Can Anti-FDI Proponents Prove Their Claim That Economic Liberalization Will Just Benefit the Filipino Oligarchs?

The same old narration has been made over and over again. I'd dare say that the narration out the Facebook pages of the likes of Atty. Teddy Casiño, Atty. Neri Colmenares, Kabataan Partylist, League of Filipino Students, Migrante International, IBON Foundation, etc. are more or less the same. It's already a broken record based on the facts that they've been refuted. I've read the book From Third World to First. I guess Migrante International hates that book because Singapore is often associated with the execution of Flor Contemplacion, at least on their watch. What they're doing is nothing more than still hating Japan, Germany, and Italy because of the Second World War. I'm not surprised at another lie that's often repeated--economic liberalization (or 100% FDI shares ownership) will only benefit the oligarchs.

I guess it'll be easy to nail on me because I'm not a summa cum laude and Rep. Raoul Abellar Manuel is and he's a graduate of the University of the Philippines (UP). UP is a tough school to enter and I'll confess, I'm not qualified for that school. For the sake of non-Filipino speakers, I would like to translate the words in Tagalog into English. It would go like this:

• "They made a promise but in the formation of the 1987 Constitution, we were EDSA-pwera ( combination of EDSA and etchapwera, or disregarded in English). Our progress has stopped. They say that we would have good education but the promise wasn't kept. The entry of quality education was disregarded."
• As for Manuel's statement, I'll translate it as "It's not from EDSA or from a documentary where the problem starts. The TV is a pro-dictatorship and Marcos rehabilitation propaganda video packaged as advocacy. It's all about promoting a pro-oligarch agenda: 100% foreign ownership of assets, term extensions, and other self-serving interests."

It's funny when a former schoolmate of mine, who graduated summa cum laude, spoke the harsh truth, "There are many summa cum laudes who never did anything meaningful with their lives." The same former schoolmate posted on Facebook that students cheat because the education system cares too much about grades and so little about learning. If I can blame anything for that, it should be the poor quality of education in the Philippines. Manuel can whine all he wants on social media, "But I'm a cum laude!" to justify his statements. However, it's pretty much like the story of the Scholars and the Lion. The brilliant scholars foolishly resurrected a dead lion. Although the story is just a fairy tale and not told as truth, it does serve an important lesson. That's why I even wrote a post asking, "What's the use of being a cum laude if one opposes badly needed reforms?"

The claim that Manuel makes about economic liberalization as a "pro-oligarch agenda" is really funny. If I were debating with him, I might fire out, "Are you serious for a cum laude?" That's what I'd probably say. I'm expecting to be insulted because I'm no cum laude and my grades in high school weren't good. In my case, I confess that my grades in high school weren't good and I was barely passing. The reality is that the Filipino education system is really bad. For example, I was in the MBA degree and I got conned and we were never taught about credit card programs. I never even knew what Cash 2 Go was all about. I never even learned to invest in stocks in my MBA days. Why aren't students even taught to invest in stocks in finance class? In fact, Warren Buffett even called business school to be a waste of time these days. What's the use of going to business school if basic investment isn't really taught? Sure, a person can learn marketing but what about investing the money from the salary? I guess that's why some call center agents still remain poor because they don't know how to manage and invest their money.

A simple definition of oligarchy 

The definition of oligarchy by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is:

1

: government by the few

The corporation is ruled by oligarchy.

2

: a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes

a military oligarchy was established in the country

also : a group exercising such control

An oligarchy ruled the nation.

3

: an organization under oligarchic control

That country is an oligarchy.

In short, the oligarchy is the rule of the few. If one's a business oligarch, it would mean that these people are influencing the government as big-time businessmen. It would mean power in the hands of a few big-time businessmen. For example, an example of an oligarchy is where there are too many Filipinos and too few businesses to cater to those demands. 

