The above title came after the writer read two articles very recently, only to find out it is a repeat from two years ago.
The first piece goes, “Neda’s AmBisyon Natin 2040 needs to be subjected to review. Stakeholders from the government, civil society and the private sector must give their objective assessment on whether the first three years of the Duterte administration has brought us closer to the vision of ‘Filipinos enjoying a strongly rooted, comfortable and secure life.’
“Is the government walking its talk and getting the needed support by way of appropriate implementing laws by our legislators? Or are our legislators just talking the talk?” [AmBisyon Natin 2040, Atty. Lorna Patajo-Kapunan, LEGALLY SPEAKING, BusinessMirror, 10th Jun 2019]
Here’s the other: “All the mandates of the Sagip Saka Act, including the grand promise to help farmers put up farming-related enterprises, are covered by agri-related laws. The law is superfluous and redundant.
“The Sagip Saka Act will be massively underfunded like all previous laws on farm sector amelioration. It is a compilation of big words and bigger promises, with no translation into reality.
“The truth is harsh, but it is the truth. Farm amelioration policies in our sad country has yet to be blemished by success. And all those grand initiatives for agriculture are now interred in a massive graveyard of failed amelioration programs.” [A massive graveyard of failed farm policies, MARLEN V. RONQUILLO, The Manila Times, 12th Jun 2019]
Aren’t we better than this? “Today, many of the nationalistic objections to foreign direct investments have essentially been smashed.
“Yet, the Constitutional economic restrictions on foreign capital are still very much written in a strict legal framework. There is almost a consensual agreement within the political leadership to clarify as much as possible to enable a more liberal definition of what is meant by these restrictions.
“Hence, the remedies being sought are clarificatory legislation that help to define and broaden the scope for foreign direct investments.” [Attracting foreign direct investments: 2019 vs 1970s, Gerardo P. Sicat, CROSSROADS TOWARD PHILIPPINE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROGRESS, The Philippine Star, 6th Mar 2019]
Those familiar with the blog know the writer guides and mentors a local enterprise in Eastern Europe that started as a cottage industry. Today they are giving Western behemoths a run for their money, including in the innovation space.
How do they do it? Beyond a specific knowledge that we may know is the challenge to (a) internalize and (b) turn it into a skill or habit. For example, through practice, they strive to be at ease to think outside-the-box. Consider the analogy, lifted from the story of creation, "There are six ways to Sunday."
Whenever they brainstorm – e.g., define and solve a problem, including product development and innovation – they will accept the first supposedly bright idea on the table as the Monday version; and then challenge themselves until they to get to the Saturday version.
Neuroscience says the chamber of the brain responsible for lateral thinking is not as developed as the one that does linear thinking. Like a muscle, it needs to be toned. In the good old days, we called it "lack of imagination." Which people find offensive, but it didn't deter the writer's high school class from voting him least likely to succeed.
Thanks to advances in the sciences, there are now ways to overcome what for the longest time people assumed as insurmountable.
What’s the point? “[The] private sector [can manage] capital assets they acquire and make them produce a good return for them as a result.
“Much of economic development is an accumulation of improving ways of doing things. Dramatic improvements in the development process often result when we learn how to plan and execute properly.
“Another way of describing development is that it is a process of rising per capita output and income characterized by spreading and improving economic welfare for a country’s citizens and residents. It is, one could say, a quiet revolution in the way a nation’s institutions and practices transform and evolve over time for the good, to serve the people and to empower them to do better.” [Sicat, op. cit.]
We Pinoys are getting better but note the following qualification, “Dramatic improvements in the development process often result when we learn how to plan and execute properly.”
Plan and execute properly. It is where the rubber meets the road. Moreover, in this era, the outcome is measured by the metrics of innovation and global competitiveness. Where do we stand in the World Competitiveness Ranking 2019?
While we rose four places from last year, we are still way down, at no. 46, with Singapore and Hong Kong on top at 1 and 2, ahead of the US, no. 3. China = 14; Taiwan = 16; Malaysia = 22; Thailand = 25; Indonesia = 32.
The bottom line: We remain the regional laggard, that our economy is not competitive against our neighbors, despite the private sector’s better performance than the public sector.
So, we must learn how to plan and execute properly. Practice makes perfect. Recall “inertia” – “The tendency of a body at rest to remain at restor of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force; the resistance of a body to changes inmomentum.” [The Free Dictionary]
It explains the bureaucracy in the public sector. On the other hand, the private sector can deliver excellent results because of the profit motive, expressed via the reward system as well as the pressure to win – beyond survive – over the competition.
It also explains why it takes us an inordinate time to (a) get the enablers of development, e.g., infrastructure, ramped up despite Build, Build, Build and (b) as well as make the drivers, e.g., Arangkada, a reality.
Recalling the distinction between drivers and enablers helps us (a) sift through the difference between analytics and big data, and (b) the vital few from the trivial many or Pareto, also (c) hold our breath before we succumb to the crab mentality, and (d) be top not bottom of the heap.
Practice makes perfect. We cannot go from a consumption economy to an industrial economy overnight. It takes a Porsche or Ferrari to go from 0-60 mi. (or 100 km.) in less than 3 seconds.
In other words, while we are working on 42 industry road maps, we better recognize the imperative of discipline in execution and prioritize the one or two industries that we must rapidly pursue because they will give us the biggest bang for the buck sooner than later.
