Senator Angara must be
lauded, together with a group of young Filipino intellectuals, for
creating the Angara Center for Law and Economics – which "aims
to raise the standards of academic research and policy studies – a
think-tank, Filipino at heart, global in outlook, grounded in
research, and oriented toward innovation." Specifically,
they "are coming together to study how the country may
prosper through good law and economic policy-making."
[Manila Bulletin, 29th Jul 2012] [What was not highlighted in the
article is if the Center would pursue what a Filipino friend, an
intellectual herself, would call a “symbiotic relationship with
industry,” for example, the lack of which apparently is why UP,
despite the requisite population of PhDs, ranks relatively lower
against the rest of the world.]
The Executive Director of
the Center, Dr. John V.C. Nye, came to our consciousness a year ago:
“One kaklase P-Noy should listen to,” was how Boo
Chanco titled his piece of 8th Aug 2011, The Philippine Star. “Dr.
Nye isn’t like most economists we have met… he takes a stand and
ordinary mortals can actually understand him. That’s because he
doesn’t scare people off with esoteric econometric models and
formulas but talks about the real world – the impact of elites,
special interests and institutions on a country’s economy.”
“Dr. Nye said he
doesn’t understand why we have so many laws that bar the entry of
foreign investment that would create jobs here in the country. We are
so afraid of having foreigners exploit our labor at home but we don’t
seem to mind letting foreigners exploit them abroad, he observed.
Thinking global is the way to create jobs for these workers at home,
he stressed . . . We . . . have policies like high minimum wages and
strict employment protection in the industrial sector that prevents
industry from absorbing more workers and thus spark the economy’s
transformation. That is also why the unemployment rate for college
graduates is higher than those with less education . . . Extreme
nationalism, he said, turned the nation inwards in the 50s and 60s.
Like Argentina, we basically raised the cost of capital and destroyed
investment . . . Dr. Nye denounced what he sees as a marriage between
nationalist and populist thinking with the interests of the elite in
preserving restrictions to global competition. It is only
global competition that can break the stranglehold of the traditional
oligarchs on the economy, he stressed. This is specially so
because we have weak institutions and arbitrary enforcement of rules
. . .
“Dr. Nye was
realistic enough to acknowledge that the path to reform is difficult
because entrenched interests will fight to keep their privileges . .
. He also thinks we should be cosmopolitan…
find ways to involve international players not beholden to
local interests. We should encourage regional competition and
increase market access so that different businesses are involved.
Then, don’t be fixated on legal details . . . Finally, he
called on us to always look outwards. Filipinos, he said, are not
afraid of the world, so why not let more of the world in? By allowing
more globalization, you will keep Filipinos working at home and not
have to send them abroad. And he said, he is
making these points from the perspective he has of world economic
history… of how winners and losers are made of economies through
time.”
This blog’s reason for
being is to challenge Juan de la Cruz – to reinvent himself – and
can thus relate to how Dr. Nye marries the real world with the body
of knowledge from his field of expertise. But where is the writer
coming from? He is a practitioner that has worked with folks from the
region during the decade they were labeled Asian tigers, and over the
last ten years with Eastern Europeans. And in both these parts of the
world people have pursued purposeful development (admittedly far from
perfection) notwithstanding their history or their culture or
whatever. And Dr. Nye is effectively challenging us to revisit our
long-held beliefs – or to reinvent ourselves in the writer's lingo.
But can we when we take them as a given because they represent our
culture? For example, how do we contemplate the point Dr. Nye makes
re the elites when in our hierarchical culture we defer to them? And
that reality is best demonstrated by our power crisis, with special
interests behind the industry? Or even the thought of bringing down
economic barriers in favor of foreigners? Or being outward-looking
when parochialism is second nature to us? These are questions to Juan
de la Cruz, beyond President Aquino, because we need a new
perspective not only from our leaders going forward. And as Miami’s
Fil-Am coach Erik Spoelstra says, “one’s heritage or
background should not matter . . . the world is changing.”
No comments:
Post a Comment