Don't Be Too Busy to Accept Improvements

Some time ago, I wrote an article using @successpictures to portray a toxic view of menial labor. As November is about to end, I was looking at some good and bad things that happened this 2023. I'm not going to spill them out, to respect the privacy of the people involved. I was also looking at the toxic positivity common in the Philippines. One of these involves the attitude where people say, "If it's bitter, just add sugar." (read here). The illustration that I just got may actually be funny but it can be annoying. You have a wise old man selling his invention of the wheel. Unfortunately, two idiots are too "busy" dragging their cargo with a square wheel. The idea may sound funny because one might remember some cartoon shows they watched. Maybe, it was a gag show in the 1990s for all the 1990s children, out there like myself. 

I faced some people on Facebook who are too stubborn about system change. I try to ask for their sources and they can only give me sources that are convenient for them. The source may go to quotes by Atty. Hilario G. Davide Jr. I try to cite better studies and they throw in Ad Hominems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I asked the question on Facebook, "Are we going to wait until all the patients recover before we replace the system that runs the hospital?" The answer was not surprisingly, a yes. According to them, patients need to recover under the previous system before the system will be replaced. The big question is when will the patients recover if the hospital's system has already been deemed obsolete? A hospital never gets a 100% recovery rate. If it did then all people would've survived and there would be no dead patients. Another thing worth bringing up is that if the hospital's system is so poorly done then that may explain the low recovery rate. 

Working hard for the sake of hard work or working hard smart?

In the Civics and Culture class, one of the defining traits of the Filipino is being masipag or hardworking. However, hard work is never enough unless one is working smart too. Some people are too focused on "making sacrifices". A sacrifice only makes sense if it does something well in the long run. There's a sacrifice to be made in working smarter. It requires giving up one's pride in their work and learning new stuff. 

Some people may remember the short story of the Crow and the Pitcher from kindergarten to grade school. I think I was Kinder 2 or Grade 1 when the story was first said. The short story has it that the crow wanted to drink the water from the pitcher. What the crow did was to put some pebbles until the water reached the surface for him or her (take your pick) to drink. However, this illustration that I found has the crow working smart. What the crow does is to get a straw and drink from the pitcher. The crow could do more hard work later than if he or she had to labor to put the rocks into it. Crows help keep pest insects in control and they're great scavengers.

Sure, smart work doesn't replace hard work. What smart work means taking the work in the right direction. It's all about working hard in the right direction. It's possible to work hard and not to become rich. One might even think of the Tagalog comedy movie Ang Tanging Ina N'yong Lahat or The Only Mother to You All. The role of Ai Ai Delas Alas was a mother of 12 children from three different late husbands. Her character of Ina Montecillio may work hard but she never worked smart. If she worked smart, I don't think she'd be in that same predicament. 

Sure, some of the greatest research papers were written on typewriters. However, it's a shame that the document had no soft copy when my business ethics teacher (who's already retired due to her age) mentioned it. Maybe now, the University of San Carlos (USC) has scanned it and converted it into a PDF. I was interested to read about the case of faulty weighing scales. I would like to hold a copy of it. Sure, the typewriter was a great tool. It was also a paper-eating monster. That's why I'm thankful for the presence of desktops and laptops. That's why that business ethics teacher of mine had every right to raise her eyebrows when she was given faulty-written documents. 

The same can be said in a business environment 

Maybe the caption can be misleading. I prefer to say, "Don't just work hard, work intelligently!" It's because I see all work as hard. I couldn't use AI to write my thesis properly, even with modern conveniences. I still had to go out there and gather data. How did I work smart? I set proper appointments and make sure I get the best equipment. I would use a PC over a typewriter in writing my thesis. I would bring a laptop with me to every consultation period. It wasn't just hard work, it was rewarding hard work because it was hard work done with intelligence. The hard work in the illustration shows people who work hard for the sake of it, vs. those who know how to work hard and smart.

