The ultimate failure of imagination is the way Philippine society consumes (rather than capitalises on) what is now its greatest resource – its people. Having all but depleted its forests and commoditised its minerals and farm produce, Philippine society is now turning to burning human capital. Like Romblon marble and our forests of decades past (we thought), Filipino people are potentially an inexhaustible resource. So we are now exporting raw the premium elements of this resource – doctors, engineers, nurses, technicians, computer programmers, and entertainers – without investing in sustaining this resource (through education and healthcare). Like the once magnificent Philippine forests, Filipino humanity is being harvested and exported raw. Even if the supply is being physically replenished by the country’s embarrassingly high birth rate, the product (an entire generation of under-educated and partially-parented Filipino youth) is of significantly inferior quality to the current generation being exported. Public spending on education and healthcare have sharply dropped (or not improved) in the last 50 years, and consumer goods that divert young minds to unproductive endeavours have become widely available and affordable.
Philippine society has been hopelessly incapable of creating domestic business entities with lucrative proprietary rights to the distribution of pure human capital the way entertainment companies and industries like Walt Disney and Bollywood, big-name professional services firms like Accenture, publishing companies like Random House, and content providers like Time-Warner have made billions primarily on the intellect and talents of the people they employ. Even the Philippine Army, despite decades of experience in jungle warfare and counter-terrorism operations, continues to be a net importer of foreign expertise. The value generated by the human capital of advanced societies is purchased worldwide, but their physical assets (the people themselves) are largely based in their respective hometowns, generously contributing to their local economies – and raising their children right. Compare that to Filipino human capital. Filipinos are physically at their customers’ sites, adding value to their employers’ businesses, and remitting earnings to a generation of aimless half-parented youth.
Ironically, most of the funds islands Filipinos receive from their overseas-employed “heroes” are channelled back into the bank accounts of the very same multinational companies that employ their heroes. Three situations account for this tragic state of affairs. Firstly, the capital base of the Philippine economy that supports a large chunk of three of the most basic of human needs – food production and distribution, clothing, and energy – is now funded largely by foreign investment rather than domestic enterprise. Second, desirable consumer goods such as mobile phones, branded clothing and personal accessories, and other electronic equipment – also produced and distributed by multinational companies – have become affordable and readily available to Filipino consumers because of globalisation. Third, and this slightly overlaps with the second, imported products – including food – have all but flooded the Philippine market for non-durable goods. With an abundance of goods and activities beckoning the easy dollars of OFW’s kids and relatives, an ethic of saving – much less investment opportunities – simply cannot compete. Furthermore, funds released into the economy by spending in consumption are raked in primarily by foreign enterprise which do not necessarily channel these funds back into the Philippine economy.
It can be of course argued that advanced societies are just as pre-occupied with showbiz as Filipinos. However, even without these distractions, Filipinos have never had a track record of technological advancement and the innovative application of technology. As seen in the previous section [of benign0's book] on Technology, 60% of the collective intellect of Filipinos seems to be pre-occupied with showbiz, even as the Information Age serves up a vast menu of other things to do – or at the very least talk about – on the Internet.
Indeed the way capital is created and used in a society reflects how imaginative that society is. The nature of the simple relationship between imagination and capitalisation had already been implicitly threshed out in the earlier parts of this chapter [from which this excerpt was taken] using very simple examples. This section described the relationship explicitly. From here we then step back and view the broader implications of our lack of imagination and inability to capitalise wealth from the perspective of our country’s mediocre politics, vacuous approach to governance, and short-sighted regard for national development.
Back in the 1950’s Lee Kuan Yew had the audacity to envision a Great Singapore – great in stature, achievement, and power. This was at a time when Singapore was still a small mosquito-infested backwater province that just recently seceded from the far more powerful Malay Federation. Nevertheless he marshalled his society towards that vision of greatness and the results speak for themselves today. In contrast, Filipinos pride themselves in being a quaint society of people “doing their individual little parts”. The hope is that an agglomeration of the little and the quaint can eventually come together to form the big and the great. This is a hope that is nowhere near being fulfilled.
