its worst, and it makes the road bullying examples look kinder.

Still, the same kind of taking advantage of others occurs in both cases. On the road, bullies in the bigger cars feel it is their right to cut through lanes and, almost literally, throw their weight around. The smaller cars just have to live with it. Or get a bigger car and eventually be a road bully, which ties into what experts say about one-upmanship being driven by a sense of insecurity.

I am not saying that this is always the case, but the examples on the road prove that it does occur. Surely there are conscientious big car drivers out there, in the same way that not everyone in power or in government posts are corrupt. Nevertheless, the pattern is similar. So many public servants—elected, appointed, or hired as civil servants—started with noble ideas and great ambition for the common good but ended up being eaten by the system of “one-upping-the-other” for fear of being one-upped themselves. Those who do not wish to be consumed by the system either leave it altogether (like some former politicians I know) or they fight it (also like other politicians I know).

Corruption spreads because we allow it, true. But it also spreads because there are others who choose to benefit from it rather than to fight it.

On the road, this same attitude can be seen every time someone with a bigger car cuts through a lane or bullies those in smaller vehicles.