Why worry, be happy!
We can listen to Raul Sunico play “Bato sa Buhangin” and other “Filipino love songs in a classic piano mood.” Or play the guitar.
Last Christmas, the son-in-law’s, an American, wish was an acoustic guitar. And WFH gave him the time to brush up on his guitar lessons. Thanks to the cyberworld.
Compare that to decades ago, the writer brought home a Cebu-made guitar (from a business trip), and a brother and younger siblings learned to play by themselves.
While the writer took piano lessons but never picked it up. Thank God for Raul. Over his first coffee in the morning, he alternates piano and guitar music with his favorite classical music CD.
And as he scans the news around the world, unexpected articles would pop up on his iPad.
“Shopify Founder: These are the two books that made me into a billionaire. Some billionaire business success stories got where they are on a personal charm, salesmanship, and communication chops. Others were quiet, reserved ‘nerds’ who just managed to build a product so fantastic it took off like a rocket ship, forcing them to figure out the people side of the business on the fly.
“Shopify founder Tobias Ltke is solidly in the second camp. A programmer by trade, Ltke had no intention of having anything to do with Shopify’s business side, the Canadian startup he founded and which has since become an e-commerce juggernaut. But then, as he explained, circumstances intervened, and he found himself needing to grow into a leader capable of scaling his startup, and fast.
“He decided to source some reading that would arm him with the skills he needed.” [Jessica Stillman, Inc.com]
And one of the books Ltke read is by Andrew Grove, “High Output Management.” Grove is the former Chairman and CEO of Intel.
“Today, many markets outside the United States are growing faster than markets inside the US. And the domestic market can be supplied from anywhere in the world.
“If the world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with every person anywhere in the world capable of doing the same job.
“Another consequence also follows. When products and services become mostly indistinguishable from each other, only ‘time’ defines competitive advantage.
“Whether you are a know-how manager or a traditional manager, your company has no choice but to operate in an environment shaped by the forces of globalization and the information revolution.
“Companies have two choices: Adapt or die.
“What are the rules of the new environment? First, everything happens faster. Second, anything that ‘can be’ done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else. Let there be no misunderstanding: These changes lead to a less kind, less gentle, and less predictable workplace.
“You need to develop a higher tolerance for disorder. Now, you should still not accept ‘disorder.’ You should do your best to drive what’s around you to order.
“You need to be mentally and emotionally ready to be tossed into the turbulence generated by and taking place in your industry, perhaps in this country, or on the other side of the globe.
“You should be prepared for the shockwaves engendered by a brand-new technique pioneered by someone you had never even heard of before.
“You need to do the impossible, to anticipate the unexpected. And when the unexpected happens, you should double your efforts to make ‘order’ from the disorder it creates in your life.
“Let chaos reign, then rein in the chaos.”
Enter: the wonders of the 21st century. Despite WFH, courtesy of the cyberworld, we can still rein in the chaos.
The wife and writer spend the last week of August either in the Berkshires or the Green Mountains for summer’s last hurrah. They remind them of Baguio – in its heyday – and some fairways in the Equinox golf course mirror those of Camp John Hay.
Still, all the writer has to do is open his laptop, and he gets a picture-perfect scene of his Eastern European friends’ business.
Think of big data and analytics. Where is the chaos to rein in? And where is the opportunity to exploit?
That’s not rhetoric; it explains Kurt Lewin’s “force-field analysis” to pursue progress and development: ‘exploit’ the driving forces and fix the restraining ones.
And it applies to how we design tax models, including how to target brands, enterprises, and industries that can bring the right technology and investment that will give the Philippines a quantum leap in exports.
We can learn from MNCs and how they design a global marketing plan. Recall that it is about creating a virtuous circle. It means learning to forward-think. Yet, we insist on “Pinoy abilidad” despite how much the region, if not the world has left us behind.
Let’s hold it right there.
It means we have to toss our parochial and insular instincts. And our value of hierarchy and paternalism. We are selling to foreign interests, not to Pinoys.
And we want them to partner with us. We are peers or equals. Toss the Juan de la Cruz inferiority complex (that comes from our need for paternalism.) In a partnership, the object is a win-win scenario.
It applies to both trade and foreign relations. Recall the mantra; there are no rules, only principles. And it is not only our interests that matter, nor theirs.
Do we recognize that we struggle in trade and foreign relations?
For instance, this choice between China and the West, given the premise principles drive relations, not rules should be a no-brainer; if we value transparency and “the rule of law.” We stumble because we love tyranny.
And that is why we can’t recognize the nuances between imperialism and hegemony.
Let’s get back to the writer’s Eastern European friends.
Those familiar with the blog may recall that last year they doubled profitability, and this year, after seven months, they are up 20% with the balance of the year projected to deliver even more.
But this good news doesn’t allow complacency. Because the unexpected happens. Even if these people have demonstrated exceptional performance over the last 17 years, for example, they have been recognized by the EU competitiveness commission as a model.
