The Great Reversal: Democratic Philippines Became MORE Dependent on COMMUNIST Vietnam for Rice

Bao Thanh Nien

On January 24, 2026, I read from the Philippine Star Facebook page that a vendor from Baseco, Tondo, is selling Vietnamese rice at PHP 20.00 per kilo. Honestly, it made me laugh over President Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr.'s promise. Was this rice from Vietnam a rice surplus if it wasn't premium rice? My experience with rice selling was with wholesale, and it was a very different time. What I learned in the late 2000s to 2012 may no longer be applicable today. 

Taking a look back at the history of Vietnam and the Philippines before Doi Moi

This time, I decided to go with history because a certain someone on Facebook (as always, I will not mention names as much as possible) has actually called it that the Philippines' dependency on Vietnam for rice, despite the International Rice Research Institute being actually located in Pili Drive, Los Baños, Laguna 4031, Philippines. This guy (whom I nickname Porky due to his obesity) I just mentioned, spoke out much against Foreign Direct Investment, viewing it as some kind of neocolonialism. Now, from the Philippine Star again (an article by Kristine Joy Patag, written last 2021 during the pandemic), here are the details of who founded the IRRI:

According to the IRRI website, it was founded by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. “IRRI is an independent, nonprofit, research and educational institution, founded in 1960 by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations with support from the Philippine government,” it says.

The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) also notes on its website that IRRI “became the first and flagship example of a far-reaching, RF-inspired network of research centers.”

Bongbong’s father was not yet the chief executive when IRRI was founded and built, as he only became president five years later, in 1965.

A former IRRI director general also wrote in an account that “it was not possible to get Marcos to agree to the setting up of a national rice research institute in the Philippines.”

“He thought it was IRRI’s responsibility to look after the country’s problems too, which were quite localized with so many thousand islands making up the Philippines. We had to wait till Ms. Cory Aquino became President,” the account read.

It was Ferdinand, however, who signed the executive order creating  the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in November 1985.

This is a government corporate entity under the Department of Agriculture established “to help develop high-yielding and cost-reducing technologies so farmers can produce enough rice for all Filipinos,” PhilRice said on its website.

Originally based in UP Los Baños in Laguna, PhilRice is now headquartered in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.

When one takes a look at the IRRI's board of trustees, it's not even a fully Filipino board. IRRI is practically an FDI, by definition! It was before Bongbong's father, Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., drove the Philippines into deeper trouble, not just by corruption but also through enforcing the Filipino First Policy to a much greater level. Sadly, some people are still too focused on the damage caused by the Marcos Years instead of seeking recovery.

During the 1960s, the Philippines could still be considered "freer" than Vietnam until September 21, 1972, when Marcos declared martial law. If there's any real trivia, I would share this piece of information from the Phil Biz News on how the Philippines was once the rice hub of Southeast Asia:

In the early 1960s, the Philippines was dubbed as the rice granary of the ASEAN region. Needless to say, people from Thailand and Vietnam had to come to the Philippines and learn from our venerable International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on the techniques on how they can improve the rice production. Two decades after, both of these two students of the Philippines had grown by leaps and bounds.

In the ASEAN region, Thailand tops the rice production and the world’s second largest exporter of rice.  While Vietnam follows Thailand and has high rice production in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. Half of their production is utilized by their people so they can afford to eat “unli-rice” (unlimited rice), and other half is intended for export.

With this piece of trivia, I must ask, or one must ask, "Seriously, what happened?" Again, it's easy to blame Marcos all over again, even if the person has long been dead. In reality, the Philippines has been what I'd call obsessing over democracy without realizing how important economics is to democracy. A lot of Filipinos are stuck with the narrative of the EDSA 1986 revolution, instead of evolving. For one, it's a good thing that a dictator got overthrown. However, it's another thing when people obsess too much about freedom without realizing that while democracy is good, what good is democracy if people have no jobs and nothing to eat? Sadly, the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines has been too obsessed with Pinoy Pride Economics when Article XII was placed. In return, it created the problem where Filipinos are stuck with a Filipino vs. foreigner dichotomy.

