Don't Let "Filipino First Policy" Cause the Philippines to Miss Out the Great ASEAN Opportunity
As talks against liberating the Philippine economy further on, I'm afraid that some people talking against it are also highly educated. I guess having a high education doesn't always make one street-smart, right? I did pursue an MBA without buying my degree. However, just seeing people with MBAs and even doctorates write stupid stuff should be no surprise. That's why I really have no plans to pursue a doctorate in business administration any longer. This isn't to discriminate or discourage education. However, this is to point out that something is very wrong with the Philippine education system. In short, the Philippine education system needs a massive overhaul.
I was Googling the name of an Indian Singaporean named Kishore Mahbubani for updates. I remembered how I wrote an article where I compared him to Atty. Hilario G. Davide Jr. An article from the South China Morning Post written by Alex Lo talks about ASEAN's opportunity. The Philippines is part of the ASEAN whether Filipinos still argue for protectionism or Filipino First Policy, like it or not. Lo manages to cite Mahbubani's studies to stress a point.
It may be left to the realist and pragmatic world view of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), and its success so far in navigating the Chinese-American rivalry, to show the way forward not only for the region, but across the Global South.
In an important essay published in Foreign Affairs, Kishore Mahbubani, arguably Singapore’s most prominent public intellectual, sets out to explain why Asean has built “a culture of pragmatism and accommodation for its member states”, he wrote, and “has bridged deep political divides in the region and kept most Southeast Asian countries focused on economic growth and development”.
While Western critics like to belittle the Asian grouping as no more than a talking shop, its “greatest strength,” wrote Mahbubani, “paradoxically is its relative weakness and heterogeneity [which] ensures that no power sees it as threatening”.
For the 10 member states that include democracies, autocracies, communist regimes and an absolute monarchy, they learn not to interfere too much in each other’s business. At the same time, they keep a distance from both Beijing and Washington while still engaging and mediating between the two superpowers.
As Mahbubani argues, “[Asean] is already charting a peaceful and prosperous path through this bipolar era. Situated at the geographical centre of the US-Chinese struggle for influence, Southeast Asia has not only managed to maintain good relations with Beijing and Washington, walking a diplomatic tightrope to preserve the trust and confidence of both capitals; it has also enabled China and the United States to contribute significantly to its growth and development.”
Unfortunately, the Philippines has been stuck with several years of the Filipino First Policy. I wrote an article last November 2022 about why the Filipino First Policy has no place in the Asian Century. It's been decades since the late Carlos P. Garcia, one of the many former Philippine presidents, gave out his aim for the Filipino First Policy. Yet, did it really work as some would claim. I even laugh at the idea of the IBON Foundation when they called the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. a neoliberal president. It's all because the reality was that the 20-year rule of Marcos Sr. was actually protectionist. The others now who are spreading such idiotic ideals are "thought leader groups" in the Philippines like Bayan Muna, Kabataan Partylist, and the League of Filipino Students to name a few.
Instead, the Philippines became too focused on Filipino First to the point families are getting separated for decades. Yes, I'm talking about the OFW program. Is it really all that feasible in the long run compared to accepting more FDI into the country? Contrary to what naysayers would say over social media, the OFW program is by no means a means of conquest. I wrote about the myth of OFW vs. FDI conquest. It's almost like playing a battle royale or a game of conquest. In reality, the OFW program is anything but glamorous. Many are separated from their loved ones because of a lack of job opportunities. Whoever thought of the idea of FDI vs. OFW is a game of conquest is out of his or her mind! Economist Andrew J. Masigan, in his article about economic reform, even mentioned this harsh truth about OFW remittances:
As usual, the dollar inflows from OFW remittances and service exports (IT-BPO industry) save us from financial ruin. Between 2016 and 2020, OFW remittances pumped-in an average of $32 billion a year while our service exports contributed an average of $36.5 billion a year.
Have OFW remittances and service exports been enough to cover our deficits? No. There is a still a gap and it is funded by debt.
This is why I'm actually advocating that the Philippines should remove Article XII's ownership restrictions. Garcia's ideals are pretty much obsolete. The Marcos Sr. Years can be easily proven as no golden years. Singapore was flourishing. The late Lee Kuan Yew even specified in his book From Third World to First that he wasn't loaning Marcos Sr. the money. I'm afraid that some people keep posting what Lee Kuan Yew had to say about the Marcoses (while Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong actually congratulated the win of Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.) while ignoring the rest. Why are we using Lee Kuan Yew's statement about the Marcoses while ignoring more of what he had to say about the Philippines? Lee Kuan Yew was a vocal critic of the Marcoses while he also said in the same book about Filipinos needed more democracy and that the Philippines has a rambunctious press.