Likewise, we will learn from experience or practice, especially from our mistakes.
How do we get the motivation to move forward as a nation? Not if rationalize our pathetic standing in the region nor prescribe the same cures. We know what Einstein calls it.
For example, Lacson was considered an action-man and why we kept him Manila mayor for as long as we can. Enrile advertised himself as "Aksyon agad, Enrile." Marcos was the "New Society," and today we have another action-man in Duterte?
We need leadership, beyond "Aksyon agad"! We take it for granted that we are schooled in leadership, forgetting Rizal's admonition: Our hierarchical-paternalistic instincts undermine leadership and bring about leader-dependency and tyranny. Also, it can happen even in the supposed model of liberal democracy as Trump now confronts the world.
The Great Recession of 2008-2009 turned middle-class middle America (but not only given its impact on the rest of the world while the financial community got off scot-free despite undermining the gains post the cold war) leader-dependent too mirroring Juan de la Cruz.
They are in the minority, but Trump’s celebrity status courtesy of the reality TV genre gives him the cover of infallibility, even better than the Vatican where there are now “two popes.” Consider: “To too many people he’s not a human being, he’s a demigod.” [Conservative radio host has doubts about Trump. His audience doesn’t want to hear it,” Jeremy W. Peters, The New York Times, 18th Jun 2019]
Conversely, the majority still adheres to personal responsibility – recall the banishment of Adam and Eve from Eden that they had to fend for themselves – that feeds dynamism and the animal spirits. Unsurprisingly, despite the polarization of America, a recent study reported by USA Today reveals that most Americans foresee that their country will continue to lead in technology and innovation.
They point to America's pioneering and successful efforts in the medical field and today's longer lifespan compared to just a few generations ago, including the magic of modern medicine and its many facets.
In the meantime, as the blog has pointed out, Philippine inexperience in development keeps us tied down to the lowest rung of progress in the region. Our being "sabog" is not helping any. Because cause-and-effect has not disappeared from reality, i.e., recall the laws of physics. From as far back as we can remember, we always assumed poverty is what we must address.
So, we trumpeted the windfall from OFW remittances and created an alternative reality, that now makes us wonder why we don’t have an inclusive economy. Why? Our economy cannot generate jobs in the right quantity and quality owing to our underdevelopment.
Now we even want to add a living wage and public housing to this economy that can’t generate jobs for over 10 million Filipinos that they have to be OFWs, and whose poverty rate equals the total population of an Australia?
Let’s pause and figure out: Underdevelopment is or is not equals poverty? Because underdevelopment is our destiny? Which is why the blog has repeatedly discussed the imperative of dynamism and foresight.
We know about visionaries and what visions are but don't think them because every challenge we face is a fire we must fight, e.g., water, electricity, metro traffic, poor agriculture productivity, among others.
Inexperience informs our perceptive judgment, and our reactive posture and why to be proactive is alien to us. Still, we can develop foresight, but we must move beyond "kuro-kuro." It represents "Inside-the-box" Thinking and reinforces parochialism and the crab mentality and why we can’t prioritize. Worse, we can’t imagine ourselves capable of moving beyond a consumption economy to an industrial economy.
While "Outside-the-box" Thinking can come from this simple definition of leadership: "To take the people from where they are to where they have never been before." We are today one of the longest "underdeveloped nations." So, we need to break ourselves free from the confines of the box, holding our mindset hostage. See above re there are six ways to Sunday.
In other words, the war on drugs is not what a vision is. Moreover, an action-man will not suffice to turn us from “underdeveloped” to “developed.” Ranting and raving against the UN investigation of the war on drugs is a great distraction. It confirms how “sabog” we are.
Are we coming or going? We seem to forget that extreme nationalism is what fascism is. On the other hand, if we were watching television, we would have seen that Poland – among other former Soviet satellite states hosting the US military – and the US are in bed.
Why do we keep to the same paradigm? [See above re be at ease to think outside-the-box.] Consider: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism, rely on political patronage and oligarchy, that at the end of the day, ours is a culture of impunity.
Let’s get back to Arangkada. Is it the beef behind Neda’s AmBisyon Natin 2040 to generate the level of national incomes we need to meet our ambition, i.e., appreciably raise FDI, exports, and employment? If it is, and the vehicle is the 42 industry road maps, we better prioritize, get cracking, and rapidly pursue the one or two industries that will give us the biggest bang for the buck sooner than later.
More is not better.
Can we walk the talk and demonstrate that indeed we have become better in our pursuit of community and the common good?
Cambodia is in our rear-view mirror, not unlike Vietnam not too long ago.
“Gising Bayan!”
“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]
“Now I know why Paul dared to speak of ‘the curse of the law’ (Galatians 3:13). Law reigns and discernment is unnecessary, which means there is little growth or change in such people. When you do not grow, you remain an infant.” [Faith and Science, Open to Change, Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, 23rd Oct 2017]
“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]
“National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its currency’s value, as classical economics insists . . . A nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade.” [The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review, March–April 1990]
“You have to have a dream, whether big or small. Then plan, focus, work hard and be very determined to achieve your goals.” [Henry Sy Sr., Chairman Emeritus and Founder, SM Group (1924 - 2019)]
“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” [William Pollard, 1911-1989, physicist-priest, Manhattan Project]
“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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