Can Juan de la Cruz embrace a worldview characterized by dynamism and interdependence?
It is not if we stick to our caste system, i.e., to preserve hierarchy and paternalism – aka dependency.
When we come down to it, we confirm Rizal’s worst fears: He who submits to tyranny loves it.
And that is how autocracy continues to thrive in many countries and why the world remains a tinderbox.
Consider: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.
And we want to put an exclamation point to preserve our caste system via a leadership team representing (a) the Marcos camp and (b) Duterte’s?
Translation: We want to be at odds — totally and completely— with this universe that is a 24/7 dynamic phenomenon, exemplified by the photosynthesis process that makes living things, including humankind, thrive; and by the continual forward motion and expansion of the galaxies.
Unsurprisingly, we have been going around in circles re amending the Constitution. But the Constitution is merely an expression of our static instincts. The Constitution does not operate in a vacuum – nor stand alone.
Instead, we should be “amending” Juan de la Cruz – as in reinventing ourselves, if not mutating, as organisms do.
Sadly, Pinoy abilidad is always about outsmarting ourselves – as in “pwede na ‘yan.” And that is why we always fall short.
Because we are reactive and not proactive, it is not surprising, especially for us in the Philippine elite class, i.e., instinctively, we want to preserve our rank and privileges. And why we are status quo-bound.
Consider: (1) We never fail to heap praises on our largest conglomerates, but that’s par for the course, and (b) How we put up Davao as the best practice model for the rest of the country. And we all had high hopes that Duterte would transform the Philippines into an ideal akin to Davao.
Sadly, we don’t want to own up to our instincts. How do we then expect to reinvent ourselves?
Davao is near and dear to my heart. I spent part of my earlier career in Davao. And I still bring the family to visit. But Davao is not Singapore or KL.
But that is why the blog often speaks to benchmarking – to seek and attain state-of-the-art and be the leading edge.
But because we are status quo-bound, time and again, we are scornful of our neighbors despite successfully demonstrating to the world what economic tigers are.
In the meantime, we keep to Pinoy abilidad – prescribing solutions that at best are within the bounds of our comfort zones.
The evidence?
Consider: “My favorite story showing the folly of top-down agricultural governance came out of a visit I once made to an impoverished barangay in the highlands of Mindanao, where I noted almost nothing but tall cogon grass around. I asked the barangay captain, a farmer, what he would ask of government if granted one wish. His answer: carabaos. Did they get anything from the government? He said yes, fertilizers and hybrid seeds.
‘Without carabaos to till our land, we have no use for it. We take it as such and sell it.’ The MAO (Municipal Agricultural Officer) insisted that she had constantly told higher-ups of her farmers’ prior needs, but told me exasperatedly: ‘All these programs come to us from Manila, and they’ve already decided that it’s fertilizers and hybrid seeds that they want to give.’” [“Provinces are key, Cielito F. Habito,” NO FREE LUNCH, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1st Jun 2021.]
What’s the point? Benchmarking is the point. We must seek state-of-the-art – and be the leading edge – if we are to leapfrog the competitiveness of our neighbors.
And the principle is economies of scale. For example, it starts with the optimal size of farms – and why we must learn to pull them together as cooperatives and then figure out the crop variants. We must produce crops that will (1) find a bigger market and (2) that the international market perceives as “value-added.”
We must assemble the requisite resources to complete the ecosystem of Philippine agribusiness. Beyond carabaos, mechanization is vital.
And beyond farm produce, we must forward think to develop packaged consumer products. That is how to move up the value chain or Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs.
But we cannot go it alone. If Vietnam lured Samsung and Apple to make them the regional hub of these foreign products, that is the benchmark that we must satisfy.
Ergo: We must reinvent ourselves, toss parochialism and insularity – and not be the regional laggard.
Recall that my mental model in creating an ecosystem is the photosynthesis phenomenon as a practitioner and mentor. That is how to be the leading edge — as demonstrated by two Fortune 500 companies and a once MSME from Eastern Europe that turned into a giant killer.
Beyond our neighbors, we also sneer at the West.
Let’s stop right there.
Yet, Asian leaders repeatedly gave us unsolicited advice: Beg for Western money and technology.
And Lee and Mahathir spring to mind. We must welcome former colonizers despite our angsts because we don’t have the money and technology to go it alone. But we took that for granted, especially in our quest to nationalize the Philippines. It is classic binary or dualistic thinking – and why we now realize the weakness of the Constitution.
That happened decades ago. Yet, we continue to invoke parochialism and insularity – as in “national interests.”
