To accelerate progress we
must keep adding fuel to the fire. President Aquino’s personal
fight against corruption is beginning to pay dividends – with
foreign investors manifesting keenness to bet on the Philippines. The
other good news is that the administration seems to have gotten the
PPP (Public-Private Partnership) initiative off the ground; and is
poised to get more projects in the pipeline and keep the momentum
going.
Indeed the administration
deserves praise! But the key is for us to keep the fire burning; and
that means we ought to stop: (a) what President Ramos calls “crab
mentality” and (b) the “us versus them” game. The enemy is the
hole that we’ve dug ourselves in such that we can’t lift our
economy up to developed nation status, not in this generation – and
which means the task is truly gigantic, bigger than all of our egos
put together. In plainer English it’s “nation building.” And we
owe it to future generations to hand over a robust economy, not one
that will brand them “laggards” – and objects of charity. Isn’t
trampling the nation’s pride for half a century long enough?
Our cacique system
remains very much in place. And it is a reflection of how we’ve
allowed the past to keep us hostage – and which is not what being
true to our culture means? (This is the 21st century where the
culture of innovation rules.) And unsurprisingly vested interests are
behind every major infrastructure project and strategic industry that
we must put on stream. And their loudspeakers keep the volume loud
and even louder, so in the end their patrons win – the country be
damned? The mindset is not easy to change. Until President Aquino
showed steely resolve we assumed that corruption at the top is a
given?
The administration for
its part must get the energy game plan out in the open to ensure
transparency – with only the common good as the yardstick. People
around the world pay for higher prices, for example, but they must be
convinced that the plan is workable. And that is probably a potential
flash point – i.e., when was the last time Juan de la Cruz was
convinced that a plan was workable? But it is the kind of heavy
lifting that leadership must do. We have been unwittingly
sidestepping our challenges and putting Juan de la Cruz at the mercy
of fate – “que sera, sera.”
Then there are the
strategic industries that we must erect and their supporting or
intermediate industry clusters in order to create a viable ecosystem.
And if we are to learn from Deng Xiaoping, the key elements are: (a)
foreign investment and (b) technology – the dynamic of which we
must be able to optimize if we are to become an innovation culture.
Until we develop the bias for value-creation (e.g., product
development), we would proudly indulge in influence peddling (i.e.,
political patronage) or third-party contracting (e.g., OFWs,
garments, semi-conductors, call centers.) And they are reflective of
an opportunistic or a reactive as opposed to a proactive and a
competitive character. There is more to culture development than what
we were born into and embraced – because the human spirit is
boundless.
Influence peddlers will
always surface as the nation pursues big-ticket infrastructure
projects and strategic industries – because our cacique system is
tailor-made for them, with the rest of us being the partners in
crime. And it is precisely why transparency is an imperative –
i.e., it’s time we move past rent-seeking and seek the common good.
The administration must institutionalize – like they do in the
private sector – the communication of plans and likewise the
monitoring of progress. It is easier said than done, but if President
Aquino can take corruption head-on, there is no reason why he can’t
take transparency head-on as well.
Indeed we must exploit
the momentum that the world is seeing! And that means we must not
take our “way of life” for granted – “Pinoy kasi”! It
is simply insulting – that as a people we cannot move forward and
reach for the common good! It’s time we move beyond the rhetoric of
patriotism!
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