Tag: capital

The Philippines is going down a FAKE development path

June 17, 2019 benign0 7 Comments

The Philippines is a vulnerable society — vulnerable because, though it is resource-rich, it is almost wholly dependent on external capital for its survival. Japan and Singapore, for example, are resource-poor countries, yet they are among the world’s most prosperous and highly-developed. The Philippines along with many African and South American countries lie in a…

Development, Economy

Filipinos’ addiction to OFW remittances is incompatible with economic development

June 10, 2019 benign0 5 Comments

Look more closely at the facts surrounding the much-vaunted stellar growth of the Philippine over the last several years and one will find the same old disturbingly-familiar drivers of that growth. Or, rather, it is the absence of the right drivers that is more disturbing. Growth is still chugging along the traditional way — through…

Development, Economy, Money Talks

Filipinos need to get better at killing in order to prosper

October 23, 2018October 23, 2018 benign0 36 Comments

The seeming aversion of Filipinos to large-scale infrastructure projects — the sorts needed to achieve the vast economies of scale needed to compete in the global market likely stems from the Filipinos’ heritage of smallness. This prescient snippet quoted from Nick Joaquin’s seminal piece describes the underlying character of Philippine culture that is at the…

Culture, Development, Economy

There’s NO Philippine economy “in the time of Marcos and Duterte”. Only The Philippine Economy. Period

October 17, 2018October 17, 2018 benign0 17 Comments

As I write this, there is some sort of symposium conducted by “PhD Candidate” JC Punongbayan of the UP School of Economics dubbed “Numbers don’t lie, people do: Dissecting the Philippine economy in the time of Marcos and Duterte” currently in progress. One does not really need to attend this event seeing the title and…

Economy

Filipino-style ‘labour activism’ makes Filipino workers poorer rather than richer

August 1, 2018August 1, 2018 benign0 25 Comments

Filipinos would like to think they are “pro-poor” and “pro-worker”. Yet, this is a society where many of its most vocal “influencers” maintain lifestyles propped up by cheap labour. And why is labour cheap in the Philippines? Well, it is not because their employers are “evil” as communist “activists” would like us to believe. In…

Economy, Money Talks

The REAL Philippine State of the Nation demystified

July 15, 2018July 15, 2018 benign0 9 Comments

Again, like the federalism “issue”, political “analysts” and their dogs have recently been issuing their two cents on the whats and what nots of the state of the Philippine Nation. This is of course the gathering din of two-bit chatter in the lead up to the State of the Nation Address (SONA) to be delivered…

Culture, Development, Society

Filipinos suffer from a bad case of English envy but don’t do anything to narrow this gap

July 10, 2018July 10, 2018 benign0 14 Comments

The facts are quite confronting. Filipinos who not just speak English but speak it well and with the right accent go places. This is the reason wealthy Filipinos spend a fortune on the best private schools to educate their kids — because those who gain mastery of this important language make the most connections with…

Culture, Development, Economy

OFWs are a LIABILITY because they are turning the Philippine economy into an OBESE economy

April 30, 2018 benign0 8 Comments

We see today the Philippines has an obese economy. Its bones (infrastructure and capital base) are buckling under the weight of sugar-fed fat it accumulated through OFWism and consumerism. Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are the equivalent of revenue candy fed to a malnourished economy. They provide a short-term energy fix that gets that next meal…

Culture, Development, Economy