Our “señorito-muchacho culture”

. . . We think one BIG . . . and the other small?

OFWs labor long and hard in foreign lands while away from family – and so we could not thank them enough. On the other hand, we applaud monopolists. Both are fundamental givens in our life and the lifeblood of our economy – but we pigeon-hole them accordingly, BIG and small?

And so we take it for granted that OFWs are not happy campers? Who cares if millions of OFWs are the ones toiling to keep our economy afloat – and our system in some sense (or senseless?) of equilibrium that benefits industry and the rest of us? (It does not bother us if our maids work 24/7 or close to that? “Of course we give them time-offs!” It’s always interesting to listen to our señoras make “tsismis” about their favorite “mayordoma” and driver.)

We need industry to become global competitors to expand our economy and lift ourselves up – especially the 27-30 million hungry Filipinos. But global competition is risky and isolation becomes the prudent option – which unfortunately is anathema to economic expansion and development because it does not develop our competitiveness as a nation. (And its fury can be greater than “Ondoy’s”?)

But since we’re signatories to international agreements we had to allow foreigners to participate in our economy. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to think through how we could turn their presence to our advantage? For instance, China, from the first day they allowed foreign investors in, made it clear that any investment initiatives in their country must be geared to make them a global player, not simply a market for the investor’s products or services.

From the very beginning, we did not think big because we always thought we were small and that foreigners were big? We believe that global competition is risky because we are small? And we did not believe we could think BIG? (The MAP should be applauded for its efforts on corporate social responsibility. But if the writer could offer his two-cents, he would encourage MAP to think even bigger by looking beyond the Philippines and challenge their respective business models – so their income stream is not largely OFW-dependent. The biggest help to alleviate poverty will come from efforts to step up economic development: Think as a global player. Invest in product development, R&D and marketing. And generate far greater economic benefit. The Philippines is still a low-cost location like Eastern Europe, where his client is based. They developed a simple day-to-day product, sharply differentiated versus competition, which retails for 40 euro cents in the East but 90 cents in the West. The price differential generates incremental margin, funding bigger R&D, marketing and logistics and, of course, profit.)

The biblical lesson of David does not seem to have traction in our psyche? We have to start to be like David and more fundamentally, start to think BIG?

But we have to start at home and not pigeon-hole anyone as either BIG or small – or we carry that bias beyond, at our peril? And more directly, we have to stop thinking OFWs as small and expect them to toil for us? And the more we do the more we ourselves think small when confronted by forces extraneous to us, like foreign or global competition?

That’s the long and the short of: (a) our hierarchical culture; (b) what one educator calls our split-level Christianity and (c) the gut of our economic malaise?