Amidst the flurry of political and economic tsunamis besetting our country,we need to pause and think that what we do will benefit our children or the next generation of Filipinos. I do appreciate the flurry and confluence of ideas and views that somehow influence the readers of the FV articles but we need to do more than that. The questions that confront us is – are we doing our best for our posterity? Some issues that would have far reaching impact on the future of our country and the next generation of Filipinos are as follows:
1. Should we agree on the change in the provisions of our Constitution on national economy and patrimony (Article XII) allowing foreigners to own land and other resources in our country? If we allow, investments will
pour in as mentioned by the government functionaries. But if we allow them, no lands will be left of for the next generation if foreigners (who are awash with cash right now) will buy all the lands in our country.
2. Should we allow the emerging new generations of politicians (children of traditional politicians), who are now much shrewder than their parents, to slowly reign our political atmosphere and poison the minds and hearts of the next generation? There are a few exceptions who are the children of great nationalists.
3. The ballooning deficit between our national budget vis-à-vis the revenues has to be managed sustainably. If not in our lifetime, the next generation will have to carry a huge burden of repaying it only through additional taxes.
4. The only remaining mineral resources has to be managed for the benefit of the next generation. This means that the current dispensation shall not simply grant it to highest bidding foreign mining companies.
5. The trade agreements that our government are entering left and right will certainly restrict any policy space promoting Filipino-owned companies or industry in the future.
6. Lastly, corruption are also infecting not only the corruptor and the corrupted but also their heirs which the next generation has also to confront.
There are many other equally important issues that I have not covered. But I will leave it to other FV well-respected bloggers to tackle.
Contributing Writer: “Jim”
Popularity: 2% [?]
Great post, will ponder Jim.
“if we allow, investments will pour in as mentioned by the government functionaries. But if we allow them, no lands will be left of for the next generation if foreigners (who are awash with cash right now) will buy all the lands in our country.”
do you have facts to support your blog? it sounds like , you’d rather be run like hell by Filipinos rather than run like heaven by foreigners.
“The trade agreements that our government are entering left and right will certainly restrict any policy space promoting Filipino-owned companies or industry in the future.”
Do you have facts again to support your statement from real experts on free trade, its advantages and disadvantages?
The blog present a very negative view on free trade and has not explained the disadvantages of protectionism policy. We have been a protectionist country, supported by political dynasty- The real rapist of this country.
This country is run like hell by filipinos. Investment climate is not very attractive. ChaCha is a positive strategy.
sleek, i think jim is presenting his counterpoints on the things i listed in a preceding article by ding gagelonia, “From Lapdogs to Rapists”, that i think should be re-examined. as gabbyd said, this is the kind of debate we should be having, obviously not only whether gma will be “allowed” to extend her term beyond 2010. these paranoia and fear-mongering promoted by anti cha-cha advocates, wittingly or unwittingly, prevent the education of the masses on the need to change the present constitution and what those changes should be. there are no proposed changes yet on the table because we have yet to form an authoritative body to make those proposals. if these anti cha-cha forces have their way, there would be no proposed changes to debate on.
hopefully, through this exchange of ideas, we can arrive at a consensus as to what such an authoritative body can propose and present to the sovereign people for approval.
While the paramount need is to preserve as much as we can the remaining patrimony of the nation to later generations, we have to strike a balance with the present needs of the present generations where many of our compatriots suffer and wallow in extreme poverty conditions and many more have left the country due to the absence of adequate opportunities for livelihood. I was happy for example to learn that the gold and copper mining in Lutupan, Cebu has resumed with foreign equity participation after having been closed for at least a decade. Once proud home to Atlas Consolidated Mining, the sleepy ghost towns around the mountainous area have come to life again, with ample work opportunities for their residents.
Thus, another area that has to be examined closely and with wisdom should be whether we can afford to be very protectionist not only with regard to our valuable real estate but with regard to our other fragile home industries that are competing with those of the rest of the world.
Not sure if the bloggers here at FV are willing to see both sides of the story. FV is somewhat anti-chacha and may not have the right to call themselves FilipinoVoices. There’s no balance of
discussion.