The audacity to dream and imagine fuels the exploitation of opportunities. It took leaps of imagination to prompt kings and financiers to send ships halfway around the world to discover new lands and treasures, for Einstein to undertake the monumental work involved in formulating his Theory of Relativity, for Steven Jobs to develop a product around the idea that ordinary people can use powerful computers. Ideas borne out of leaps of imagination are powerful motivators for risky behaviour. If Filipinos cannot even imagine a fundamentally different society that will underpin a prosperous future, there can be no inspiration to drive deep systemic change. We have delegated the courage to dream and work at fulfilling these dreams to politics and our politicians. This is a monumental tragedy because Filipinos lack any context to hold to account the politicians they elect to office. This contextual void in Philippine society is reflected in the lack of any thought leadership in any of the mainstream political parties in the Philippines. Political parties in the Philippines do not stand for anything. In Philippine society, political parties are created and dissolved at the drop of a hat and politicians readily hop from one party to another to suit the personal agendas of the powerful. This is a situation that is blatantly obvious but routinely escapes the attention of most Filipinos. Ordinary Filipinos cannot grasp the degree to which democracy has been perverted in the Philippines by such a state of affairs simply because they lack the conceptual tools to comprehend it.
Instead of framing our politics around a clear vision of where we want to see ourselves in five to ten years, we will forever trapped by a complex that is content with merely surviving one crisis at a time and from one term of office to another. Very little imagination is required to do just that.
[Excerpt from the book Get Real Philippines Book I by benign0, 01 Aug 2006]
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Just keeping reading my blog Manong Benigs ;-)
What year you graduated benig0?
“It can be of course argued that advanced societies are just as pre-occupied with showbiz as Filipinos” benigno
Advance economies are not pre-occupied with showbiz. To see a bigger picture of human capital base and productivity, foreign direct investments have bigger impact on local employment. ( ignore the financial bail-out, this is only an example)
BMW , a german company has manufacturing plant in North Carolina USA. Toyota has a manufacturing plant in Kentucky. Honda in Ohio. These companies generate massive employment within the US.
We have the BPO’s. We can attract more FDI if we want to but
“vacuous approach to governance” benigno
that is the main issue of our society today.
^^^And your point is?
Superb article benignO! Galit ka kay Ca_t?
No countries ever become a developed or industrialized country relying simply on OFW or human export (as you said). The key is still production of high valued goods and services. In east asia, Japan, Hongkong, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and China which will soon joining the developed countries didn’t even take into consideration the human export to reach such stage.
OFW or human export, which is a no-brainer policy, seems expedient at the moment. Well, what can you expect from our so-called economic/finance managers who are blue-blooded politicos.
a collection of ideas from other commenters. not original.
At some point, a country’s industrial output should be accounted for by capital-intensive operations rather than labour-intensive. Value created should be design-added more than it is labour-added.
Otherwise that country will simply be working harder and harder for less and less incremental income for every unit of additional effort put in — a one-way ticket to chronic impoverishment which the Pinas is already trapped in.
Even in the business of democracy. Since that big windfall of 1986, there has been a smaller and smaller additional benefit derived from more and more moronic shows of “people power”. That’s because we practice it harder and not smarter (the same way we regard work — harder and not smarter).
“At some point, a country’s industrial output should be accounted for by capital-intensive operations rather than labour-intensive. Value created should be design-added more than it is labour-added.”
You had to spoil your piece with the above ignorant statement. Present technologies (capital goods) are the result of social labor over the centuries.
All still point to the labor factor of production.
When a farmer is able to multiply the productivity of seeds on the same size of land resource to 40-50 times his predecessor that is social labor.
When the number of people in manufacturing produce more goods many times over with the same number of workers or even less that is due to the reality of social labor.
From the time that men started to make tools till the machines of today that are programmed to make
other machines with almost no tolerances for error over a human craftsman.
When you use your cell phones think of the woman Marie Currie. When you think wireless think of Marconi and others.
In the past these people would have been branded as witch doctors and shamans. Barbers used to do duty as surgeons.
You should also stop using words like democracy in the Philippine context. It is more a from of centralized democracy practiced amongst a few.
Idiocy ranks very high amongst that class. They unfortunately have affected the others in some form of idiocy in this country.
The last twenty years of political instability has however shown that the status quo rightly or wrongly can no longer hold. When and if the dam breaks there will be no innocent bystanders.
Gaming the system is what free markets are all about. Governance is about defining the rules and implementing the rules of the game.
However when the government itself is owned and operated by the game-makers for their own interest, most people will at first shun the game and later on will break up the game.
There has to be reckoning….That is what will necessitate a cultural revolution amongst a most reactionary bunch. Once the genie is let loose we can only remain optimistic. That is all we got.
That sentence of yours alone J_AG, highlights the very point I make.
Note the part I emphasise in bold.
over the centuries
That implies that this is accumulated in the form of some form of social or cultural capital that is then employed to enable “a farmer [...] to multiply the productivity of seeds on the same size of land resource to 40-50 times his predecessor”.
The design is there. It may not be conscious or contrived. In contrast with the purposeful way a modern architect or engineer works, the design may have come about from centuries of trial-and-error. But the design is there just the same.