“The Department of Energy has sought the help of technical experts from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to formulate a more ‘responsive and dynamic’ energy mix for the Philippines.
“‘Our main concern now is to increase the availability of quality, reliable, secure and affordable supply. We want to be certain on the decisions that we will make in order to entice more investments,’ Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi said in a statement.” [DOE taps foreign experts to study PH’s energy mix, Amy R. Remo, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 13th Aug 2016]
Bravo! Indeed, it’s about time we call a spade a spade. We need adult supervision. It is not a question of sovereignty. We have a problem with self-government. But we’re not alone.
“Fractured lands,” Scott Anderson, The New York Times Magazine, 14th Aug 2016. “Along with political stasis, in many Arab nations most levers of economic power lay in the hands of small oligarchies or aristocratic families; for everyone else, about the only path to financial security was to wrangle a job within fantastically bloated public-sector bureaucracies, government agencies that were often themselves monuments to nepotism and corruption. While the sheer amount of money pouring into oil-rich, sparsely populated nations like Libya or Kuwait might allow for a degree of economic trickle-down prosperity, this was not the case in more populous but resource-poor nations like Egypt or Syria, where poverty and underemployment were severe and — given the ongoing regional population explosion — ever-worsening problems.
“I was heartened, in the Arab Spring’s early days, by the focus of the people’s wrath. One of the Arab world’s most prominent and debilitating features, I had long felt, was a culture of grievance that was defined less by what people aspired to than by what they opposed. They were anti-Zionist, anti-West, anti-imperialist. For generations, the region’s dictators had been adroit at channeling public frustration toward these external “enemies” and away from their own misrule. But with the Arab Spring, that old playbook suddenly didn’t work anymore. Instead, and for the first time on such a mass scale, the people of the Middle East were directing their rage squarely at the regimes themselves.”
Beyond energy or power, the Philippines needs a fix on infrastructure and industry. Which by now we appreciate are the building blocks of an economy.
“The Japan International Cooperation Agency has offered five proposals as medium-term solutions to decongest roads in the capital region. Jica made the recommendations in a 2014 study, which are often cited as bases for the emergency powers sought to enable President Rodrigo Duterte to address the vehicular traffic crisis in Metro Manila.” [Jica offers solutions to decongest Metro Manila roads,The Standard Business, 8th Jul 2016]
What about industry? Do we still remember the JFC’s Arangkada Philippines? From their latest assessment, we read “To boost foreign investments, it is also important to revise the Foreign Investment Negative List by reducing the list of industries where foreign participation is limited. Seven bills in the Congress that accomplish this should be enacted.”
Does it remind us of Arab Spring? “Along with political stasis, in many Arab nations most levers of economic power lay in the hands of small oligarchies or aristocratic families; for everyone else, about the only path to financial security was to wrangle a job within fantastically bloated public-sector bureaucracies, government agencies that were often themselves monuments to nepotism and corruption.”
Like the referenced Arab nations, we have a problem with self-government? If it isn’t obvious yet, the three critical elements of power, infrastructure and industry have a common denominator, that is, foreign participation if not intervention.
The Duterte administration appears to be moving in the right direction with power and infrastructure? What about industry? Aside from the war on drugs it has also opened the war on oligarchy? But we don’t want to be the Wild, Wild West?
In other words, we don’t want to confirm that ours isn’t the rule of law? Extra-judicial executions are another face of a culture of impunity? As it were, our human development quotient is plenty dire – because of our instincts of parochialism, hierarchy and paternalism? And our values of political patronage, cronyism and oligarchy? But we aren’t living in trees anymore?
If President Ramos could be deputized to talk to the Chinese, what about talking to oligarchy? “Enough is enough”?