Many are not willing to move on from the old protectionism even if it is already proven wrong according to many experts of economy.
my question is, are the propoents of cha-cha saying the section 12 be dropped? or only specific provisions?
i’ve never read any of them say specifically what their goals are, which is one of my pet peeves…
@sleek
do you know of any links to studies about how these provisions suppress foreign investment? i can’t seem to find any… ty!
There’s also the cultural bit.
We need to junk large chunks of it that did not serve as well. Just the portions that can be broadly classified into the two attitudes that present the biggest hurdles to progress…
:D pwede na yan
- and -
:D bahala na
Most likely make up 80% of the primitivist cultural baggage we need to shed in order for us to be properly equipped to join the ranks of the advanced world.
The next generation of Pinoys need to see it in this light:
Why continue to be beholden to traditions that made up the character of generations of Pinoys under whose watch the Philippines not only failed to prosper but suffered a slow decline into the degeneracy we see today.
Jared Diamond in his book Collapse – How societies choose to fail or survive caps his thesis with this:
He further observes how even the most powerful societies on Earth all have had to make drastic changes in the values they cherished or thought of as central to their characters — how Japan has since shed its militaristic tradition, how France and Britain have put behind them their former imperialist roles, how the U.S. has progressively removed its traditional of institutionalised racism and sexism, how Australia has gone from a ‘white’ policy to an open and multi-cultural melting pot.
My favourite is Singapore which struggled with ethnic discord but put aside significant personal liberties to fast-track prosperity.
There’s a simple two-word phrase that can be used to encapsulated all of what I describe above, and it is this:
Growing up.
It’s simple, really™ :D
gabbyd,
“so-called restrictive provisions in the constitution, including the proposal to dismantle the 40-percent foreign ownership restriction of public lands. The proposal aims to amend Art. XII, Secs. 2 and 3 which say that the state should fully control public land and natural resources and may enter into production sharing agreements as long as Filipinos own 60 percent of the capital.”
a protectionist policy of our natural resources of which filipinos do not have the right equipment, skills, knowledge, and financing to make productive use of our own natural resources. This country is mentally bankrupt for innovation, partnership and revenue generation to increase local employment.
With that restriction, investment climate is not attractive to foreign investors. This is a fact. Philippines revenue does not rely on who owns who, what, when and where. It’s revenue is derived from taxation of property ownership, individual income tax, corporate income tax, VAT and other sales tax of goods and services.
Philippines can also generate revenue by investing somewhere else, as a foreign investor. Like China, it bought an African Bank, signed agreement with IRAQ to dig Iraqi oil and many more.
Think of our country as being you as a person. With money, where do you think you will invest it to. Are you going to diversify or plainly conservative. Without money but with asset such as land, do you still be conservative and not allowing others to cultivate your land for production. If so, how do you create a contract/provision that all of your relatives will benefit from employment?
I don’t know, I am getting tired of this country. It’s the same old shit.
sleek @ 5:43am, while most of the movers and shakers of FV may be anti cha-cha for whatever reason, i’m inclined to believe the blog itself is open-minded and welcomes any and all ideas subject only to routine legal limitations.
gabbyd @ 6:04am, i don’t think there’s any specific proposal yet, for obvious reason which i have stated. in any event, i would think it would be unwise to drop the entire art. 12. but the arbitrary 60-40 requirement needs to be looked into. this provision, among others i think, encourages influence-peddling and dummy participation (usually of politically well-connected parties). as to ownership of agricultural land, why be protective of filipinos just because they cannot compete? the state retains absolute control of the whole territory regardless of who owns the land. in fact, the state, in case of emergency, can take over any privately-owned property when the interest of the people requires it. so what is there to be afraid of regarding foreign ownership? btw, rockefeller center, among other prime u.s. real estate, was once owned by japan. the oil resources of the middle east, and other oil-producing regions, could not have been developed and made productive without liberal foreign investment policies, notably u.s. capital, technology and equipment.
benigno, since we are on the subject of possible changes to the constitution, for the life of me, i can’t seem to figure out how “puede na yan” and “bahala na” cultural attitudes can be overcome through a constitutional mandate. do you have any suggestions?
