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| Philippine Primer |
One of the problems I keep facing (or hate about) in my country is the habit called "Filipino time". It's pretty much the person who says "I'm on the way." but the person is still in the toilet or fixing one's makeup. One of the things I heard at the University of San Carlos was when the guidance counselor said, "We follow Philippine time which is on time." The syllabus of the international marketing class said, "Filipino time isn't recognized in the international market." Yet, it's called "Filipino time" for some reason. I remembered how I literally shouted in public because I agreed to meet with my groupmates at 1:30 P.M. and they arrived as expected--an hour later. Please, one hour is really a lot of time. I prefer to call it simply being late and the term "Filipino time" was probably just invented to justify the common bad trait. Any sensible Filipino is bound to say that the habit is anything but good. Besides, I remembered I even said, "Filipino time? What you're doing is an embarrassment to every Filipino who practices punctuality!"
The prevalence of "Filipino time" (or just being late) can be attributed to a lack of competition
Some people just point their fingers at the wrong reasons for the lack of foreign direct investments (FDI). Some say that it's because of who's in power or corruption. Are we going to blame government corruption? Please, Vietnam, according to the Risk & Compliance Portal, reveals that the country still has pervasive corruption. However, Vietnam itself has a very good economy overall according to The World Bank. So, corruption isn't the real issue with the Philippines regarding a lack of FDIs but the overly restrictive provisions such as 60-40 shares ownership. I call 60-40 shares of ownership as nothing more than overpriced rent. Again, do I need to specify when FDIs take their profits it's their net profits--any profit they keep means their profits exceeded expenses. These expenses include government fees (which include taxes), operational expenses (which local businessmen can be part of it such as raw materials suppliers), and salaries. No profit is a net profit until all expenses are paid.
A lack of competition is indeed a problem one way or another. Why do I see so many lousy services? I remembered lining up to report a phone line problem and it took a long time. I think one issue is the bottleneck as Globe and PLDT are just two telecommunications companies supplying to the high demand. Other companies just don't feel the need to have punctual services if they're nearly a monopoly one way or another. For example, if I'm the only one selling a burger in town then I have no reason to wake up early. However, if Jollibee and McDonald's were in town then I have every reason to wake up early and to make sure I serve the best burger. The Tan siblings of Jollibee (Tony Tancaktiong and Ernest Tanmantiong) were facing off against McDonald's. If they didn't have competition then I don't think Jollibee will become that worldwide brand that opened its 150th branch in Vietnam. Both Tan siblings had to wake up early and improve their services to survive. If they didn't then McDonald's would've squashed them. The rule of competition is simple--any business, whether local or foreign, if it does bad, it will perish. So any multinational corporation (MNC) that invests in the Philippines but has poor performance will be crushed by the local business with good performance.
I could remember entering one place after the other to buy what I need. I could remember going to the government offices. The habit of tardiness was really there. Even worse, some people even go as far as by the time they arrive, some of them are still fixing their make-up or they're busy doing nothing. There's another acronym for AIDS that said, "As If Doing Something". The person is acting as if he was busy but that person was doing something like playing PC games or fixing their make-up during working hours. Can you imagine the irritation that you have an appointment but something delayed you? To say that one hour isn't a lot of time is an overstatement. A good example is how the medical field makes every last second precious. A slight lapse could mean the life of the patient. Yet, for them, since they're among a few who give services--timeliness is definitely not a priority. Would it matter to you if you say you open at 9:00 A.M. but open at 10:00 A.M. if you're the only business giving that service in town? In turn, that attitude trickles down from the employers to the employees.
In short, it's really about a lack of competition. Would an athlete have any reason to sleep early, get up early, eat the right kinds of food, train hard, and the like if there was no competition? It would make nonsense to be an athlete and not face competition. The same goes for businesses when there's no competition. They become prone to incompetence which includes being tardy. The employees could care less about doing well if the boss could care less about doing well. The boss who hardly has competition can pass that toxic trait down to their employees too.
