Filipino First Education Created the Fixed Mindset Over Growth Mindset Mentality

Tomorrow is Bonifacio Day. It's effortless to say that Filipino First Policy works. I wouldn't be surprised if Andres Bonifacio gets used as a poster boy. However, Bonifacio worked for British and German investors. I'd like to talk about how decades of Filipino First Policy compromised our education system. Some idiot on Facebook said which I'll paraphrase to avoid getting personal. The idiot said, "If you let foreigners invest here, can Filipinos afford it?" The same idiot also scorns the law of supply and demand (read my post discussing why that's plain silly here). People who believe in #SahodItaasPresyoIbaba must first prove it works by opening such stores nationwide, to show that the Philippines doesn't need FDI to succeed (read here). Of course, I can expect them to say "It's the government's responsibility to raise salaries without raising the prices of goods." That's just plain bad accounting and finance too!

Andrew James Masigan, by no means a DDS or Marcos loyalist (and he's a supporter of Atty. Maria Leonor "Leni" Gerona-Robredo), writes this scathing truth at Business World:

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.

If I'm to fire a rebuttal at #PunchTheLies on Facebook--I'd like to state that even if I'm no lawyer, I don't need to be a lawyer to understand how 60-40 arrangement discourages FDIs from entering (read here). People who keep insisting on the profits may have no understanding what profit really means (read here). Who in the right mind would want to do business, only to part with 60% of their net profits after taxes with a local partner? It should be laughable if these people also quote the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)--as if Catholicism isn't a multinational organization!

Masigan, again, a supporter of Mrs. Robredo, highlights the problem. Masigan's statement shows that the problems of monopolies. The result is that a lack of competition creates a lack of supply. It's common sense that supply and demand control prices. Local rice is more expensive during non-harvest season than during the harvest season. One doesn't need to get a doctorate from the University of the Philippines or Ateneo De Manila to understand it! Non-harvest season means less supply and the demand drives the prices up. People selling at a scarcity need to sell at a higher price to survive. The same goes for education--there are too few schools and too many Filipinos needing education!

I need to mention the problem of teaching Filipino First Policy in schools (read here). Unfortunately, Carlos P. Garcia's idealism only led to future failure. The Filipino First Policy was also used by the first Marcos Administration in the 1970s. If there's another good reason why the Marcos Years weren't the golden years--thank economic protectionism! Emmanuel S. De Dios of the UP School of Economics states that the Marcos Years were protectionist:

The reason for the dismal performance under martial law is well understood. The economy suffered its worst post-war recession under the Marcos regime because of the huge debt hole it had dug, from which it could not get out. In fact, all of the “good times” the admirers of the regime fondly remember were built on a flimsy sand-mountain of debt that began to erode from around 1982, collapsing completely in 1984-1985 when the country could no longer pay its obligations, precipitating a debt crisis, loss of livelihood, extreme poverty, and ushering in two lost decades of development.

The economy’s record under Marcos is identical to that of a person who lives it up on credit briefly, becomes bankrupt, and then descends into extreme hardship indefinitely. It would then be foolish to say that person managed his affairs marvelously, citing as evidence the opulent lifestyle he enjoyed before the bankruptcy. But that is exactly what admirers of the Marcos regime are wont to do.

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. 

The results are still here today. Marcos has died and sadly, people choose to still wish the Marcos Years never happened. Marcos has been too dead to cause any more trouble to the Philippines (read here)! People should've been focusing on how to replenish the treasuries of the Philippines instead of obsessing about the Marcos Wealth. Even if President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. should restore all that wealth to the treasury--will there be new jobs and manufacturing born out of it? It's stupid how schools keep discussing the well-documented human rights abuses but hardly the economic policies that helped worsen such records. Even worse, some anti-Marcos idiots (such as the now-diminished Philippine Anti-Fascist League or PAFL) continue to badmouth Marcos as if he's still around. If people focused on fixing economic policies--the Philippines would've produced wealth that will surpass the Marcos Wealth!

The results of teaching Filipino First Policy in schools haven't been flattering either

It's already bad enough that I used to be bullied for my ethnic Chinese identity. Okay, not all my huan-a classmates (a term used to describe non-Chinese in Southeast Asia or non-Chinese Filipinos) are like that. I'd probably blame those quarrels on what's often called "binata" or childish misbehavior in Cebuano. Years later, some of these same people apologized for their foolish talk. As my mother would say, "You people were still children at that time." Imagine badmouthing Chinese Filipinos while liking Jollibee? I guess the person finally found out that Jollibee was owned by a Chinese Filipino! If I'm not wrong, the Filipino architect, the late Leandro Locsin, was also a Chinese Filipino! That's still Filipino, by the way! I would refer to myself these days as a Chinese Filipino or just Filipino!