Bencard in my usual form, I’d normally dismiss changes to the constitution as a political layer of change that would fail to make any direct impact on the layer of fundamental change within which cultural issues such as our pwede-na-yan and bahala-na mentalities reside.
I wonder though if there are any measures that can be built into the Constitution to facilitate change at that fundamental level — kind of like the way Japan’s latter day anti-militarism is built into its constitution (I think their constitution prohibits deployment of combat troops overseas).
So far DJB has come up with a plausible scenario for the next six months.
Marcos declared martial law which was sanctioned by the 1935 constitution.
GMA can with a compliant Congress voting jointly declare martial law once again.
Even though constitutional safeguards will be in the place, a compliant judiciary will all but make that toothless.
Plus you the the highly evolved military based political aristocracy established by Marcos who are now part and parcel of the political economy.
How can one plan for the long term when the entire political infrastructure is ripe for a takeover within the next six months.
Which group will succeed? All the factions of the plutocracy have their own military components.
Erap, Danding, GMA and the military themselves.
the left are almost completely marginalized.
The Americans are obviously concerned with the lawlessness in the Muslim areas of Mindanao that could spill over. They are now less concerned about the fight amongst the plutocrats and are concentrated in Mindanao.
The next six months may or may not result in changes to the political structure.
It appears that the status quo will not hold. GMA cannot afford it.
“1. Should we agree on the change in the provisions of our Constitution on national economy and patrimony (Article XII) allowing foreigners to own land and other resources in our country? If we allow, investments will
pour in as mentioned by the government functionaries. But if we allow them, no lands will be left of for the next generation if foreigners (who are awash with cash right now) will buy all the lands in our country.”
The neoliberalism that economists like Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and bigwigs at the UP School of Economics deserves a second rethink. That neoliberalism is ENVIRONMENTALLY unsustainable is becoming very apparent especially in this global recession. As usual the pro economic cha cha amendment people are living in the 20th century past. These people are 20-30 years behind.
We need a certain degree of protectionism in order to guarantee the sustainability of our ecosystems. Why? The environment and its resources are finite. Jim’s question is timely.
thanks bencard. we want to know where country will be in the coming years. for one, i read elsewhere in fv that we are heading to dynasty-ruled enchanted kingdoom.
sleek,it isnt that we are mentally bankrupt. some recognized cso’s with participation from various industries and academe has crafted 8 years ago an economic development agenda laying down what are the needed policies towards industrialization. You can find it at websites o fairtradealliance, ibon & junkjpepa.
Among others, it stresses the development of upstream/downstream sectors and value-adding using indigenous resources as raw mats. For example, in mining, why do we have to export iron ore, nickel/chrome ore, copper concentrates and other minerals in raw form? At the same time, we import finished products of copper, steel, stainless steel (nickel), ship plates, etc.? Even GMA didnt know that our country exported more than 3 million metric tons of iron ore to china in 2007 and was surprised when the chinese thanked her for said export (it was actually exported by pseudo small miners without passing thru MGB).
The amusing thing with this letter is that it could have been written in 1969 and the points will STILL be valid.
The only clear answer is: unless Filipinos step up and be the investors *themselves*, ergo, come out of their individual shells and start investing in the country instead of divesting from it, the future generations of Filipinos will still be in the shitpile that our fathers started and we allowed to grow.
The real problem is that Filipinos like “Jim” above loooooove to dish out questions but when the answer involves their own efforts and their own money and their own attitudes all that patriotism goes pfffft.
jl, to reach their enviable current level of economic development, china, singapore, malaysia, thailand and taiwan didnt plan their economic path in the 60s – it was only in the 70′s to 90′s. philippines is ahead of them in the 50s and 60s with several sugar mills already existing by the 1920s yet we were overtaken. thailand is now manufacturing machineries for sugar mills, while we still keep on importing. their sugar industry is far efficient than ours. in other words, we didnt level up. it really requires government support (incentives and policies) and coherent plans to reach such goal. we have IRRI in our shore, yet we import rice from vietnam and thailand. GMA said that our country is not well endowed similar vast agri land as vietnam yet the igorots were able to plant rice in much steep mountain slopes.
there are many filipinos who invested in manufacturing endeavor, but imports are now killing them as somebody learned that there are much money in importing similar products as it requires only connection by lowering tariffs and undevaluation.