I've heard some people are too close-minded for modernization. One of the articles I wrote some time ago was about businesses' need to adapt to new technology. One of the worst transactions I passed through was a bank still asking to fax the document when email (and standard airmail) were the better alternatives. It was one of my worst experiences with a bank asking for a fax. One big problem with fax machines is how poor the security can be. An incident I heard was where a fax document was stolen by a student. If a bank would ask me to fax a document when I could deliver it in person or have it mailed--I have every reason to reject investing in that bank! It might be a bank that's just too stubborn to accept change when needed! As I heard it, "You can't fax a book!" 

Some people got intoxicated by their past successes. I might call it the problem with stubborn boomers (1946-1964) who started out young. Some started doing business as early as 18-19 and they take pride in it. Sure, they can take pride in it, but not to the point they become stubborn about change. Just think about how some businesses can be stuck in the Stone Age, in some way. These are what I've observed:

1. Using a typewriter with great pride rather than using a personal computer to process documents. Sure, a typewriter can be handy in filling out checks, but there's already better stuff out there. Do they even realize that a typewriter these days will just be hard work, while using a PC is smart hard work? 
2. Not buying machinery that could help the laborers do their jobs more easily. Sure, not everything can be automated (such as packing), but think about transporting the boxes. The workers may start to pack things manually (that is, so defects can be checked,) but transporting boxes with different machines can allow workers to do more hard work with better output.

In the business environment, there's always the quest to evolve. Can you imagine if these great businesses such as Asia Brewery, San Miguel Corporation, SM, JG Summit Holdings, etc. got stuck in the past? Just think of the quote from the late John Gokongwei Jr. I may never become Gokongwei but I can learn from him. Gokongwei's statement of responsiveness to change is there. I would enter the Robinson's establishments and what do I see? I see a business that's continuously evolving. I entered Summit Galleria and saw the awesomeness of the innovation. What if Gokongwei chose to get arrogant and never innovate? His businesses would've probably perished before he did. Instead, keeping that spirit kept the businesses alive.

The same can be true for Filipinos and constitutional reform

Those who oppose constitutional reform say, "It's the people running the system, not the system." Please, the system determines how people will behave! They have been quoting Davide Jr.'s quotes in defending the "sacredness" of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines. I started citing studies from a respected policymaker named Kishore Mahbubani of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP). People who oppose any attempt to improve the Constitution will come up with Ad Hominem attacks. They might say, "Of course, I believe Davide because he's my countryman. The Philippines isn't Singapore. We can't learn from it because it's too small. I bet Mahbubani's armpits smell so bad." True, Mahbubani is an Indian but that doesn't mean he can't be right where Davide Jr. is wrong. 

How can being too busy to accept improvements also fit into the picture? The illustration of the square wheels may represent the comfort zone. People can be too comfortable in meaningless hard work that they become so accustomed to it. It's like people who are so accustomed to their bad habits that they don't bother to change them. In the case of the 1987 Constitution apologists--they're too busy defending the document as if nothing is wrong with it. They should be busy looking for ways to improve the 1987 Constitution than keep it the way it is. Both late Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III and Atty. Maria Leonor S. Gerona-Robredo are also open to constitutional amendments.

Sticking to the 1987 Constitution only created hard workers, not hard workers who work smart. Many people work hard but at what cost? Still sticking to the late Carlos P. Garcia's Filipino First Policy has only made Filipinos work hard but not work smart. What's the use of earning higher pay as an OFW if the OFW family doesn't know how to manage the remittance? What's the use of having a 9-5 job if people are becoming complacent from a lack of competition? I'd say that the lack of competition only allowed room for more toxic positivity. If there was more competition then more people would start to work smarter, not just harder. 

That's why I'm for economic charter change. It would make people work smart and hard, not just work hard. From Business World, I'd like to cite this statement by economist Andrew James Masigan:

The restrictive provisions of the constitution have held back the country’s development for more than 30 years. From the 1980s up to the close of the century, countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand leapfrogged economically on the back of a deluge foreign direct investments (FDIs). During that period, the Philippines share of regional FDIs was a paltry 3% in good years and 2% in normal years. The flawed economic laws of the constitution are largely to blame for this. Lately, Vietnam has taken the lion’s share of FDIs, leaving the Philippines in the dust.