1986 Doi Moi vs. the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines explains why the role reversal happened

Nguyen Duy Cong (Do Muoi) and Lee Kuan Yew
Source: VOVworld5

It's easy for some people to gossip that Vietnam is an example of a self-industrialized country. However, if we really dig into Vietnam's history as a country, it once suffered so much under the nation. I remember buying the book From Third World to First, which is probably purposely ignored by the Flor Contemplacion crybabies, sometime after electricity was restored in Cebu City after Odette. What I thought were the statements of the great late Lee Kuan Yew and the late great Nguyen Duy Cong aka Do Muoi. I was interested in LKY's meeting with Do Muoi. In fact, these words would show that Vietnam was never self-industrialized. It would look like a betrayal when the Communist Party of Vietnam decided to take advice from LKY, even before Flor's "wrongful execution" in Singapore.

LKY spoke words that described how Vietnam was once shaken by the wrong fears. Yes, fears that people like the Makabayan Bloc keep throwing at people. On pages 309-310, we can read this about Vietnam's government, which seems to be like the Communist Party of the Philippines and its sympathizers:

The Vietnamese cunningly exploited the fears and desires of the countries of ASEAN that wanted to befriend them. They talked tough over their radio and newspapers. I found their leaders insufferable. They were filled with their own importance, and prided themselves as the Prussians of Southeast Asia. true, they had suffered, taken all the punishments that American technology had inflicted on them, and through sheer endurance plus their skillful propaganda, exploiting the American media, defeated the Americans. They were confident that they could bear any power in the world, even China, if it interfered with Vietnam. For us, the puny states of Southeast Asia, they had nothing but contempt. they declared they would establish diplomatic relations with member states of ASEAN individually, and refused to deal with ASEAN as a group. Their newspapers criticized the existence of U.S. military bases in the Philippines and Thailand and spoke collusive relations between China and Singapore.

However, as time went by, Do Muoi, who was in charge of economics under Nguyen Van Linh, learned from LKY. I found these words to be a grim warning of what if the late Jose Maria Sison actually won. Thankfully, the late Maria Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino canceled his passport. Returning to the topic, LKY gave this advice to a Communist who made Vietnam a powerhouse, as written on page 315 of his book From Third World to First:

They were still communist in many ways. Kiet was noncommittal after the discussions we held int he morning and afternoon of the first day. Immediately after these two meetings, I was taken to meet the Communist Party general secretary, Do Muoi, who had been briefed on the contents of the two discussions in the 20 minutes that elpased from my meeting with the prime minister. Kiet must have got the nod after my meeting with Do Muoi because that night, in his dinner speech, he picked up a point I had made, on which he had earlier been noncommittal, that Vietnam should not have too many international airports and seaports, but should concentrate on building one big international airport and one big international seaport so that they could be included in the world network of airports and seaports.

We discussed their loss-incurring state-owned enterprises (SOEs). They wanted to privatize them or sell them off to the workers and others. I explained that this method would not proivide them with what was critical--efficient management. Singapore Airlines was 100 percent government owned, but it was efficient and profitable because it had to compete against international airlines. We did not subsidize it; if it was not profitable, it would have to close down. I recommended that they privatize their SOEs by bringing in foreign corporations to get an injection of management expertise and foreign capital for new technology. A change in the management system was essential. They needed to work with foreigners, to learn on the job. Privatization within the country by selling to their own people could not bring about this result. 

In page 317 of From Third World to First, we can also read this one:

I (LKY, emphasis mine) reassured him (Do Muoi) that eventually, Vietnam could do better than Singapore. There was no reason why the present peace and stability should not last for a long time, for the lesson East Asia had learned from the last 40 years was that war did not pay. In two big wars, in Korea and Vietnam, and in the guerrilla war in Cambodia, there had been no victors, only victims. Do Muoi sadly agreed.