They have beaten the competing brand of the industry’s market leaders from the West. And what an irony, the Western competitor sold the brand. And the friends wanted to buy it, but the writer didn’t consent – not in the age when innovation and global competition defined the century.
The main local competitor also offered their business. It was roughly four times bigger when the writer arrived. But now, the friends’ company is several times larger, no longer just a local enterprise but a global player.
But let’s get to the Philippines.
Do we like to invoke our history to explain why we are the regional laggard?
“’Rent-seeking’ better describes the Marcos oligarchy since they accumulated wealth without adding value to society. Rent-seeking is the non-market extraction of surplus. In layman’s terms, crony capitalism. Not capitalism in the real sense of risk-taking, i.e., to produce goods or services that add value through the market, and instead of primitive accumulation of capital using naked political power or connections.
“If you remember the term ‘Filipino First,’ championed by former Philippine President Carlos P. Garcia, the cry referred to Filipinos’ demands to be first in line in the allocation of foreign exchange. Due to their financial strength and size, US multinationals were given first dibs in vital foreign exchange.
“The loss of exchange rate sovereignty in the 1950s explains the inward-looking and import-dependent industrialization we pursued. Moreover, it translated to import and exchange controls. Not surprisingly, these economic policies led to periodic foreign exchange and balance of payments crises, which we had in 1959 and 1971, shortly before Marcos declared martial law. It also accounts for why the Philippines went from being the second most prosperous country in Asia in the 1950s to being the ‘sick man of Asia’ in the early 1980s.
“Is corruption inherent in human nature.
“No, the fault lies not in ourselves, but our history. We are just path-dependent. We are the creatures of our past.” [“The oligarchy during the Marcos regime and its economic impact,” Calixto V. Chikiamco, Introspective, BusinessWorld, 23rd Aug 2020]
With due respect, are our instincts at work? When we look beyond our shores, histories are generally not ideal. [The wife and writer were watching on TV the latest shooting of a Black man – not new in the US – in Wisconsin and the “protests that gave way to fires, destructions, and looting.”]
Think of the 1964 race riots in Singapore. And this once Malaysian state is today wealthier, as the US is when compared to the UK.
Or the demise of the Soviet empire. It left several Eastern European countries “god-forsaken” places.
For example, the Bulgarian currency went through a roller coaster ride several times that devasted the local economy. And during the Cold War, the currencies from Soviet satellite states were not tradeable in the open market, and thus the set rates did not reflect black market rates. We lived through a similar experience in the Philippines.
Bulgaria is the poorest country in Europe, and the lev has been pegged to the Euro at 1.95583 for decades. And because they are now an EU member, converting to the Euro is just a matter of time, or after they satisfy the hurdles imposed by the EU.
Recall Greece and Italy went through economic upheavals and wanted out of the EU currency while the UK and other countries never switched currencies.
And again, let’s quote The Economist [15th Aug 2020] and think of the histories of some of these Best in Class emerging economies: “Among our neighbors, they include (1) Myanmar, (2) Vietnam, (3) China, (4) India, (5) Sri Lanka, (6) Thailand, (7) Malaysia.
“The rest rounding out the top performers are (1) Albania, (2) Romania, (3) Panama, (4) Bulgaria, (5) Poland, (6) Turkey, (7) Hungary, (8) Chile, (8) Iraq.”
“The Economist summarized the critical factors shared by these countries: (1) stunning investment and trade levels; (2) higher levels of education and government effectiveness; (3) score highly with exports that are both eclectic and exclusive, as in higher value-added, that few other countries export.”
We cannot keep our inward-looking bias. Expect the unexpected.
Nor can happiness overcome poverty in the Philippines, even if we want to toss GDP as a metric.
That’s a cop-out. It’s elite class hubris when over 50 million Filipinos are impoverished.
Translation: We are projecting our higher-level need, as in self-actualization, yet Juan de la Cruz struggles to meet his basic physiological need, as 3-square meals a day and a roof over his head.
Unsurprisingly, many of them, mostly the young, resort to drugs. The cheaper variety lasts them through the day without nourishment. And they become the victims of EJKs.
Didn’t we in the elite class applaud the war on drugs? Do we want to add insult to injury and perpetuate tyranny, to boot?
That is why the blog speaks to our caste system as a blinder, as rank has its privileges. And why we kept to the OFW phenomenon while blind to the imperative to industrialize. Why can’t we see that our eight top companies are no match to one Vietnam enterprise?
It is not about dole-outs from the rich to the poor. It is lifting all boats.
Development means traversing the road from poverty to prosperity. That is why those isms. But they can’t be pure dogmas.
For example, the blog has been promoting state capitalism, not the static model, but mirrors dynamism – as the Asian Tigers, China, and Vietnam have done.
In other words, what these neighbors have done is to leverage scale. But then again, between the crab mentality and our lack of development experience, we won’t internalize “economies of scale.”
