Juan de la Cruz has hit rock bottom.

How come our old merry ways still grip us?

It’s not unprecedented if we consider how Venezuela or Brazil, or African countries suffered similar fates.

Sadly, denial is worse than blindness. We in the Philippine elite class, best positioned to upend our fate, are also the prime enablers of this downward spiral because we can use our influence either way.

Let’s start with our values of hierarchy and paternalism. We don’t begin to look at ourselves but those lower in the “hierarchy” – as in poverty and its source, i.e., employment.

Recall the comprehensive agrarian reform – and how we trumpeted it as a triumph of Filipino compassion. And the overseas employment phenomenon. And again, we celebrated it as an expression of “Pinoy abilidad” – and rightly so because over 10 million OFWs to this day are driving the Philippine economy.

And beyond the agrarian reform, we also were proud to champion farms-to-market roads and irrigation initiatives. Moreover, we created the LGUs and felt fulfilled.

Yet, instead of lifting rural folks from poverty and elevating Philippine agriculture, we import rice while Vietnam is exporting them. 

And now, with the education crisis, we want to focus on the rural areas once more – even when our supposed top universities, all located in Metro Manila, have all sank in the global rankings.

Why? Because of our values of hierarchy and paternalism. And they are merely subsets of our value system – as in our instincts: We are parochial and insular. So, we value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.

And the best example is among us, the Philippine media. That’s why the blog keeps calling us out, us in the Philippine elite class.

Let’s pause right there.

Who are the ones raising the barriers to open the Philippine economy? To be sure, we in the elite class have company, i.e., Juan de la Cruz. He personifies parochialism and insularity – and the rest of our value system.

I laugh every time I come across our focus on MSMEs. Did we ever learn about Pareto? We did, but our values of hierarchy and paternalism get in the way. And Padre Damaso springs to mind. Indeed, we are the present-day Padre Damaso.

I laugh too every time I come across our focus on the rural areas. Did we ever learn about the multiplier effect of investment? We did, but we are the elite class, and we can’t own up to our failings; it has to be somebody else.

Would you please think of how Vietnam put poverty in its rearview mirror? Because Vietnam’s investment already was through the roof as they opened their economy. And it was evident as early as over a dozen years ago when the blog started.

It is not rocket science. All Vietnam did is replicate the efforts of the Asian Tigers.

Let’s stop right there. Can we not figure that out? Why does Singapore attract loads of FDIs? Do foreigners own Singapore? Or Vietnam?

We won’t figure that out because we want to keep to our old merry ways, i.e., we in the Philippine elite class lord it over Juan de la Cruz. And unsurprisingly, Juan de la Cruz pays the price. One Vietnam enterprise, i.e., Samsung Vietnam, delivers far more economic benefits than our eight top companies combined. We have a classic double whammy, yet we like to lionize our tycoons.

If it were not for the dynamism of this universe, I would have given up on our nation. [Recall why I accepted the challenge faced by my then-new friends, the Eastern Europeans. Yet, they turned giant killers, giving Western behemoths a run for their money. “Why are we in this god-forsaken place,” asked the wife.]

We are so unequipped to face the 21st century.

But then again, even empires come and go. And that means nations that are up today won’t be there forever.

And the world is seeing today how China will overtake the US as an economy.

Still, our hurdles as Juan de la Cruz are daunting. Beyond our denial is our inexperience. As our neighbors sustain progress and development, they will keep distancing themselves from us. That’s why despite proudly broadcasting our 6%-7% GDP growth rate, we remain the regional laggard.

And we can relate the said phenomenon to the crisis in Philippine education. We’re still of the old mold.

The good news is, even the US is yet to internalize the skills demanded by the 21st century: (1) Critical Thinking, (2) Creativity, (3) Collaboration, (4) Communication.

Here’s a quote from an earlier posting: “Like many K-12 institutions, Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas has embraced 1:1 technology. But connecting the classroom to the outside world has helped students address real-world problems in new ways.

“During a problem-based learning process called “Genius Hour,” students identify issues they’re interested in exploring and, with the help of their teachers, connect via video with working professionals including engineers, physicians, scientists – even professional athletes. After one classroom of 5th graders at Sunflower Elementary engineered prosthetic tails for injured dolphins, they were able to meet prosthetic developers over a video to communicate about their work.

“Students get so excited about these professionals taking the time to speak with them.