In fact, the Vietnamese had made progress. As a result of more contacts with foreigners and great information on the market economy, ministers and officials had a better understanding on the workings of the free market. Greater street activity, more shops, foreign businesspeople, hotels--these were all signs of prosperity in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. 

On another visit, in March 1995, First Deputy Prime Minister Phan Van Khai led the discussions on economic reforms. He was reputed to want to move forward faster. Our investors had run into a thicket of problems. I told Khai that if he wanted to attract investors, he must make the early ones welcome. They should be helped to succeed after they had fixed their assets on Vietnam's soil. To treat investors with fixed assets in Vietnam as captives was the surest way to drive others away. Their officials dealt with investors as they dealt with American soldiers, as enemies to be led into ambush and destroyed. Instead, investors should be treated as valuable friends who need guidance through the maze of their bureaucracy with with its landmines and other traps. 

Unfortunately, the Philippines failed to take LKY's advice. 

The big problem was that it became effortless to talk about what LKY said about Marcos, than to listen to his economic advice. LKY gave this advice that unfortunately has still been ignored, until today:

Second : Concentrate on economics not politics or more accurately, politicking . Lift restrictions on trade and investment. Dismantle the web of measures which keep out foreign companies and make Philippine companies compete to survive, not thrive at the expense of ordinary Filipinos.

Instead, such advice is often drowned with fears like calling FDI the new imperialism, that allowing MNCs to own 100% of their shares is selling the Philippines, and that only FDIs will get rich if you let them invest here. This is the real problem that Andrew J. Masigan wrote in the Philippine Star:

From the year 2000 up to the present, Vietnam and Indonesia took their fair share of FDIs, leaving the Philippines further behind. The country’s intake of foreign investments is less than half of what Vietnam and Indonesia realize. No surprise, our exports have also been the lowest among our peers. The lack of investments in manufacturing capacities have left us no choice but to export our own people.

Imbedded in the Constitution are industries in which foreigners are precluded. These include agriculture, public utilities, transportation, retail, construction, media, education, among others. Further, the Constitution limits foreigners from owning more than 40 percent equity in corporations. Foreigners are barred from owning land too. These provisions caused us to lose out on many investments which would have generated jobs, exports and taxes. Not too long ago, we lost a multibillion-dollar investment from an American auto manufacturing company that chose to invest in Thailand instead. We lost a multi-billion smartphone plant by Samsung, who located in Vietnam.

Sure, the Public Service, Foreign Investment and Trade Liberalization Acts were recently amended, allowing foreigners to participate in a wider berth of industries with less rigid conditions. But it is still not enough. The Philippines remains the least preferred investment destination among our peers.

Our flawed economic laws are the reason why our agricultural sector has not industrialized and why food security eludes us. It is also why our manufacturing sector has not fully developed. It is why we lost the opportunity to be Asia’s entertainment 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 are among the lowest in the world. It is why many industries are oligopolies owned by only a handful of families.

These are the big problems that Filipinos have been ignoring for decades. This can be linked to the rice production problem. How can you expect the Philippines to have better farming if it doesn't keep up with the times? Can we really keep expecting "national patrimony" to be the "ultimate solution"? Will Pinoy Pride Economics really help grow the crops needed to regain the Philippines' title again? The answer is really no. In fact, it's been Pinoy Pride Economics that robbed the Philippines of the title, not Vietnam. If Filipinos don't have access to better farming equipment and methods, how can you expect the Philippines to do better? More Pinoy Pride? Take note that pride comes before the fall.

The Philippines should've heeded that warning decades ago. Honestly, this makes me ask the classic question, "You complain, but you refuse to accept the solutions, then you ever wonder why the Philippines doesn't improve? What do you want? More magic?" So much for bragging about being a democracy but the democracy couldn't even improve the rice production!