Take the case of cement, with tariff of 5% it was recently lowered to zero. cement substantially use local sourced materials (limestone) and most plants has been operating in our country for sometime. we’ll some of our govt technocrats came up with an idea of importing cement from japan which cost P350/bag which is far more expensive than locally produced of P185/bag and worse using our taxes. with this new policy, not only us taxpayers are screwed but also the cement manufacturers and those who depended on it. again, somebody wants to make money.
Jim,
“why do we have to export iron ore, nickel/chrome ore, copper concentrates and other minerals in raw form?”
the filipinos don’t know how. Because if we do , you should not be asking that question.
for blackshama, that’s what zoning is all about and homes can go up ( highrises)instead of subdivision for individual homes. That should preserve plenty of lands and greenery. Hongkong is one example. i think you might be 30 years backward in terms of engineering.
Jim,
I already answered your 50s 60s rhetoric in a previous post of mine:
It is clear what has been going on since then. Filipinos are and remain disinterested in investing in the Philippines. All they have in their minds is “once I get a sufficient amount of money I will migrate to greener pastures abroad!”.
Up until today, that is the mindset of your average Filipino. What hope have you for us to have the tenacity to build our own equipment? The _______(insert “Americans” or “Japanese”, or “Germans” or what not) will do it better!
No, not everyone wants to make money. They just want to make enough money to get out of the country.
That’s *it*.
sleek, there is no steel smelting plant in the country to process ores into semi-finished steel. there was already a plan for that way back in 50s to 60s as part of upstream integration of national steel corp but it didnt materialiaze. in late 90s, nsc was privatized and bought by singapore/malaysians investors and never recovered even under the new indian owners. there is japan owned sinter plant but is output is entirely shipped to japan. that’s why we still keep on importing steel at the same time exporting mineral ores.
“the filipinos don’t know how. Because if we do , you should not be asking that question.” it is not that we dont know how, its the lack of support and policies of the govt. In china and other east asian countries, its their govt that puts up these smelting plants.
i understand Jim. This has something to do with
“run like hell by filipinos rather than run like heaven by foreigners”
jim, sleek,
Funny you invoke the “run like hell by filipinos” quote. You do realize you’re Filipinos too.
Yet again it’s the government’s fault. It always is. And our only job is to call out on the government. Yes. THAT WORKS VERY, VERY WELL, if anyone has noticed.
Wasn’t there a recent poll that showed that majority of the Filipinos residing back home do believe that things will get better?
We’re stuck at just believing.
i agree with blackshama: “We need a certain degree of protectionism in order to guarantee the sustainability of our ecosystems. Why? The environment and its resources are finite. Jim’s question is timely.”
and jim: “it is not that we dont know how, its the lack of support and policies of the govt.” … “Filipinos are and remain disinterested in investing in the Philippines.”.
indeed. rich filipinos (the truly nation-loving ones, specially the ones in congress) could make such a difference. problem is, they’re all part of the establishment and are happy with the status quo that keeps them rich, if not getting richer.
It’s the same with the food industry. The reason the Pinas is not food secure is because of disjointed production streams that result in gaps in the processing stream between raw farm produce and production of higher added-value food and farm products. That is why we are forced to export raw farm produce and import finished food products.
Bad transport insfrastructure is also a hindrance because food products and their raw materials are so low-value that the only way to transport them economically is in large bulk. If you have roads and bridges that cannot support large 10-wheel semi-trailers hauling up to 30 tonnes of bulk grain and a shipping industry that ships in batches of less than 10 tonnes, what you get is a domestic food industry that cannot compete with imported processed and semi-processed food.
what killed or cause the dying of some industries is the unbridled liberalization by our govt. liberalization is not itself an evil as we are now able to buy products which are not locally manufactured like ps3, laptops, flat tvs, etc.
