Business & Economics Perspective Blogger

Foreign Trade University It's time for another Jollibee-related post. I first wrote an article about Jollibee's success in the world market in 2022 . I "followed up" the post I just shared with an article talking about hypocritically rejoing that Jollibee is rising worldwide, while still opposing FDI . My recent focus has been on Jollibee World's success in Vietnam . I'd like to share an excerpt from this ABS-CBN News report by Arthur Fuentes: Since debuting in Ho Chi Minh City in 2005, the chain has expanded to over 250 outlets across 50 provinces. Jollibee said its strategy has relied on "local relevance," tailoring its flagship fried chicken and spaghetti to Vietnamese palates while aggressively targeting the youth demographic .  “ Vietnam is a highly dynamic and competitive market, and our progress reflects our focus on understanding local consumers and executing well on the fundamentals ,” said Ernesto Tanmantiong, Global President and CEO of J...

Foreign Trade University The Lunar New Year isn't just celebrated by the Chinese. Chinese New Year is one form of the Chinese New Year. Other forms of Lunar New Year follow   the Chinese New Year cycle, such as the Tết Nguyên Đán of Vietnam, the Japanese Lunar New Year, and the Seollal in South Korea. There's also the Tibetan New Year and the Mongolian New Year. I remember when talking about Vietnam celebrating the Lunar New Year together with the Chinese, my fellow Chinoy made the squity-eyed gesture to talk about most Vietnamese looking like Chinese. Should we even be surprised that there's a Vietnamese student who looks like the deposed Alice Guo, aka Guo Hua Ping?  What was the Tet Offensive about? Right now, I want to talk about the infamous Tet Offensive , which was a Lunar New Year attack of January 31, 1968. The Western concept would prefer to talk about it on January 31 instead of the Lunar New Year. A Filipino would probably say, "So what if it was Lunar Ne...

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, sp...

Cổng thông tin Trung ương Đoàn TNCS Hồ Chí Minh A few days ago, I wrote about warning Filipinos that they shouldn't wait for more unmitigated typhoon disasters, before realizing that the Filipino First Policy isn't working ! There's a statement that says, "Just because being tanga (inattentive) is libre (free), doesn't mean you should be tanga!"  Analyzing the different policies: why policies  matter I found a Business World article, written by Cesar Polvorosa, Jr., on my Facebook news feed discussing the Vietnamese economy . In fact, it would be better to share some hard truths that the article offers about what really went wrong with the  democratic Philippines compared to Communist Vietnam : DIVERGENT ECONOMIC MODELS  Vietnam pursued an export-oriented manufacturing strategy which has proven significantly more successful over the past half century than the Philippines’ service-heavy, remittances-dependent model . Export performance alone tells a compel...

Vietnam Youth Union It's been 80 years since Vietnam achieved its independence in 1945. Some time ago, I wrote about how Vietnam's Doi Moi actually disproves the Trust Me Bro School of Economics . I wasn't too accustomed to researching Vietnam's ironic economic miracle . Vietnam is a one-party state ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam. The word Communism would evoke fear and terror. What I find funny is that some people are using Vietnam as an excuse not to open up the Philippine economy (read here ). Such misinformed  people think that Vietnam "won this revolution," supposedly self-industrialized from its own treasury before opening up to FDI. In short, some people either believe that (1) Vietnam is an example of how a highly protectionist economy works, or (2) that Vietnam made itself rich before opening to FDI. Both of them are lies. I'll focus on the second point for this new blog post!  Right now, some people say that I'm just another marites...