Teaching Pinoy Pride or the Filipino First Policy only created a fixed mindset. I guess that's why I'm now getting skeptical over honor students and cum laude graduates. It would be something when a cum laude student berates the education system's caring more about grades than learning. Fortunately, I know a cum laude who criticized the education system as badly needed. I wouldn't name him out to protect his private life. The problem with the Filipino First Policy is that it severely compromises practical knowledge.

Let's take mathematical education as an example. I confess I used to hate mathematics in high school. Mathematics can't be taught right even with a good teacher. We need to get this straight mathematics is hated. Mathematics can be that hated in school, because of the grades over learning approach (read here). The Philippines' poor mathematics comprehension can't be blamed on the Filipino DNA. Instead, blame it on the education system. The Philippines could've adopted the Chinese method of learning mathematics (read here). Instead, people tend to believe, "I'll never be good at mathematics!" I had a pessimistic view of mathematics, even swearing to blame if I would never graduate high school. I barely passed high school! I even remember a lot of useless fights I got into because of how often I hated mathematics, even refusing help from people who were good at it. What do you expect when grades over learning are practiced for decades? Filipino First Policy has severely compromised mathematics education--by refusing to learn how countries doing better, teach mathematics better because of a better system. Please, we can't keep waiting for better mathematics teachers! 

But it's not just mathematics but also sciences. One can keep bragging about Filipino scientists. Can Filipinos truly know more about science than just classroom science? I had good science teachers in high school. Sadly, both science teachers can't do better because of the bad education system. My other science teacher would always scold me when I screw up, she often cooperated with my Miriam Defensor-Santiago style teacher to straighten me up, and I still owe her a lot today! Sadly, no matter how good my science teacher was, she was held back by a lousy system. Can science truly be engaging and learned when too much time is spent with lectures. How can Filipino public schools afford better science laboratories if there's not enough public funding? Even worse, overly high taxes would encourage tax evasion rather than discourage it. People buy pirated software if they can't afford the original. Why do you think piracy is that hard to combat in the Philippines (read here)? 

I may have been bad at classroom mathematics and science. However, it doesn't mean that I couldn't learn to love them later in life. At times, I would "eat math and science" for breakfast, lunch, and dinner figuratively speaking. I don't feel the pressure like I used to in high school. For one, I can watch science and mathematics videos without thinking about the exam. I can set aside petty high school rivalries especially since some of my former petty rivals are no longer in the academic setting. I can now shake hands with people I used to hate because they're better at mathematics than I am. After all, we're no longer in the classroom setting. I've got my degree and they've got theirs. I may have not gotten my dream course, well I wasn't meant for it. However, I decided to invest in IT stocks via a feeder fund later on. Of course, I'd rather be quiet about my personal savings since I'm a private citizen too!

Even worse, I would address that schools hardly or even never teach you how to invest. What's the use of having a Finance class if one isn't taught about investing in the stock market legitimately and not through day trading? I wish they taught us how to invest in equity through the index fund. When did I learn how to invest? Not during my undergraduate or postgraduate days. I learned to invest it by reading Warren Buffett's simple investment strategy. Jeff Bezos even called it so simple that anyone can do it! I avoided the stock market because of stock market horror stories. It turns out that I could avoid them if I practice strategies like being greedy when others are fearful, being fearful when others are greedy, buying stocks when the stock market is bloody red, not investing too much, not engaging in day trading (which is a speculative orgy), and to do research before investing. Some people expect to get rich quick fast--resulting in losses. I got financial losses due to trying to get rich quick fast before. Until now, I never recovered that money. Many people fell for that scam because of financial ignorance. I believe that Filipino First Policy, caused schools to lack the initiative to teach financial literacy!

Let's face the truth that pride never accepts the truth when it's inconvenient. Filipino First Policy teaches Pinoy Pride--that is trying to have a Pinoy-centric view of the world. It's so sad really, that kind of mindset killed any potential for the Philippines to improve. Why are some people still hating the late Lee Kuan Yew, calling him a dictator? Is it because of sentimentality over Flor Contemplacion, who's been dead for decades (read here)? It's an inconvenient truth that Filipinos aren't the most powerful race in the world or the best in the world. It's pride that has caused Article XVII of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines to be neglected for years. The 1987 Constitution was open to amendments or even to be replaced. However, pride made people overlook things, blindly adoring a constitution that was written in a hurry, without thinking of other stuff. Sure, it's definitely not the worst constitution but believing it to be the best is based on pride. By doing so, any room for improvement was destroyed. In turn, the Philippine education system got stuck in a fixed mindset, even until today!