the govt’s lack of vision and direction for our country is obvious. we lack or neglected the basic industries that will catapult our country towards industrialization. national steel corp, which was profitable when govt still owns it was sold so that some can make commissions. Philphos was also neglected, that’s why we are now importing inorganic fertilizer at huge quantities (more than 1.5 million tons per year) and sold at around P1,500/bag (P 700/bag in 2007 then it went up to P2,000/bag this year before the crisis). the P728 million in bolante scam could have been used productively if it was instead infused in philphos as it will benefit the farmers with low cost fertilizer. the raw materials for fertilizer is locally sourced, sulfuric acid, which is a by-product of Pasar’s processing of copper concentrates.
liberalization is not itself an evil as we are now able to buy products which are not locally manufactured like ps3, laptops, flat tvs, etc.
Seriously, jim? PS3, laptops, and flat-screen TVs? These are your examples why liberalization isnt evil?
I agree with blackshama. One of government’s duties everybody agrees with, whether they be socialists or libertarians, is protecting the patrimony from foreign invasion. I would like to extend that to economic invasion and not just military invasion.
those are only examples jeg. its our country’s technocrats in the neda, dti, pids and those higher ups that has embraced full liberalization (asean-china, asean-korea, jpepa,asean-japan).
the truth is that we requested and even argued with govt functionaries in so many fora including senate and house of representatives for them to protect the local industries from unbridled liberalization. at the end of the day and when you left their office, they will still do what they have in mind – full liberalization as dictated by wb and imf.
jim,
So all we could do now is sulk and rant, ain’t it?
jeg, when you allow foreign investors, you are not necessarily letting in “foreign invaders”. you still make, maintain and enforce the law, including the right to seize the foreigner’s assets when they violate and defy their host country’s laws and authority. allowing foreign investments is an exercise of sovereignty, not surrender of it.
btw, jeg, we have to stop babying our people. they must learn to compete with anyone, even in their own country. i think we are being unfair to our own people when we try to cuddle them, insisting on lowering the playing field for foreigners while propping up the natives. the result? natives who have no courage, backbone, interest, and ability to survive on their own. all they develop is their ability to bellyache, whine, complain and blame their government for their miserable lot.
Manong Ben,
Very well said, Manong Ben. Very well said.
If the natives insist on being held to a lower standard, then we may as well check ourselves out of the rest of the global community and develop our own standards of achievement – Mga Istandard ng Pag-unlad ni Lola Basyang.
Yet as people like The Ca_t love to demonstrate, we pride ourselves in acquiring credentials for fields of study developed in the West; fields which, by their very nature make use of globally-accepted metrics and standards. If we are so intent on doing it our own way “by our own standards” then we should develop our own field of pwede na yan economics and teach that in our state universities.
If we remain poor in an open economy, then that just simply makes the reality more obvious — that our society cannot compete in an open economy in our present form, and in the way we as a people are constituted (not in the legal sense) at the very fabric of our collective.
jeg, when you allow foreign investors, you are not necessarily letting in “foreign invaders”. you still make, maintain and enforce the law, including the right to seize the foreigner’s assets when they violate and defy their host country’s laws and authority. allowing foreign investments is an exercise of sovereignty, not surrender of it.
Ugh. That’s so creepy. The government seizing assets, whether foreign or local. Not the point of this thread, but what can I say? It’s a gag reflex. Theyre already doing that through taxation. Anyway, back to the program.
btw, jeg, we have to stop babying our people. they must learn to compete with anyone, even in their own country.
I completely agree. If we want PS3s, laptops, and flat-screen TVs, we have to make them ourselves. We’re babying our people by allowing these things to liberally flow in here. If we want those nice, yellow bell peppers, grow them in our own greenhouses instead of importing them from God knows where. ‘Protecting’ them from imports will either spur the people to make them themselves or do without them. It’s up to the Pinoy businessman. The can be babies and whine, or they can do something about it.
Cry and cry say anything you want. But if filipinos won’t be innovative. I mean innovative in a sense that we can Invent products for manufacturing. Innovative as to create change for good, change that will work. All will be hopeless. We can just wait for the tide to submerge the philippines for good. No innovators means no progress….