Consider: “Most obviously, openness to the global economy pays off. Vietnam is lucky to be sitting on China’s doorstep as companies hunt for low-cost alternatives. But others in South-East Asia, equally well positioned, have done less. Vietnam dramatically simplified its trade rules in the 1990s. Trade now accounts for roughly 150% of GDP, more than any other country at its income level. The government barred officials from forcing foreigners to buy inputs domestically. Contrast that with local-content rules in Indonesia. Foreign firms have flocked to Vietnam and make about two-thirds of Vietnamese exports.” [The other Asian tiger, The Economist, 6th Aug 2016]
It is not about invoking sovereignty. Yet the bottom line is unmistakable. “Foreign firms have flocked to Vietnam and make about two-thirds of Vietnamese exports.”
We think our MSMEs can do it despite their track record? They account for over 99% of enterprises and employ over two-thirds of the labor force yet deliver only a third (or a bit more) of economic output? Simply put, the empirical evidence doesn’t support our assumption.
Didn’t we make a similar assumption before, i.e., that we could leapfrog development via services, e.g., OFW remittances and the BPO industry? As it turned out, it was a manifestation of “pwede na ‘yan”?
As discussed in a recent posting, “Our ability to know our own minds, though, is rarely called into question. It is assumed that your experience of your own consciousness clinches the assertion that you ‘know your own mind’ in a way that no one else can. This is a mistake.
“Ever since Plato, philosophers have, without much argument, shared common sense’s confidence about the nature of its own thoughts. They have argued that we can secure certainty about at least some very important conclusions, not through empirical inquiry, but by introspection: the existence, immateriality (and maybe immortality) of the soul, the awareness of our own free will, meaning and moral value.
“Introspection, ‘the mind’s eye,’ assures us with the greatest confidence that it is the best, in some cases the only authority on how the mind works, because we all think it has direct, first person access to itself. We’re all very confident that we just know what’s going on in our own minds, from the inside, so to speak.
“Yet research in cognitive and behavioral sciences increasingly undermines that confidence . . . What makes many of these results remarkable is their consistent violation of expectations, assumptions and prejudices forced on us by our own conscious awareness.
“In fact, controlled experiments in cognitive science, neuroimaging and social psychology have repeatedly shown how wrong we can be about our real motivations, the justification of firmly held beliefs and the accuracy of our sensory equipment.” [Why You Don’t Know Your Own Mind, Alex Rosenberg, The Stone, The New York Times, 18th Jul 2016]
Are we barking at the wrong tree? “What the Philippines needs is not more jobs but better jobs … The quality of jobs being created was not meeting aspirations of young people entering labor market,’ said Jan Rutkowski, lead economist at the World Bank . . . The scarcity of ‘good jobs’ reflects the structure of the Philippine economy, where low value-added activities predominate. This is partly due to constraints in the investment climate and the high cost of doing business in the formal sector.” [WB cautions vs scrapping contractual work practice, Ben O. de Vera, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 18th Jun 2016]
Because like “in many Arab nations most levers of economic power lay in the hands of small oligarchies or aristocratic families”?
And, of course, the challenge goes back to community and the common good or the absence of it. “In each, little thought was given to national coherence, and even less to tribal or sectarian divisions . . . Those two factors operating in concert – the lack of an intrinsic sense of national identity joined to a form of government that supplanted the traditional organizing principle of society – left Iraq, Syria and Libya especially vulnerable when the storms of change descended.” [Anderson, op. cit.]
That would in some ways explain our Mindanao problem? More to the point, if we can’t embrace community and the common good amongst us Catholics, what more between us and our Muslim brothers and sisters?
It isn’t about sovereignty but adult supervision?
“Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.” [We are ruled by Rizal’s ‘tyrants of tomorrow,’ Editorial, The Manila Times, 29th Dec 2015]
“As a major component for the education and reorientation of our people, mainstream media – their reporters, writers, photographers, columnists and editors – have an obligation to this country . . .” [Era of documented irrelevance: Mainstream media, critics and protesters, Homobono A. Adaza, The Manila Times, 25th Nov 2015]
“Development [is informed by a people’s] worldview, cognitive capacity, values, moral development, self-identity, spirituality, and leadership . . .” [Frederic Laloux, Reinventing organizations, Nelson Parker, 2014]
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