How were we left behind?

JINAN, Shandong – How would you like to travel from Manila to Laoag, or to Legaspi in three hours? Well, we did something like that last Monday when we took China’s version of the bullet train from Shanghai to Qufu, the birthplace and home town of the esteemed Chinese philosopher Confucius. We took the 900 or so kilometers in about three hours at a top speed of 308 kilometers per hour.

Last Tuesday, we took the bullet train again from Qufu to Jinan, a road trip of at least two hours in just about half an hour. I understand the Chinese bullet train can go at higher speeds, but we had to make a few stops along the way. The ride was so smooth it could be giving the airlines here a run for their passengers.

To go with the new bullet trains, they have built spanking new train stations with very modern design. The stations are built larger than they need on ordinary days but I am told these big stations are crowded to the brim on the days around Chinese New Year and October 1 National Day. If only they had better maintenance of the restrooms, I would have been really impressed.

There were three political science professors in the group of family and friends invited by Carlos Chan of Oishi on this China trip. So I couldn’t help asking the inevitable question, how were we left behind? All these developments from impressive road infrastructure, airports, train stations and bullet trains happened only in the last 20 years. What did we do so wrong during that time to be left behind so badly not just by China but by our principal ASEAN neighbors?

One of the political scientists, a professor at UP, told me that blame could be laid on the doorstep of our local elite. What we have in the Philippines, she explained, is a social elite that’s stronger than our national government. Indeed, the same social elite controls our politics from the top down and all they are interested in is preserving their powers and milking the country dry.

Let us not even talk about China. It had its Confucian ethics working double time as soon as government stopped central economic planning and unleashed the native entrepreneurial talents of the Chinese people.

Let us take Thailand, a country that was our virtual twin in terms of population and economic size 20 years or so ago. The UP professor surmised that one key difference is Thailand’s reliable and professional bureaucracy. Coups my come and go but the Thai bureaucracy keeps things running. In our case, our bureaucracy is badly politicized that it can’t think longer than the time frame leading to the next election.

So will a change to a parliamentary system make any positive difference, I asked?  No, she said, it may even just strengthen the hold of local political dynasties. A parliamentary system will just give us an enlarged version of the current House of Representatives.

Of course the issue is more complicated but what this UP political scientist is saying is what I have suspected for a while. We need to break the hold of the political elite and the economic  oligarchy if we are to keep up with the tigers in our part of the world. Regulatory capture and rent seeking are destroying our country’s present and future.

But how can change happen with our thin middle class? Perhaps, as more Filipinos work abroad, getting exposed to how things ought to be done and as they become more financially independent and politically mature, change could happen.

In the meantime, every time we travel and get exposed to the pace of progress in the countries we visit, we can only sigh and feel a sense of envy and loss. Dave Balangue, former chairman of SGV who is part of this group I am traveling with now relates how he saw South Korea overtake us during his eight year assignment in Seoul. Sayang, is the only word that comes to mind after listening to Dave’s story.

Last Wednesday, I related the story of one of the local staff of Oishi in Shanghai who said he visited Manila for the first time in 1988 and was so awed by the Ayala Avenue skyline and the fact that we had all those large modern malls. Shanghai didn’t even have a supermarket at that time. Indeed, Mr Chan related that when he brought some Chinese officials to Manila, they were amazed to see the row of cashiers in one of our bigger supermarkets. But look at them now!

What is happening to us is rather alarming and we shouldn’t stand for it anymore. How can I even dare think of a Philippine bullet train to Ilocos and Bicol from Manila when we have a DOTC that can’t even put up FOUR lousy kilometers extension to the existing LRT 2 before June 30, 2016. Indeed, it can’t even run the MRT 3 properly and safely.

We should stop feeling sorry for ourselves and stop accepting the inevitability of a NAIA that shames us no end as the world’s worst airport. Indeed, that alleged 9000 percent overprice for a sterilizing equipment at Ospital ng Makati should get us really mad. I realize patience is a virtue, but our patience has been abused for so long.

Seeing what could be done by a competent government means we have been victimized all these years. Corruption is not an excuse to explain why we were left behind. Corruption is a problem in China too and the Minister of Railways responsible for a lot of the progress in China’s railway system was punished for corruption.

But two things are going on now in China that I wish are going on back home. First is the feverish delivery of infrastructure, the catalyst that made China’s remarkable progress possible. Second is a no nonsense punishment of corrupt officials now being courageously done by its President, Xi Jingping. Those two things can happen at the same time...must happen at the same time.

I put the blame for our economic retardation on our presidents over the past 20 years. Marcos must also bear a lot of blame, but when his successors allowed our country to fall by the wayside over the last 20 years, they are responsible for this debacle. No explanation can be valid because they will sound hollow in the light of our neighbors accomplishments over the same period. We, the people, through our passivity and patience bear part of the blame too.

We ought to get serious about development. We simply can’t go on like this indefinitely because it condemns at least half of our hundred million people to poverty. Those in power have the moral obligation to see this change happen. The rest of us have the duty to make sure our leaders make this change happen. Tomorrow is even too late.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco