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The “shocking” news that the Philippines is actually one of the worst countries in Asia to do business in continues to reverberate among the chattering classes. Yes, personally I’m still getting over the “shock” of such a revelation. It made me re-think investing my personal fortune in a country where the only thing that...
So we want more foreign investment, do we? Stop to think. How much of it have we already received? Look around and take stock of what exactly it is about “the Philippines” that is of any consequence to anyone that is indigenous in origin. Indeed, the Philippines is one big foreign investment. Much if...
The grand-daddy of our culture-as-root-cause thesis, the late great Teddy Benigno, in his classic 2002 Star article Why investors avoid us: The trust factor highlighted what, at the time, was a very conservative forecast regarding China’s fortunes made in a Nomura Research Institute (NRI) study that foresaw a China that could “burgeon into the...
I am undoubtedly seen as a determined critic of the administration of Philippine President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. But that is only because the man generally personifies much of the underbelly of the Filipino psyche that I’ve made it a personal online career to highlight over the last several years. In short his character...
Seeing foreign direct investment, cash handouts, and subsidies as the silver bullet that will cure chronic Filipino poverty? Think again. Lots of lessons are to be learned in what former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad said in a speech at the Harvard Club of Malaysia dinner on 29 July 2002 about how the presence...
In my 2006 book Get Real Philippines Book 1, one of the key solutions I cited to the challenge of effecting fundamental change in the path we have (rather consciously) set for ourselves to chronic impoverishment is to re-evaluate the content of our mass media. I highlighted that it is an easy solution, because...
I cannot say in absolute terms that I am a strong advocate of the proposed Reproductive Health bill (RH Bill). In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to introduce such legislation. But we do not live in a perfect world and if one’s intention is to seek flaws in the proposed bill, one will...
Entire generations have been indoctrinated in the concepts of hooking up to the bigger global market rather than maintaining local self-sufficiency. Even the United States with its decades-long wanton “outsourcing” binge ultimately shot itself in the foot. It created manufacturing powerhouses like China that are now racking up surplus upon surplus while globo-”sourcer”, the...
Everytime I hear this and that initiative to “attract” foreign investment to the country and then see these touted as “solutions” aimed at uplifting Filipinos from the clutches of poverty and the setting of our economy on a “firm” path to prosperity, I find my eyes rolling up to the high heavens as if...
I read somewhere that people with high I.Q.’s tend to stay up late and get up later in the mornings. That article explained why: “…intelligent people are infamous for burning the midnight oil to cram for tests, write papers, touch up those earnings reports, etc.” and “…it’s primarily the smarties who prefer to habitually...
