Sense of purpose

Sometime ago, the UK wanted to consider a national sense of purpose and made reference to the American ‘pursuit of life, liberty and happiness’. The context: it’s not unusual for a Brit to keep a bed in the UK but work in another EU country and thus may have divided loyalties. And from across the pond President George H.W. Bush comes to mind – and his beef against ‘the vision thing’, and why he stumbled with his ‘read my lips, no new taxes’?

In the case of the Philippines, could our sense of purpose be ‘all over the board ‘especially given our ‘kuro-kuro’ culture? But with hierarchy we have no qualms? Thus, it is no surprise that leading the pack in the government’s infrastructure program are our conglomerates. Are they committed and able to drive and elevate our competitiveness or are they out to boost their portfolio – not characterized by best practice or what they know but whom they know? There are hurdle questions we must ask and answer if there is clarity in our purpose and values? We take it as gospel truth that our conglomerates can succeed in any business; but as a country we accept that we’re preordained to fail in manufacturing, for example? How can a conglomerate’s capacity be greater than the country’s? (Do we need more Fr. Bernas to clarify our value system – for one, our faith respects pluralistic societies?)

It appears within the administration that there is a lack of clarity which industries we would provide incentives to and why and how? Intel, for example, is building its largest and most efficient semiconductor fabrication facility in China because of aggressive Chinese incentives. The writer had experienced this first hand many years ago while representing an MNC. We keep thumping our breast over the $20 billion OFW remittances and the taxes we could collect via our current economic model? Yet our GDP shortfall if we are to raise our standard of living is north of $100 billion, a magnitude we have yet to internalize? Put simply, we have a structural problem – and are a disaster waiting to happen unless we become stout-hearted men and women?

We want to be a developed country . . . And to get there we need enormous capital that will buy us strategic investments in strategic industries, technology, innovation, products, talent and market. We need a simple ‘purpose’ so that we can craft a crystal clear value system – that will give us the strength of character to doggedly forge on? Sadly, politics, vested interests and a lack of sense of urgency can conspire to undermine resolve? And given our soft heart, we keep tolerating them and thus are unwittingly creating a monster: how do we develop a bias for efficiency, productivity and ultimately a competitive nature? Failure means relegating ourselves to a mere exotic South Pacific island chain – i.e., life imitating art like The Flintstones?

What could be our (economic) value system? We value capital, not cronies – and matching if not outdoing the Chinas of the world in incentives; we value strategic industries, not favors to friends; we value technology, not fielding our OFWs effectively as ‘muchachos’; we value innovative products, not low-value commodities; we value talent, not relations; we value markets – the bigger the better, not simply to corner the local market.

The thought process to develop a sense of purpose and value system could be the outcome of education – e.g., ‘The value of education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think’ (Einstein). But it doesn’t have to hold us hostage until we develop the equivalent of a Stanford or a Yale or a Harvard? Industry should provide education and training to its employees? We should partner with world-class universities to put their stakes in the country? We should upgrade our educational system – but that will not happen overnight? And so let’s not be frozen in time? But in truth we want to restrict foreign influence in education for Juan de la Cruz; while we send our kids to be educated overseas – reinforcing hierarchy? And we extend the restriction to foreign investors; while we profess dislike for oligarchy? The writer’s Jesuit friend (deceased) would call that ‘plastic’, i.e., are we for real?

Oh . . . we don’t need to read the negative in the American ‘pursuit of life, liberty and happiness’ – because we’re the chosen people? Like the UK, we need to establish our own ‘purpose’ – and others would cheer us on, not read the negative?