Are the WB and ADB ganging up on us?

(It’s not surprising if some of us think so!)

But it appears the WB is telling us that we can cut the 175 years the ADB said that it would take for us to attain developed-country status. Instead of 5-6 generations, we can do it in one generation if we’re able to sustain growth of 7% over the next 33 years. But that is assuming today’s prices, exchange rates and if the rest of the world stood still?

Then the WB is probably motivating us? The writer, an indifferent student, recalls that his high school senior class, in jest, voted him least likely to succeed. He can’t help but feel the same way reading the prognoses of these international institutions. The writer knows what it’s like to have a chip on his shoulder. Do we have a chip on our shoulder?

But then the writer remembers that he had to develop a competitive and can-do attitude. And he shares this learning experience with his protégés, including a couple of PhD candidates – because in business failure is not an option.

A bunch of kids, younger than the writer’s daughter, begged the writer to take a break while they were doing store checks in the center of Skopje in Macedonia. It was past noon, it was summer and hot and humid. And the one who was with the writer in Sofia, Bucharest and Kiev told the group that the writer’s age had been frozen at 17! And so he had to explain that at this level of competition – going head-to-head with global behemoths – they had to be two-steps ahead in every facet of the business. And thereafter they created what is now known within the organization as “The rule of 2”.

(Athletes know this and why the writer had talked about the competitive spirit of Ateneo and La Salle and thus their games are always SROs! We also read it often, Tatang Sy, wheelchair and all, with daughter Tessie, is still doing merchandising after hours.)

Here is a group of people whose perspective of life is unlike that in the West – because of their country’s history, words like future, much less, bright future or positive outcomes are taken as unreal. Their country is less confident than they themselves are, although their GDP per person is already 4 X ours. And the writer keeps talking to them about their bright future.

Comparing the world the writer saw despite his humble beginnings in an inner-city district in Manila, and the world these people grew up in, there is no doubt we have more to be thankful for. But surprisingly, as a nation, we have allowed ourselves to keep sliding down – because we have a chip on our shoulder? Competitiveness is a philosophy and comes from within, not from without like satisfying a global checklist!

More exotic countries are leaving us in the dust. And it has nothing to do with ideology or history like we always slip in when making our arguments – to justify our failings? Ideology is a cop-out – which this group of ex-socialists folks has learned. What they are creating instead is their own future – not blaming their 500+ years of Ottoman rule and 45+ years of Soviet domination. Why are we blaming everyone and his uncle? That’s not what we learned from the Sacrament of Penance?

We have to snap out of all the irrelevant clutter in our psyche? Whose image and likeliness do we have? Why do we keep underselling ourselves – invoking “Pinoy kasi”? Who are we – Christian or Filipino first? It is immoral and unpatriotic if those of us blessed with more than we need close our eyes to 30 million hungry Filipinos – perpetuating an economic model that serves us but not them, content with throwing crumbs? But the Titanic was a great equalizer!