And we will never get there if we can’t get over “Pinoy abilidad.”
We won’t acknowledge that the comprehensive agrarian reform explains our archaic agribusiness enterprise? We must look beyond the obvious and the present. And that also explains why we contracted the “Dutch disease” via the OFW phenomenon. We can’t visualize the outcome of industrialization. And why we want to chew 42 industry road maps.
Prioritize and focus. Prioritize and focus. Prioritize and focus.
What Lee, Mahathir, Deng, and the Vietnamese have demonstrated is we must learn to forward-think. Recall the Marcos “New Society” and Duterte’s war on drugs and the slaying of corruption. We want it fast, and we want it now.
The road from poverty to prosperity demands forward-thinking.
Why are we stuck with imperial Manila when we never developed Metro Manila into a Metro KL or Metro Bangkok, for example? That is why the blog raised the Pearl River Delta economic zone as a benchmark – for Central Luzon. Creating a most significant economic engine impacts much broader geography beyond Metro Manila or NCR and Luzon itself. It is more than an export processing zone. It is a virtuous circle that foreign investors want to get a piece.
Our failure to forward-think explains our underdevelopment – in the metros and the rural areas.
And to disperse our meager tax revenues without learning to prioritize is jumping from the frying pan into the fire. And that is what we did with the LGU initiative, and we want to get it worse by federalism.
How did Vietnam break the back of poverty? They focused on becoming the electronic manufacturing regional hub to follow the China model. And if we can replicate their efforts, even with a lower tax rate to attract FDIs, we can generate more tax revenues.
A targeted campaign will give us a significant lift in FDIs. We must aim to attain a quantum leap in exports. And that includes a lower tax rate model that will generate more substantial tax revenues because of the export receipts’ magnitude.
We know that our economy is dependent on OFW remittances and BPO revenues, to the tune of over $50 billion. And because OFWs come from across the country, even in a small barangay, we see how they contribute to the local economy.
For example, people will point – to the wife and writer while visiting a barangay in rural Iloilo – to homes with concrete walls and tell you, “that’s an OFW home.” And next to the house is a tricycle – a business venture coupled with a small sari-sari store.
But that is why we think of LGUs – and even federalism. Sadly, our model of dispersing the economy is no match to the scale of industrialization our neighbors pursued.
Forward-think. Forward-think. Forward-think.
Vietnam’s exports are roughly four times ours, and given their higher margins – compared to what our consumption economy generates – the multiplier effort is far greater. Sadly, “Pinoy abilidad” doesn’t stretch beyond the obvious and the present.
By any measure of development, we are the regional laggard. We can’t sit idly when the worst of the worst can happen in this very dynamic universe.
Gising bayan!
“Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. And where freedom and its blessings are a reality for a minority and an illusion for the many. Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy, dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste.
“But the fault was chiefly their own. Filipinos profess the love of country, but love themselves – individually – more.” [Ninoy Aquino, Foreign Affairs magazine, July 1968; Stanley Karnow, New York Times Magazine, “Cory Aquino’s Downhill Slide,” 19th Aug 1990.]
“Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? Moreover, that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.” [We are ruled by Rizal’s ‘tyrants of tomorrow,’ Editorial, The Manila Times, 29th Dec 2015]
“True social reform has little to do with politics. To unmoor ourselves from the burdens of the past, we must be engaged in the act of continual and conscious self-renewal. All men are partially buried in the grave of custom. Even virtue is no longer such if it is stagnant.
“Change begins when we finally choose to examine critically and then recalibrate the ill-serving codes and conventions handed down to us, often unquestioned, by the past and its power structures. It is essentially an act of imagination first.” [David Henry Thoreau; American essayist, poet, and philosopher; 1817-1862]
“National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country’s natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its currency’s value, as classical economics insists. [A] nation’s competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade.” [The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business Review, March–April 1990]
“You have to have a dream, whether big or small. Then plan, focus, work hard, and be very determined to achieve your goals.” [Henry Sy Sr., Chairman Emeritus and Founder, SM Group (1924 - 2019)]
“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” [William Pollard, 1911-1989, physicist-priest, Manhattan Project]
“Development is informed by a people’s worldview, cognitive capacity, values, moral development, self-identity, spirituality, and leadership . . .” [Frederic Laloux, Reinventing organizations, Nelson Parker, 2014]
“Now I know why Paul dared to speak of ‘the curse of the law’ (Galatians 3:13). Law reigns and discernment is unnecessary, which means there is little growth or change in such people. When you do not grow, you remain an infant.” [Faith and Science, Open to Change, Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation, 23rd Oct 2017]
“As a major component for the education and reorientation of our people, mainstream media – their reporters, writers, photographers, columnists, and editors – have an obligation to this country . . .” [Era of documented irrelevance: Mainstream media, critics and protesters, Homobono A. Adaza, The Manila Times, 25th Nov 2015]
No comments:
Post a Comment