See, embedded in the 1987 constitutions is a list of industries in which foreigners are precluded from participation. These industries include agriculture, public utilities, transportation, retail, construction, media, and education, among others. (For those unaware, these industries are collectively known as “the negative list”). Apart from depriving the country of forex investments, technology transfer and job opportunities, the lack of competition from abroad has created monopolies and oligopolies owned by a handful of families. These families earn scandalous profits even though they are inefficient.

Our flawed economic laws are the reason why our agricultural sector has not industrialized and why food security eludes us. It is why our manufacturing sector has not fully developed. It is why we lost the opportunity to be Asia’s entertainment and production capital despite our Americanized culture (Netflix located its Asian headquarters in Singapore, Disney in Malaysia, MTV in Hong Kong, and Paramount Studios in Taiwan). It is why our education standards have remained embarrassingly behind the rest of the world.

The constitution limits foreigners from owning more than 40% equity share in corporations. In addition, foreigners are barred from owning land. These provisions have caused us to lose-out on big-ticket investments which would have made all the difference in job and revenue generation. Not too long ago, we lost a multi-billion dollar investment from a US auto manufacturing company which instead went to Thailand. We lost a multi-billion smartphone plant by Samsung which went to Vietnam. Limiting equity ownership to a minority stake and prohibiting land ownership is a great disincentive for companies investing in large manufacturing plants with a useful life of more than 50 years. Land is used as equity for business financing and to take this away from the business model is enough reason for investors to take their business elsewhere.

For farming, it's not enough for farmers to work hard. They must work hard and be smart. I love how Masigan cited how protectionism has caused the agricultural sector to be not industrialized. It's pretty much unlike Vietnam which has carried over with environmentally-friendly modern farming (read here). How can local businesses start to do better if they're constrained by the higher cost of utilities? It's a supply and demand problem. Can we really force Filipinos to start building more power supplies when not all Filipinos are business-minded?

To cite the late Lee Kuan Yew, I'd like to say stop quoting him only to badmouth the current president, Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. Sure, I didn't vote for Marcos Jr. but I'd like to quote this is something that Marcos Jr. can learn from and redeem himself in the eyes of his critics as taken from Third World to First by LKY:

Pages 57-58

After several years of disheartening trial and error, we concluded that Singapore's best hope lay with the American multinational corporations (MNCs). When the Taiwanese and Hong Kong entrepreneurs came in the 1960s, they brought low technology such as textile and toy manufacturing, labor-intensive but not large-scale. American MNCs brought higher technology in large-scale operations, creating many jobs. They had weight and confidence. They believed that their government was going to stay in Southeast Asia and their businesses were safe from confiscation or war loss.

I gradually crystallized my thoughts and settled on a two-pronged strategy to overcome our disadvantages. The first was to leapfrog the region, as the Israelis had done. This idea sprang from a discussion I had with a UNDP expert who visited Singapore in 1962. In 1964, while on a tour of Africa, I met him again in Malawi. He described to me how the Israelis, faced with a more hostile environment than ours, had found a way around their difficulties by leaping over their Arab neighbors who boycotted them, to trade with Europe and America. Since our neighbors were out to reduce their ties with us, we had to link up with the developed world-America, Europe, and Japan-and attract their manufacturers to produce in Singapore and export their products to the developed countries.

The accepted wisdom of development economists at the time was that MNCs were exploiters of cheap land, labor, and raw materials. This "dependency school" of economists argued that MNCs continued the colonial pattern of exploitation that left the developing countries selling raw materials to and buying consumer goods from the advanced countries. MNCs controlled technology and consumer preferences and formed alliances with their host governments to exploit the people and keep them down. Third World leaders believed this theory of neocolonialist exploitation, but Keng Swee and I were not impressed. We had a real-life problem to solve and could not afford to be conscribed by any theory or dogma. Anyway, Singapore had no natural resources for MNCs to exploit. All it had were hard-working people, good basic infrastructure, and a government that was determined to be honest and competent. Our duty was to create a livelihood for 2 million Singaporeans. If MNCs could give our workers employment and teach them technical and engineering skills and management know-how, we should bring in the MNCs. 