Who defines national interest? If it is us in the Philippine elite class, instinctively, we will explain it as preserving our rank and privileges. And that is throwing Juan de la Cruz under the bus.
But that is why the Philippine insurgency is Greek to us. No different from why White Americans — while in the minority, still represent a healthy slice — can’t comprehend “Black lives matter.”
Did we not say China is the economy of tomorrow, and we must toss the West in favor of China – because it is in our national interest?
Because we are reactive, we don’t forward think and took the WPS for granted – until pretty recently. That’s why the blog never fails to raise that democracy is the mirror image of Christianity, i.e., the imperative of personal responsibility for the common good.
In other words, freedom-loving people embrace dynamism and interdependence – if we want to fine-tune our definition of national interest.
The bottom line: We are like novices in foreign and trade relations because we never elevated ourselves to the level of our neighbors.
Benchmark. Benchmark. Benchmark.
And that’s why, beyond lagging in economic development and nation-building, we languish in cognitive development. It also reveals where we stand our “technology” and “innovation” quotient (“IQ”).
In short, we are still at the binary level, left behind by our neighbors – that have long reaped the rewards of relativism, as in dynamism and interdependence.
And that explains why we are in the minor league, with Cambodia and Myanmar – not the big club.
Consider: “Entrepreneurs need help,” EDITORIAL, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 31st May 2021.
“Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) account for more than 90 percent of businesses in the Philippines. According to think tank Moody's Analytics, it follows that they would suffer the most from a prolonged economic recovery from the pandemic, exacerbating the hardships they have been going through since the onset of the recession last year.
“In the sobering assessment of Moody’s Analytics’ chief Asia-Pacific economist Steven Cochrane, in his recent report titled ‘APAC Outlook: The Long and Winding Road: The longer the recovery, particularly if 'fiscal' support has been modest, as in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, there is a greater chance of long-term scarring. And this could be particularly evident among industries with a large share of small- and medium-sized enterprises.’”
Let’s hold it right there.
Recall the two operating systems in the brain: (1) automatic and (2) conscious, postulated by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman.
Moody’s Analytics is making a factual observation. We don’t have to quarrel with the facts.
In other words, the pandemic is akin to a fire that we suffered. And why the blog spoke to an aggressive approach despite our economic managers declaring that we did not have the means to do so. And we bought into it.
Still, the world suffered with us. And this is where we need to examine the other operating system in the brain, i.e., the conscious one.
Let’s start with our economic platform. We are a consumption-service economy. On the other hand, our neighbors are investment-industrial economies.
In other words, our economy is very shallow and will readily succumb to a crisis like a pandemic.
Also, statistics 101 tells us that in a given universe, i.e., 90 percent of businesses in the Philippines are MSMEs, only a handful will demonstrate sturdiness. It is confirmation that our economy is very shallow and weak compared to our neighbors. And that is a fact confirmed by Moody’s.
If we push the envelope further, economies – both developed and underdeveloped – have MSMEs accounting for the bulk of the business sector. But it is not the MSMEs that carry the onus in driving the economy.
Recall that the blog spoke to defining our economic nirvana, not by our bias of a 6%-7% GDP growth rate, but by setting an incremental GDP of $200 billion. Why? That’s a real-world example of benchmarking – against our neighbors.
That is how much “incremental” economic output we need to beat the hell of our neighbors, including Malaysia.
To get there, if we remain a consumption-service economy, we need a thousand of our MSMEs to become one-hundred million-dollar enterprises. But statistics 101 says that cannot happen.
That is why we must move up from a consumption-service economy to an investment-industrial economy.
But, and it is a BIG BUT.
Juan de la Cruz can’t see beyond “inclusive.” We can’t ever prioritize — as in the crab mentality. And it boils down to where we are in our cognitive development. We know the world through our binary lenses.
Because we can’t look outward and learn from others – like our neighbors, i.e., inclusive is not a one-dimensional phenomenon. And our neighbors, by driving to become investment-industrial economies, attained “inclusiveness.”
The latest example is Vietnam. They are the regional manufacturing hub for Samsung smartphones and Apple AirPods.
In other words, they did not go it alone. They understood dynamism and interdependence.
Can Juan de la Cruz embrace a worldview characterized by dynamism and interdependence?
It is not if we stick to our caste system, i.e., to preserve hierarchy and paternalism – aka dependency.
When we come down to it, we confirm Rizal’s worst fears: He who submits to tyranny loves it.
Consider: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.
Gising bayan!
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