Manna from heaven:

It’s what we’re hoping for?

A family friend strongly feels that what we need is manna from heaven. But what options do we really have to overcome our economic woes? Unfortunately, we seem to have truly narrowed our playing field. Beyond our focus on our OFWs, what is our paradigm?

Our industry has geared their plans to meet the needs of the OFWs and their families: from shopping malls to low- to medium-cost housing and everything in-between. And to maximize their share of this income source, they have engaged in M&A Philippine style, with a strong emphasis on infrastructure development – a critical gap in our productivity efforts. The government is pushing infrastructure development as well but is constrained by our ballooning external debt. And infrastructure projects have become a breeding ground of corruption.

We are encouraging more SMEs (small and medium enterprises), country-side development, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), and have drawn an R&D and investment plan. Yet they’re mostly platitudes – they don’t spell out the incremental GDP they will generate. And presidential wannabes are on the bandwagon. But letting them to be wishy-washy will confine us to la-la land!

What do we hope to achieve? Get GDP growing by 7%? Can we sustain that for 30-50 years? That’s how deep a hole we’re in; yet our economic model is akin to that of a developed country (individual entrepreneurship) where a 3% to 4% growth translates to a big lift for the country and for the people given their high income levels. Entrepreneurship is coming out of our ears – Pinoy homegrown businesses are plentiful! Our inability to be competitive and thus industrialize is the issue – there’s no escaping it!

We’re not alone in our dilemma: underdeveloped countries generally struggle to revisit their assumptions, which the writer saw at close range in Africa and Latin America; while the developed world has a greater capacity to renew itself. A management guru called it tough-mindedness. Or simply, reality!

Unfortunately, our industry is uncompetitive regionally and globally. Our ability to put up 21st century infrastructure is limited. The types of foreign investment we are getting are meant to partake of the OFW-remittance bonanza. Why? Because we don’t have a coherent (joint public-private) plan to focus and prioritize economic activity; and that means prioritizing those that will generate the biggest returns. Global investors have a vast array of options – our economic model must be competitive, thus attractive if we are to draw major foreign investments.

Our challenge is development, not simply growth. And that means focusing on expanding our economic pie or GDP. It means pursuing coherent (a la FDR) planning; and as an intermediate goal, to double domestic output (unlikely!) or raise GDP by $ 100 billion (by raising our competitiveness) to address poverty – as the dynamics of Thailand’s economy demonstrate, i.e., we need that much more GDP to meet the needs of our large population. It will not happen overnight but we have to think big.

We need confidence to think big, and it starts with going back to the drawing board – if we are to renew ourselves. And that’s what the presidential candidates owe the country – what’s on their drawing board?

And we owe it to ourselves to put them through the wringer!