I am Juan de la Cruz.

People repeatedly asked why I could speak to Juan de la Cruz. I am Juan de la Cruz. I was born and raised in the Philippines and spent the first 20 years of my career there.

Then think of the blog’s GPS model in response to the challenge of reinventing ourselves.

Where are we; Where do we want to be; How do we get there?

That looks pretty simple, yet too thorny to address.

If we look in the mirror, do we see that our neighbors turned us into the region’s “basket case” and the perennial laggard?

But why? Let’s start with the hypothesis that we mismanaged the Philippine economy – and nation.

The evidence? Why aren’t we a powerhouse in agribusiness and manufacturing when we have an entire and half a century, respectively, under our belt?

Then look at how UP and Ateneo, two of our top schools, have been left behind by their counterparts in the region.

And it cascades down: “Only 10 percent of students in the Philippines met the minimum reading standard, and 17 percent met the minimum mathematical standard expected at the end of primary education, and more than 80 percent of children do not know what they should know in school.”

In the private sector, which is a no-brainer, heads roll when managers mismanage big time. What is unforgivable by private sector standards is how long we put up with the mismanagement.

Let’s hold it right there.

Time is gold. Whatever happened to the “present value” concept? Why does the blog keep speaking to Pareto? Pareto — where the vital few drives the most significant returns — is the key to accelerating returns inherent in the present value exercise. And that is because of the compounding effect, as Buffett would pontificate. Look at how far advanced Singapore is.

I purposely inserted the above paragraph for the eyes of our economic managers — i.e., it quantifies the value of the “common good” and the folly of the “crab mentality.” And the cynical way to put it is that in the name of paternalism, we applaud “devolution” and unwittingly consign Juan de la Cruz to the “bottom of the pyramid” — and conquer him as did Machiavelli. 

Question: Have political patronage and oligarchy blocked FDIs?

In fairness, we people-powered Marcos. But we can’t sit idly by time and again.

Why is the “GPS” a tough challenge? Because we are not prepared to look in the mirror. And that explains why we indulge in “Fire, Aim, Ready” instead of “Ready, Aim, Fire.”

Don’t we encounter new ideas daily for Juan de la Cruz to overcome poverty? Where is Maharlika as we speak? Yet, our challenges are decades old, if not centuries old. We keep firing indiscriminately because we can't look in the mirror and acknowledge where we are.

We have been running amok like a headless chicken for the longest time.

I had to look in the mirror when I started the blog and acknowledge that I was a party to the mismanagement of the Philippines – because I am Juan de la Cruz.

Recall how the blog characterizes democracy. It is the mirror image of Christianity, i.e., the imperative of personal responsibility to pursue the common good – which equates to “love of neighbor.”

In other words, being Juan de la Cruz, I am not surprised that we mismanaged this economy – and nation. We have been running away from “personal responsibility.”

How? When we (a) accept incompetence at one end and submit to impunity at the other and (b) expect, if not seek paternalism and fall into the crab mentality.

And the vicious circle continues; it perpetuates short-sightedness to the detriment of the virtuous cycle.

Ergo: We wasted decades, if not centuries, to let this nation rot — because the commitment to personal responsibility to pursue the common good deserted us.

Given that we are higher in the hierarchy – as the Philippine elite and chattering classes – the onus is on us to demonstrate that we can look in the mirror.

We have been patting ourselves on the back all this time. It’s called bunker mentality, courtesy of the rigid walls of our caste system. And that explains why our neighbors turned us into the region’s “basket case” and the perennial laggard.

We say it repeatedly but would conveniently forget that we are taking credit away from Juan de la Cruz. It is his remittances and BPO revenues that drive this economy.

And our economic managers can only speak to “enablers” because the “drivers” are Juan de la Cruz and Juan de la Cruz.

What to do? Our economic managers must learn from our neighbors. Beg for foreign money and technology. But we can’t even imagine how, because we take it for granted, we’ve done a great job c/o the BOI and TRAIN and whatever acronyms we like to throw around.

That is why we can’t even establish “Where we are.” And running amok like a headless chicken.

That is the root of our mismanagement of the economy — and nation.

Let’s hold it right there.

The blog shared the partnership Samsung and Vietnam struck. And Vietnam has no Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, so Samsung had to commit to a few infrastructure efforts to create the requisite ecosystem to produce their smartphones. And because the Vietnam factory worker needed the skillset for the chore, the partnership called for joint investment in training.

Why does the blog keep beating the Samsung Vietnam partnership black and blue? Because the export revenues they generate match the aggregate OFW remittances and BPO revenues but with a more significant multiplier effect on the Vietnam economy because of the subindustries it created.

Translation: Aggressive exports explain how Vietnam and the Asian Tigers overcame poverty. It was not the war on poverty as in our 4Ps. That’s why the Ang initiative of generating $200 billion in exports must be the avenue our economic managers must be salivating about, not academic hypotheses such as TRAIN or “sustainable consumption.”

And that translates, in layperson’s terms, the elements of cognitive development: Beyond binary thinking, there is multiplicity and relativism — the imperative of context.

And today, for us to beat Vietnam, say, to lure TMCC, we must think better than Vietnam and more like the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone. We don’t have to go all the way, but we must know the best practice model to work toward replicating it.

Why does the blog raise the imperative to bridge the academic world and the “real world”? The Vietnamese and the Chinese know the distinctions.

It’s encouraging that the BOI and MAP are working with Ciel Habito focused on driving exports.

What is the hypothesis? What are the big tickets items like TMCC that we must dissect to the nth degree; and then aggressively drive efforts to deliver against them? That’s called the “vital few,” aka Pareto, instead of the “trivial many.”

And the PEZA plan represents the latter, i.e., to launch 1-3 ecozones in 2023 and achieve a 10% investment growth.

We need “quick hits” to gain the experience and confidence to (a) manage change, (b) Juan de la Cruz, and (c) overcome mismanagement. 

The varied personal experiences narrated by the blog at (a) my former Fortune 500 company and (b) those with my Eastern European friends are “real world” stories of “quick hits.”

One more time with feeling. Did we mismanage this economy – and nation — or what?

I was born and raised in the Philippines and spent the first 20 years of my career there. I was a party to the mismanagement of the Philippines.

Where are we; Where do we want to be; How do we get there?

That looks pretty simple, yet too thorny to address.

We can’t look in the mirror; how could we ever establish “Where we are”?

Gising bayan!