The Philippines already had some economic amendments. We can talk about the late Fidel V. Ramos, Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the late Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III, and Rodrigo R. Duterte, all former Philippine presidents. They all had done some stuff to ease certain restrictions in the negative list. Masigan did point this out concerning Aquino III when it came to some economic reform. I would say that while Aquino III wasn't perfect, I preferred Gilbert Teodoro over him in the 2010 elections, but this piece of information should be taken to heart. However, it was also a mistake when Aquino III still refused to do what Masigan, a supporter of Atty. Maria Leonor Gerona-Robredo's candidacy last 2022, called for an economic charter change. As said, I can support anybody from a different spectrum if the aim is to uplift economics for the better.
For the sake of Yellows (or I guess I should call them, Kakampinks), I would also post these words of wisdom by Masigan which was published in the Philippine Star titled "Eco-Cha Cha and the Poison Pill":
As I have written many times before, the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution is a poison pill that impeded the development of the country for decades. Borne by a misguided sense of nationalism, the authors of the 1987 Constitution felt that by reserving certain industries exclusively for Filipinos (or Filipino majority), our natural resources would not be plundered by foreigners, nor would our sovereignty be overstepped. How wrong they were.
What these provisions did was deprive us of our fair share of foreign capital coming into the region. With so many industries restricted to foreigners coupled with stiff ownership conditions, investors naturally chose the open economies of Thailand, Singapore and lately, Vietnam rather than the Philippines. The Constitution, in effect, deprived us of valuable forex investments, technology transfer, tax revenues, export earnings and employment opportunities. It is one of the principal reasons why our manufacturing sector has not developed fully.
To illustrate how powerful an open economy can be, Vietnam opened their economy to foreign investors in 1986 and achieved newly industrialized status in just 35 years. From eking a living through subsistence farming, the average Vietnamese is now wealthier than the Filipino. All this was achieved by attracting foreign capital.
The country pays a steep price for our arcane, protectionist constitutional provisions. Let me cite some consequences. Precluding foreign participation in local industries has created monopolies and oligopolies owned by just a handful of families. These families earn scandalous profits even though they are inefficient.
In agriculture, banning foreigners from participating in the farm sector deprived us of new technologies to increase production and improve our logistics chains. So many farmers could have been lifted out of poverty with foreign infusions.
In media, the Philippines lost the opportunity to be Asia’s entertainment and production capital despite our Americanized culture. Since foreign participation in media is prohibited by law, Netflix located its Asian headquarters in Singapore, Disney in Malaysia, MTV in Hong Kong and Paramount Studios in Taiwan. The Philippines lost out.
The biggest consequence, however, is in education. Since foreign learning institutions are not allowed to operate in the Philippines, we deprived ourselves of collaborations and learning transfers that would have uplifted our own educational standards. In contrast, Singapore benefitted immensely from having Yale University, Chicago University and INSEAD on their shores. It helped to advance Singaporean learning standards to a point where Singaporean universities are now counted among the top 50 in the world. The University of the Philippines ranks in the 400-500 range.
There are social consequences too. The lack of foreign participation is the reason why there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor. See, because the Constitution reserves certain industries exclusive for Filipinos, only the super rich have the capital and wherewithal to invest in lucrative but capital intensive business ventures. Our flawed Constitution is the reason why only 40 families control the country. Foreign participation could have democratized business opportunities and wealth.
Ironically, Vietnam is indeed a blatantly Communist country. You may see a hammer and sickle red flag sign used by the CPP-NPA near a Starbucks store. There's always this statement about socialists who go to whine against free markets at Starbucks. In Vietnam, you may have socialists going to Starbucks, using their iPhones, and meeting with each other, to discuss the benefits of a free market for their Communist state. Meanwhile, the Philippines, while a democracy, still celebrates that Filipino First Policy is good. How can the Philippines be proud to be a democracy if its economic policies are actually more closed than that of Communist Vietnam? The late Nguyen Duy Cong aka Do Muoi adopted Lee Kuan Yew's policies and look at Vietnam now.
Fortunately, some Filipino policymakers are no longer stuck with the third-world mindset. Davide Jr.'s statement has been proven wrong and it's becoming a laughingstock of a claim. Mahbubani didn't just say it, didn't just use the fact that he was the founder of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The results of Singapore and those who followed it are in. One needs to read through Lee Kuan Yew's book From Third World to First thoroughly, especially about ASEAN.
What I believe needs to be done is to get the economic charter change done now. The hardcore data of ASEAN is that Filipino First doesn't work. It's more than time to stop minding those people who believe in obsolete ideals. It's more than time to correct the economic provisions so as not to let the Philippines be left out of the great ASEAN economic opportunity.
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https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3212424/asean-must-seize-moment-regional-security-and-prosperity
