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Do Filipino Businesses Do Worse Whenever Foreign Investments Do Well in the Philippines?


It's still Buwan Ng Wika or Month of the Language. Even if it's not Buwan Ng Produkto or Month of the Product--I still feel the need to write this. It's because schools tend to focus more on Filipino heritage than the Tagalog language. The meme above with Atty. Neri Colmenares of Bayan Muna (last 2016) has an absurd statement. Where do you think the microphone and other stuff that Atty. Colmenare is using, came from? Atty. Colmenares' statement in complete English is, "The moment you allow entry of foreign products in the Philippines, they will beat down the local businesses and industry." The claim to that claim is baloney. What's Atty. Colmenares going to encourage? Would Atty. Colmenares encourage Filipinos to blame the richer Asian neighbors (read here)?

Last August 10, I wrote about asking if the Philippines is poorer because Singapore is richer. I find the statement as stupid as saying the Philippine peso is weaker because the U.S. dollar is stronger, courtesy of Rep. Ferdinand Alexander "Sandro" Araneta Marcos. I laughed at the statement because, like Jose Enrique "Sonny" Africa, both are graduates of the London School of Economics. Going back, I can't resist raising up Atty. Colmenares and some of his fellows at Bayan Muna, such as Atty. Teodoro "Teddy" A. Casiño. It's because of what Atty. Casiño wrote at Rappler last 2018--the same year when Atty. Hilario G. Davide Jr. also said such nonsense about FDIs. Part of what Atty. Casiño said in Part 2 of the said article is this: 
Without definite limits on foreign ownership and with no preference for Filipino citizens and corporations, the Constitutional provisions on the national economy and patrimony would become a tabula rasa. It would now be up to the Federal Assembly to determine policies on foreign equity sharing and just about anything there is about the economy and our natural resources. This, of course, creates an entirely new window for corporate lobbying, putting small, underfunded Filipino citizens and corporations at a great disadvantage.

This is what the late Lee Kuan Yew would call a third-world mentality. If Kishore Mahbubani of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) were here to debate with Atty. Davide, chances are Mahbubani will call Atty. Davide as a third-world thinker. Apparently, the likes of Atty. Casiño and his fellow Bayan Muna colleague Atty. Colmenares wants Filipinos to think, "The reason why Filipino businesses are doing bad, is because of MNCs." However, these guys may have just bought a brand-new iPhone and went to American-based Starbucks after saying such nonsense. Chances are that like some members of the IBON Foundation--they used MacPROs to type their nonsense! 

Why Filipino businesses can't blame FDIs for doing worse

I wrote an article on Filipino businesses that says only FDIs will get rich--translating into a sore loser mentality. This reminds me if some Filipino business owners decide to blame FDIs for their bad performance--it's a sore loser mentality. It's always easier to blame someone successful for your failure, isn't it? After all, businesses run on innovation and proper implementation. There are many factors why businesses fail or succeed. Knowing the target market is one. In businesses, we have the PESTLE analysis. PESTLE examines the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, and Economic factors. 

I would like to raise an example of when a Zamboanga-ran halal restaurant crashed downtown. I can't be sure why they closed. It might have to do something with their poor sanitation and the City Health sacking them. It caused me to write about why Filipino halal restaurant owners can't blame the Arabs for their losses. I remember showing the photos of the kitchen set-up to the employees working with for Arabs. The employees working for the Arabs said that if their boss ran the place--such filthy practices wouldn't be tolerated! Can the Zamboanganeous who ran the halal restaurant that closed, blame the likes of Persian Palate, Hussam Middle Eastern Cuisine, and Shawarma Gourmet for why their business didn't do well? Why would diners, Muslim or not, want to eat in a place with bad maintenance. Filipino halal restaurant owners should take care to give quality care and innovate. 

For those who claim that Jollibee did well because of protectionism--the Philippines still has some foreign investment. Jollibee had to face off against McDonald's. Now, Jollibee is the second-fastest growing brand (read here). Jollibee had to face off against the giant McDonald's. In an experience, the late John Gokongwei Jr. even stated a proverb from his maternal grandfather. This proverb was what's a giant, started small. The same can be said for Jollibee's humble beginnings, before it became an MNC, on its own. Right now, I'm not surprised that some sore-loser Filipinos, are calling Filipino billionaires, menaces to society. They still believe in obsolete ideals like saying that the workers should own the means of production. Never mind that the profits belong to the owner, the salary paid belongs to the employees. It's probably because they think profits are the sales for the day. However, accounting dictates that profits are what's left after all expenses are deducted from the sales. 

Filipino businesses have two paths that they can take. Either they can take advantage of FDIs or refuse to evolve. Some of these businesses might belong to those who let their past success blind them (read here). Can Nokia blame Samsung, Apple, and Sony when it lost its shares? It was because Nokia refused to innovate for a long time. Now, Nokia may have to come up with something bigger to regain its market shares like in the past. Tealive in Malaysia faced off against a lot of competitors. Did that stop Tealive from growing in Southeast Asia? Bo's Coffee Club faces off against a lot of coffee shops daily. However, I still see Bo's Coffee Club growing strong Filipino businesses that could start to think of FDIs more as opportunities than threats. Just think that they could've used Foodpanda and Grab services to help do their deliveries. They could use other foreign services to improve their quality. They could use FDIs as their next possible customers. Instead, some Filipinos are still stuck with the myth that only FDIs will get rich (read here). Once again, the best thing to ask them is, "How do you definie profit?" 

Instead of playing the zero-sum game--one should think of the win-sum game. Who says that FDIs will automatically kill Filipino businesses is dreaming. That person should go renowned schools in ASEAN such as the National University of Singapore (NUS) or the University of Economics-Ho Chi Minh City (UEH). 

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