Romanticists . . . we are?

(We are intellectual yet instinctively express emotions, imagination and creativity?)

Romanticist – it is probably an attribute we share with Eastern Europeans. The traits the writer encountered during his early visits made him reflect on the core of the Filipino: They could spend hours in a café or bar dissecting problems but not coming near any resolutions; and openly proclaim their romanticism – yet the writer has never worked with all these mathematicians around him, and it is fun to get them run number scenarios; and their help desk is second to none that Bill Gates marvels at them – and put money where his mouth is.

Reading news articles and commentaries from the Philippines online would give those outside looking in a sense of who we are. And this was brought to life by a columnist writing about what he read (on a flight to Amsterdam) in a foreign newspaper: “. . . Amid the blow-by-blow coverage (of a sex scandal) by television, radio and Internet news websites, one could have been forgiven for thinking that nothing of any significance was going on elsewhere. Even politicians who did manage to tear themselves away from the show seemed more interested in trading barbs about the implications of a recent merger of the country’s two biggest political parties ahead of the 2010 presidential elections. Nobody seemed interested in the economy. This was despite the announcement that gross domestic product (GDP) had risen a mere 0.4 percent year-on-year, the slowest in a decade, and much lower that most economists had expected . . .”

We are intellectual yet instinctively express emotions, imagination and creativity? In another article, the following appeared: “. . . globalization, or the liberalization of the country’s key economic segments, is one of the likely effects that may explain the increase in poverty incidence studied by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) . . .“ In fairness, the article also pointed at our low investment in infrastructure.

The basis of the article may have its merits . . . but what it misses is: cutting to the chase – our GDP per capita and consequently our poverty rate, i.e., cause and effect. Our GDP per person is less than 40% of Thailand’s and less than 22% of Malaysia’s. Ergo: our poverty rate (30%) is 3 X and 6 X that of Thailand’s (10%) and Malaysia’s (5%).

The issue of globalization vis-à-vis poverty can be raised by Americans given that their GDP per person is $47,000 while their poverty rate is 12%, worse than both Thailand and Malaysia. Yet their GDPs (per person) are a mere fraction of the US’s.

We are a third world (GDP) country and should expect third world poverty rate – palliatives will not sustain cure; nor can we window-dress or tweak. Let us bring our GDP up first like what Thailand and Malaysia have done, and we can leave the US with their own issue – horses for courses; and they’re big boys and girls? Let us focus on our economy and tamp down on politics – and we’d have a better chance of getting there?

And here we go again: talking about debt default – on the one hand we want to inculcate personal responsibility as an antidote to corruption, yet some are espousing the exact opposite? Argentina has been through this route many times over and they’re still at the bottom of the barrel – debt default is no panacea. They were fortunate during the global expansion that despite themselves – or their economic mismanagement – they still partook of the spoils.

Where we could employ our romanticism is in creative idea generation as it applies to product development – which is what the Bulgarian company the writer had written about has done. But because “good enough is never good enough”, the writer’s challenge to them remains: keep sharpening product-idea definition for the outcome to be gem-like, the key to ideas that travel. (To them socialism is history if not a bad dream, not an ideal – they cherish motivation instead.) See: Ideas that travel