Shaun T. Dy's Business & Economics Perspective Blog

Whoever made this meme is laughable! It's really laughable at the extent people will defend the Filipino First Policy. Some people even make the late Carlos P. Garcia some kind of hero (and he's buried at the Libigan Ng Mga Bayani, translated as Heroes' Graveyard). Eventually, the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. was laid beside him in that same graveyard. Not exactly ironic if you think that Marcos Sr. himself used economic protectionism as part of his policies.  The  UP School of Economics   states that the first Marcos Administration was heavily protectionist . Under the second Marcos Administration under Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.--the talk for economic charter change is there. It gets clouded with talks about how economic charter change means giving the Philippines to China (and the same gossip is said to federalism, and China is a unitary state ), doing Ad Hominem attacks on Senator Robinhood Padilla (read here ), and saying that it will just allow POGO, Chinese spies, and F

I can't be sure if Alice Leal Guo (if that's ever her real name) is either a spy for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or a criminal hiding from Chinese justice. As much as I'm now wary of the Philippines doing business with the CCP-- I believe that the POGO operations are actually run by Chinese criminals hiding from the CCP. The CCP isn't just notorious for its brutal policies on its citizens but also for crime . Do drug dealing in China and you may face the same fate as the three Filipino drug mules last 2011 . In my own speculation , Alice is actually an illegal migrant hiding from the long arms of the CCP. Either way, she's getting very suspicious. My stand will always be if a Filipino does wrong abroad--the law of that country will deal with that Filipino. The same applies to any foreigner who breaks the law in the Philippines--the Philippine law will deal with that foreigner.  However, it's no surprise some people take advantage of the Alice Leal Guo issu

ResearchGate August 22 is the birthday of the great economic reformer, the late Deng Xiaoping. Previously, I wrote about how the Philippines will never get richer by blaming its richer ASEAN neighbors . I decided to write this piece since some SJWs who associate with Communism tend to blame the rich . He was also the author of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Instead of rich-shaming, he said what might be a very difficult pill to swallow by SJWs, "Poverty isn't socialism. To be rich is glorious."  It's very easy to blame others, right? One of the follow-ups I wrote was how blaming the rich will never improve your situation . It's very easy to keep saying, "It's the fault of the rich that we are poor." It's the kind of reaction that I got in college after I told them something stinging like, "Your financial habits make you poor." I also said, "Do you ever wonder why, we, as a country don't improve?" Back then, I was

I wanted to write more about Chinese education. I did write about the constraints that hit Chinese education . I had problems with how too much memorization became the focus. With Chinese, there's also the world of reversible words which change in meaning . In English, we can compare that to the anagram where switching letters change the meaning . For example, evil and vile may be synonymous but live and evil aren't. In Chinese, we can have two characters getting swapped which may either change the meaning entirely or change to a related meaning. Remember that they may be related but they don't have the same meaning. I could remember how the Hokkien calls visitors lang ke and while we called the customer ke lang. Both are people but both have a different purpose. I got into the LTL Mandarin School website and found reversible Chinese words. I won't tackle it all here because 164 words would mean I'll have to write an entire lecture. I think one of the biggest probl

I wrote about how I believe pinyin will bridge the gap in Mandarin learning  and how pinyin helped secure business permits . I think a new challenge that some may face is learning pinyin through the 23 consonants and 24 vowels method. Back in college, I took Mandarin as my required foreign language (FOLA) elective. It was my attempt to find out what went wrong with Chinese language classes in Chinese schools. Zhuyin was used for too long (read here )   and isn't the ideal bridge between Mandarin and non-Mandarin speakers. Meanwhile, romanizing on your own without learning the pinyin gives the wrong reading. It's like how nobody should Sh in the place of X. I could talk about learning using the 23 vowels and 24 consonants method. The early stages of teaching pinyin followed the bopomofo method. The Chinese language teacher in college didn't use the 23 consonants-24 vowels method. Instead, we had the pinyin arranged using the bopomofo method. It was simply to translate all th

As summer hits, it's normal for me to want a cup of cold tea. One of the many things that could revive interest in Mandarin learning is not just Mandarin shows resurging on paid digital subscriptions. It's the rise of Taiwanese MNCs around the world. In my case, as a coffee and tea person, Taiwanese tea shops are practically my alternative to coffee shops, even if both tend to cost just as much (read why here ). After Chatime, I'm going to use Yi Fang Taiwan Fruit Tea. You can see the use of Pinyin, English, and Chinese calligraphy. Taiwan may still teach zhuyin as part of its tradition. However, I believe that Pinyin is truly the bridge between Chinese speakers and non-Chinese speakers in this Asian century (read here ). I may have my criticism about the lack of tones in the Yi Fang. However, I could really appreciate how the use of Pinyin makes it easier to get a business permit. I find it stupid how we were still using zhuyin over pinyin to learn phonetics. These days, I

The Epoch Times As talks about the need for more economic freedom in the Philippines is on, some people are still saying that, "No, we need 60-40!" Well, one might need to view the film Mao's Last Dancer (or read the book written by the author himself, Li Cunxin) to understand a Chinese man's travel to the United States of America (USA). Li himself was the sixth son of a family of seven. Having been born in 1961, he would've passed through the harsh regime of Mao Zedong. Mao ruled China until his death in 1976 which soon paved for Deng Xiaoping's takeover. Before Deng took over, Mao was succeeded by Hua Guofeng who was soon replaced by Deng. Deng understood economics upon his trip to America. The focus of the film (and the book) is Li, a dancer, who was selected at a very young age. Communism likes starting their cadets young, right? They were selected by the ruthless Madame Mao, Mao's final wife before he finally succumbed to death. Madame Mao's recor

I just read from the Inquirer that House Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan wants to encourage the learning of Mandarin . Sadly, the article also says the following regarding Libanan's aim of wanting to learn Mandarin: “ If we are going to continue to rely on the export of labor to help drive our economic growth, we might as well equip our future workers with Mandarin and other foreign language skills to further build up their competitiveness, ” Libanan said on Sunday. Libanan, the representative of Pagtibayin at Palaguin ang Pangkabuhayang Pilipino (4Ps) party list, noted: “In foreign labor markets, we already have the edge because our workers can speak English. We should now aspire to double that advantage by encouraging more Filipinos to learn Mandarin at an early age.” This reminds me what we can't keep relying on what I call the labor export policy. I even wrote an article addressing the destructive obsession with OFW remittances . Sadly, the lawmaker may still be focused o

Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines It's Chinese New Year's Eve tomorrow and this is an essay I felt like writing before the festivities begin. I did write about how Taiwan bested China back then during the time of Mao Zedong . Mao was running his planned utopia via protectionism and it failed miserably . The Great Leap Forward was nothing more than a spectacular failure. Deng Xiaoping had to learn from Singapore in order to bring China forward. I'm afraid that China is going backward at the cost of the Chinese citizens. I don't blame all the Chinese citizens but their government for any tensions. Meanwhile, Taiwan, according to The Heritage Foundation has a score of 80.1% in terms of economic freedom . It's noted as follows: Taiwan’s economic freedom score is 80.1, making its economy the 6th freest in the 2022 Index. Taiwan is ranked 3rd among 39 countries in the Asia–Pacific region, and its overall score is above the regional and world averages