What makes the claim of those who say it funny is this. What caused the oligarchy to be established in the first place? A review of the Marcos Years' economic policy would be needed. Some of these people are from UP. I'll share this excerpt of the Marcos Years from the UP School of Economics  to show that the Marcos Years were protectionist: 

It is instructive that neither Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, nor any major Asian country catastrophically experienced negative growth in the early 1980s. The Philippines was the exception, following instead the example of protectionist and over-borrowed Latin American countries. This suggests that there was nothing unavoidable about the crisis the Philippines suffered, and that it was the result instead of failed policies. In 1977 the Philippines’ total debt was all of $8.2 billion. Only five years later, in 1982, this had risen to $24.4 billion. Thailand’s debt in 1982 was still only half that amount. Thailand and other countries of the region thus avoided a debt crisis and ultimately went on to attract foreign direct investments in export-oriented industries in the now-familiar East Asian pattern. But no such thing happened under Ferdinand E. Marcos, notwithstanding the arguments and exhortations of people like Gerardo P. Sicat (who would cease to be active in the regime by 1980). By the early 1980s, the pattern would be set where foreign direct investments in neighboring countries regularly outstripped those in the Philippines. (The intermittent coups d’etat post-Marcos did us no favors either.)

All this should correct the common misconception that the country’s troubles stemmed entirely from conjunctural “political factors,” notably that it was caused by ex-Senator Benigno “Ninoy” S. Aquino, Jr.’s assassination. One might not even entirely blame the mere fact of authoritarianism itself — after all Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia at the time were also ruled by despots of some sort or other, yet suffered no crisis. Rather the Philippine debacle was linked to the misguided policies that were structurally linked and specific to Marcos-style authoritarianism. For all its technocratic rhetoric and rationale, the Marcos regime never took economic reform, liberalization, and export-oriented industrialization seriously; it remained a heavily protectionist and preferential regime (think the cronies and the failed major industrial projects). The availability of easy loans was well suited to the priorities of a regime that thought it could stoke growth without deep reform and slake the greed of Marcos and his cronies at the same time. In the end a corrupt regime fell victim to its own hubris.

In contrast to what the IBON Foundation likes to say, the truth is contrary. The Marcos Years were never for economic liberalization. I heard how not only ABS-CBN but every station was shut down until there was only one channel left. How is that even neo-liberalization? The Marcos Sr. cronies benefited from the generous amounts of protectionism. I might even call the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. the champion of the Filipino First Policy. Hopefully, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" E. Marcos Jr. will not repeat the mistakes of his father.

The meeting of the late Lee Kuan Yew and Marcos Sr. was something I enjoyed reading. While reading From Third World to First, I could even think of how LKY called Cesar Virata a non-starter. In short, how can Virata be a prime minister and a non-starter? LKY, as a real prime minister, knew he was talking with an executive assistant and not a leader. LKY even expressed the debts of the Marcoses. I wonder if the IBON Foundation has been representing foreign debts as FDI? Sri Lanka's problem was foreign debt, not foreign investment. In short, that's why I even wrote how in the world is the IBON Foundation representing FDI? I wonder if they're counting OFW remittances, foreign debts, and maybe even Filipino women with foreign boyfriends as FDI? That defeats the simple definition of FDI from a business dictionary! If they say the Philippines has more FDI than before, did they even count the stuff that never qualified as FDI? 

Why did the Marcos cronies get their power? Was it because Marcos Sr. started welcoming FDIs? On the contrary, based on how FDI is defined, where businesses do their business in other countries, it was a very protectionist economy. Maybe, I can quote a bit from Jan Carlo Punngbayan from UP as well since he's actually right to say that the Marcos Years weren't the golden years:

For one thing, Marcos pursued massive government spending since his first term (1965 to 1969). He also continued the protectionist industrial policies of the past, which implied that imports remained well in excess of exports.

Instead, by having protectionist policies, the oligarchy actually benefited. An oligarchy, in simple terms, is formed when power is at the hands of the few. How can a policy that discourages FDI be anti-oligarch? Some people even say it's because foreign oligarchs are entering. It should be a contradiction because the entrance of FDIs would reduce the power of the oligarchs. Instead, it will force things to spread. For example, we can talk about the supply and demand of public utilities. Let's say Singtel invests in the Philippines along with other foreign MNCs in telecommunications, without the need of a Filipino partner. How will that benefit the local telecommunications only? 