“Experiential learning is where the power of the technology ties in.” [“Rethinking Teaching: How K-12 and higher education leaders can facilitate collaborative learning with technology”;  https://media.erepublic.com/document/CDE18_BRIEF_Cisco_V.PDF]

The blog often speaks to experiential learning. That’s why it brings up our lack of experience in development.

For example, when I first learned that DTI was working on roughly 50 industry road maps, I would only shake my head. That smacks of a classroom mentality.

And more recently, look at the implementing rules and regulations for CREATE and SIPP. Did we not learn from the early days of the BOI? We continue to write investment priority initiatives as though a dissertation in policymaking. And it is no different from our focus on MSMEs.

Recall that I mentored a Ph.D. candidate and guided her in developing her dissertation. To a practitioner like me, the draft of her outline approved by her professor would not pass muster in the real world. How many dissertations are schoolwork per se? 

“I will only assist you if you commit to utilizing the outcome for a real-world challenge.” Those familiar with the blog will remember today, she’s the global marketing director of one of the world’s most popular brands.

That is not to say academic exercises are wrong. That is why the blog often cites bodies of knowledge. For example, pure math advances science while applied math solves contemporary challenges.

However, applied math does not mean higher math. Even Jeff Bezos admits that driving Amazon’s business requires simple math. For example, AI today generates big data, yet the analytics necessary to leverage them don’t demand higher math but forward-thinking.

And that is why the blog questions why the simple metric of GDP growth rates traps us. Analytics is about forward- and lateral-thinking.

We want a bigger pie, a larger GDP. That’s why the blog offered the hypothesis of raising Philippine GDP by $200 billion. That is to leapfrog the economic output of our neighbors; moreover, it opens the mind to a lateral-thinking exercise. Instead of a narrow path, we unshackle the “mind” to ask: What industries and products must we disproportionately support that will most likely get us sooner than later to an incremental GDP of $200 billion? And which foreign money and technology are they?

Juan de la Cruz has lived in abject poverty despite our 6%-7% growth rates. 

Then consider: We are not the United States that is a highly-developed economy, and fiscal policies will generate incremental outcomes. Think again of the US GDP of over $20 trillion, growing at 6%-7%. That explains why the Philippines, despite similar growth rates, is still the regional laggard.

Sadly, we lack the experience in development that the classroom approach is all we have in our bag of tricks.

On the other hand, we in the chattering classes have written about big data and analytics.

And that is why the blog often speaks to forward-thinking and the GPS model. If we can’t forward-think, we can’t do justice even if we try to define the common good, for example. In other words, big data and analytics aren’t merely “numbers” exercises.

Consider these questions: (1) Where are we? (2) Where do we want to be? (3) How do we get there?

To begin with, because we are in denial, we can’t answer the question: Where are we? And if we can’t answer that, how can we respond to “Where do we want to be?”

And they explain why we keep tripping ourselves as we think through “how do we get to where we want to be?”

That is why we are focused on the rural areas and MSMEs. But none of them can match the economic contributions of Samsung Vietnam, for example. The display of dynamism and interdependence made Vietnam able to lure foreign partners – and overcome poverty.

We are yet to internalize dynamism and interdependence because we can’t overcome parochialism and insularity. And as necessary, to define, pursue, and attain the common good.

Recall that the blog often speaks to democracy being the mirror image of Christianity, i.e., the imperative of personal responsibility for the common good. And if we extend the analogy, it also explains why we struggle with foreign relations. We want to be in bed with China or Russia, or North Korea? Yet, despite their imperfections, freedom-loving nations come together precisely for the said purpose.

But Rizal knew us. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity. The converse is: autocratic nations are a culture of impunity. That’s why Trump saw Duterte and Putin, to name just two, as friends.

Let’s get back to the Asian Tigers.

The Asian Tigers did not follow the US model. They became tiger economies by throwing the book out the window. Instead, they begged for Western money and technology. And bingo! Look at how rapidly they moved up from developing to developed.

The universe is dynamic. As we speak, new and innovative initiatives are evolving elsewhere in the world.

But because we are the Philippine elite class, we stick to our values of hierarchy and paternalism.

Aren’t we surprised why beyond being the regional laggard, we lag in education, in infrastructure development, in industrialization, in traversing poverty to prosperity?

Juan de la Cruz has hit rock bottom.

How come our old merry ways still grip us?

Gising bayan!