How competition in the Philippine business environment can be a remedy against that bad habit
In the world of international marketing, there's no acceptance of "Filipino time". It doesn't matter if the investor was a Filipino or not--the investor says, "You're late!" Right now, I still feel that the signing of the Public Services Act of 2022 by President Rodrigo R. Duterte is a good thing. The economic amendments done by the late Benigno Simeon C. Aquino also focused on certain sectors to bring economic improvement. I think some of those sore losers who renounce foreign investment as "imperialism" are probably crying they can't show up late for work anymore. Well, that's a good thing because tardiness is holding the Philippines back.
One might want to say that Filipinos will still have to learn to be punctual before the government might want to invite MNCs. However, to quote the late Lee Kuan Yew, he said in From Third World to First on Page 66 the following details:
Our job was to plan the broad economic objectives and the target periods within which to achieve them. We reviewed these plans regularly and adjusted them as new realities changed the outlook. Infrastructure and the training and education of workers to meet the needs of employers had to be planned years in advance. We did not have a group of readymade entrepreneurs such as Hong Kong gained in the Chinese industrialists and bankers who came fleeing from Shanghai, Canton, and other cities when the communists took over. Had we waited for our traders to learn to be industrialists we would have starved. It is absurd for critics to suggest in the 1990s that had we grown our own entrepreneurs, we would have been less at the mercy of the rootless MNCs. Even with the experienced talent Hong Kong received in Chinese refugees, its manufacturing technology level is not in the same class as that of the MNCs in Singapore.
I'm not going to wait until the bad habit of "Filipino time" is kicked out. Instead, I dare say the problem is also because of a lack of competition. Filipinos can start kicking off the bad habit of not being on time while they're employed in MNCs. There are already some MNCs in the Philippines via franchising. A Filipino who's serving milk tea might (at first) have a history of being habitually late. However, the manager's sharp rebuke or threat of termination of the branch employee can change the tide. The branch manager's ire can be a very unwelcoming sight and the need for money is there. This Filipino working as a milk tea server will have to either (1) change their habit to continue getting paid better rates, or (2) go back to their low-paying jobs where their boss is habitually tardy. If the Filipino milk tea server desires better pay for menial labor then changes in punctuality happen. The boss gets mad and says, "Stop being late or you're fired!" The promise of better pay is there compared to the old workplace where punctuality isn't a thing. The person will eventually start getting up early, doing the job better, and the manager might end up saying, "I see the warning worked. Now keep up the good job if you want to get better pay." This in turn will cause Filipino time to become being on time than the bad association of not being on time.
Filipino businessmen will be forced to change their work ethics or perish. A Filipino businessman who refuses to ditch "Filipino time" can consider getting bankrupt. Meanwhile, Filipino businessmen with a mindset like the Jollibee Tan brothers can expect to reach new heights. I think about the timeliness in the service of Bo's Coffee Club--all before I got into the Chatime craze since I prefer tea over coffee. I think about how I ordered a glass of coffee at Bo's Coffee Club and there was no dilly-dallying. I just had to wait for a few minutes or more depending on the first-come-first-served basis. Bo's Coffee Club practicing that ethic helped it survive against foreign competitors like Chatime, Jolly Bubble, Starbucks, Gong Cha, Yi Fang, and other coffee and tea shops. If Bo's Coffee Club dilly-dallied then I would expect it to be gone. Instead, it's still standing strong against the imported brands. Someone will probably go to Chatime on one Sunday and Bo's on the next depending on one's mood. It's because timeliness is one of the key factors that make a business good aside from innovative thinking.
References
Books
"From Third World to First--The Singapore Story: 1965-2000) by Lee Kuan Yew
Harpers Collins Publishers
"Duterte signs law amending Public Service Act" by Azer Parrocha (March 21, 2022)
"How two Filipino brothers staved off competition from McDonald’s to build global fast food chain Jollibee" by Karen Gilchrist (April 30, 2019)
"The legacy of Philippines President Benigno Aquino" by Laura Southgate (August 25, 2015)
"Vietnam Corruption Report"
"Vietnam’s economic growth is expected to accelerate to 5.5% in 2022 and greening its trade would offer new opportunities: World Bank"