The cause of inflation is short supply and high demand. It's the basic law of economics. The reason why public utilities are expensive is because there are too many Filipinos and too few providers. If power is in the hands of a few, that will benefit them when there's very little to no competition. However, with FDIs providing what the oligarchs also provide, it would force competition. If the Philippine public services sector involved a mix of FDIs and locals, Filipinos will have a choice. Filipino entrepreneurs will be forced to evolve or perish. Any business, whether local or foreign, is destined to perish if it doesn't evolve. 

What's even funnier is that the misinformation is typed using imported gadgets 

Bulatlat

If I must admit, I'm actually laughing thinking about the irony of the misinformation. Above is a picture of the members of Bayan Muna. Fortunately, not so many buy into Atty. Neri Colmenares anymore. I wrote about the irony of typing anti-FDI rants using imported gadgets, platforms, and social media. If they hate US imperialism so much--it's funny to see some of them use MacPRO laptops when they could've gotten more affordable ones like Samsung and Xiaomi. Some may say they're "merely forced to participate to survive". However, one can really laugh at the idea because one must ask, "What will they do if ever succeed in creating an isolationist Philippines?" Will they become hypocrites like President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela or President Kim Jong Un of North Korea? Speaking of which, somebody at CoRRECT Movement Moderated Public Forum joked about Maduro and Atty. Carlos Zarate both look alike. I didn't bother to compare the similarity which was blatantly there. Even funnier is that they're asking help from the International Criminal Court--which is a foreign entity too. 

I even thought about my purchases as of last year and the past few years. Last year, I bought an iPad on sale at Lazada, a Singaporean company. I wonder if the people of Migrante International are still sobbing over Contemplacion while hypocritically buying things on Lazada? The mall is already full of some FDIs such as gadget stores and food stores. Did those food stores take over the Philippines and the mall? Are the workers of those MNCs operating in the Philippines only foreigners from their country? I went to Xiaomi and I was facing a Filipino employee. I went to an Apple store and I was facing a Filipino employee. With this in mind, those typing their rants may have ordered their gadgets on an imported shopping platform or bought them at a mall. 

Maybe, their argument is that the malls will be filled with FDI. The very same malls where some of them bought their gadgets. Did they even think for a second that if all those FDIs got out then the mall would shut down? I guess they never think about it and they just type on anyway. So far, I haven't heard of a Filipino brand that these fools could use to type in their anti-FDI rants. No Filipino equivalent yet of Facebook. China's actions under President Xi Jinping may have caused it to slow down. Xi is trying to do everything himself like creating Chinese alternatives to Facebook and Google. Instead, Xi might be undoing the progress made by the late Deng Xiaoping. 

They should really prove their claims to these countries either in the government or the schools

I find it stupid that these anti-FDI people have branches abroad. For example, Anakbayan Melbourne or Migrante International operates in different countries. This would be a big challenge for them. Why not prove their claims to the prosperous ASEAN countries. Yes, that's why I even told them to tell it to Singapore. LKY's governance allowed Singapore to rise from a third-world country worse than the Philippines to a first-world status. They can also try to prove their claims to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, for a start. They could also try to talk their claims to Taiwan and South Korea or any other countries nearby? 

For a start, there's Singapore and the National University of Singapore. They can challenge the faculty of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) to a debate. Apologists who keep quoting Atty. Hilario Davide Jr. may want to engage with Kishore Mahbubani. Maybe, those who still insist on leftist views can hold a debate with the faculty of the University of Economics-Ho Chi Minh City (UEH). The LKYSPP can be a good start. It's because Vietnam also learned from Singapore. Then again, can they really refute these claims by LKY from his book From Third World to First?

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.  

That's what would be really fun to think about. They can make fun of it and say, "Well, it's the same old challenge." Are they really tough enough to prove their claims? Maybe, they're afraid of being proven wrong or being exposed for lying? I can't really tell at this point!