Page 66

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. 

Pages 68-69 

If I have to choose one word to explain why Singapore succeeded, it is confidence. This was what made foreign investors site their factories and refineries here. Within days of the oil crisis in October 1973, I decided to give a clear signal to the oil companies that we did not claim any special privilege over the stocks of oil they held in their Singapore refineries. If we blocked export from those stocks, we would have enough oil for our own consumption for two years, but we would have shown ourselves to be completely undependable. I met the CEOs or managing directors of all the oil refineries-Shell, Mobil, Esso, Singapore Petroleum, and British Petroleum on 10 November 1973. I assured them publicly that Singapore would share in any cuts they imposed on the rest of their customers, on the principle of equal misery. Their customers were in countries as far apart as Alaska, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand, besides those in the region.

This decision increased international confidence in the Singapore government, that it knew its long-term interest depended on being a reliable place for oil and other business. As a result, the oil industry confidently expanded into petrochemicals in the late 1970s. By the 1990s, with a total refining capacity of 1.2 million barrels per day, Singapore had become the world's third largest oil-refining center after Houston and Rotterdam, the third largest oil trading center after New York and London, and the largest fuel oil bunker market in volume terms. Singapore is also a major petrochemical producer. 

To overcome the natural doubts of investors from advanced countries over the quality of our workers, I had asked the Japanese, Germans, French, and Dutch to set up centers in Singapore with their own instructors to train technicians. Some centers were government-financed, others were jointly formed with such corporations as Philips, Rollei, and Tata. After 4 to 6 months of training, these workers, who were trained in a factory-like environment, became familiar with the work systems and cultures of the different nations and were desirable employees. These training institutes became useful points of reference for investors from these countries to check how our workers compared with theirs. They validated the standards of Singapore workers.  

On working smart, in a December 1980 speech, LKY also said this:

“You got on the one hand, the Open Free Market System in America, you have on the other hand, the exact opposite, the closed, controlled, command economy of the Soviet Union, Communist Russia…

The Chinese tried the Communist model, with their own modifications, and it failed! And they have admitted that it failed, and they’re trying to pick up the same competitive spirit between workers, between different enterprises, which they noticed in Hong Kong, so they have opened a new town on the border with Hong Kong called “Shamchun” (Shenzhen in Cantonese) and they’re inducing Hong Kong entrepreneurs to go… and create employment!

Dr. Lee Siew-Choh and Mr. Jeyaratnam talk as if these things have never happened. They haven’t learned!

Deng Xiaoping is a great man… He fought a great revolution. He saw the product of that revolution turn sour. He was fortunate to live long enough and he had the courage to say “NO! WE CHANGE COURSE! LET’S LEARN! Let’s stop trying to do everything by ourselves.”

So they started importing and buying Boeing 707’s. So they bought Tridents instead of trying to manufacture their own aircraft. Eventually they will but it would take 2, maybe 3 generations.

That’s how we succeeded because we have open minds, common sense. A lot of analysis, careful weighing of the odds, make a firm decision, monitor it, implement it, modify as it goes wrong. ABANDON IF IT IS NO GOOD!

But often… And I say this more out of relief than out of pride… Often, 8 times out of 10 we have been right… We’ve made mistakes… We put money in New Port in Jurong… Second hand machinery… We were young then… We were new in the game…

They sold us second hand machinery, we didn’t know… We lost money… We wrote it off. But we learned…

Mr. Jeyaratnam says we are obsessed with profits. I said YES! That’s how Singapore survives!

We have no profit, who pays for all this? 

You make profit into a dirty word, and Singapore dies.” 

When it comes to working smart, we find the tools to make hard work smart. Sure, there's no substitute for hard work. However, when we improvise hard work, more work can be done with greater output. Filipinos can't afford to keep talking about how hard-working Filipinos are if their output is lesser than the other improvised countries. Hard work with the smarts is the way to go.