Giving up on our tomorrow

There’s that little girl tapping on your car window trying to sell you a string of sampaguitas. Look into her eyes and buy some. Feel sad that children like her have no future. And because a country’s future depends on its children, feel sad for the country as well.

My colleague Peter Wallace sums up the situation using relevant statistics that tell our sad story:

“Thirty years ago, Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was $285.95, ours was $1,094.54. Today, it’s reversed. Vietnam has multiplied that by 14 to reach $4,086.52; we have struggled to grow by a miserable three times to $3,623.59. Had we grown 14 times like Vietnam, as we could have, we would be way up there in the middle-income countries at $15,300 GDP per capita. Vietnam attracted $36.6 billion in foreign direct investments last year; a measly $5.88 billion for us.

“One reason: education. Vietnam has a well-educated workforce. We don’t. We rank at the bottom of the scale on almost everything. We do in great part, but not only, because we don’t have enough highly educated people. Not even sufficiently educated people.”

I recall that our public school system was not that bad. My father, who became a physician and professor of medicine, studied in a public school until he took his college at the University of the Philippines. Our medical school graduates competed well with the best in the US up to the early 70s. My eldest sister completed her specialty training at Yale Medical School and had her career with the best at the US National Institutes of Health. My father’s students and the peers of my sister easily passed the test given by the Educational Council for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). I am told that is no longer the case now.

In my 70 plus years, I have witnessed the deterioration in our country’s governance, not just in education. With some possible exceptions, we have elected the worst leaders as presidents.

Some, campaigning as “poor boys” left office obviously rich.

Only Ramon Magsaysay didn’t get rich. He died in office and left his family homeless. His friends had to pass the hat to get his family a decent home. He reimbursed the government even for the merienda of his children’s friends who visited them at Malacañang. He was one of a kind.

We have been talking about attracting foreign investments for quite a long while now. We blame the restrictive provisions of the 1987 Constitution for our lack of attractiveness. That’s true to a point. But the more telling reason why any reasonable foreign investor will stay away from us is our absolutely horrible politics that makes them see us as high political risk.

Corruption is a big problem but it is also present in our neighbors who are progressing nicely. As a journalist, I kept hearing from potential investors that our corrupt politicians, after taking the money, want more… free shares in the business or they won’t stay bought. I am told that in other countries, the politicians deliver and are not as greedy as ours.

I have also lived through the late Marcos era when our Central Bank was caught cooking its books and we defaulted on our foreign debts. The Saudis wouldn’t even load our Very Large Crude Carrier or VLCC at Ras Tanura port unless we paid in cash for the two million barrels. We used to get 60 days credit. Our debt default gave us a bad reputation that was difficult to erase and potential investors stayed away.

The EDSA People Power revolution started to redeem our reputation but Gringo and his mutineers launched so many coup d’etats that made us look like a banana republic, and investors stayed away.

Corruption and incompetence messed up the power industry so the country was plagued by power failures. When the problem was fixed, we had the highest power rates in the region. What investor will want that?

So, there are many reasons why FDIs avoid us and we have to fix things one by one.

Economist Gerry Sicat once cited a portion of Jose Rizal’s essay on “The Indolence of the Filipinos.” Apparently, we inherited a lot of bad habits from the Spanish colonial rulers that proved sticky after over a hundred years.

“The great difficulty that every enterprise encountered in dealing with the Administration contributed not a little to kill off all commercial and industrial movement.

“All the Filipinos and all those in the Philippines who have wished to engage in business know how many documents, how many comings and goings, how many stamped papers and how much patience are necessary to secure from the government a permit for an enterprise.

“One must count on the goodwill of this one, on the influence of that one, on a good bribe to another so that he would not pigeon-hole that application, a gift to the one further on so that he may pass it on to his chief. One must pray to God to give him good humor and time to look it over; to give another enough talent to see its expediency; to one further away sufficient stupidity not to scent a revolutionary purpose behind the enterprise… And above all, much patience, a great knowledge of how to get along, plenty of money, much politics, many bows, complete resignation!

“…The most commercial and most industrious countries have been the freest countries. France, England, and the United States prove this. Hong Kong, which is not worth the most insignificant island of the Philippines, has more commercial activity than all our islands put together because it is free and well-governed.” (Jose Rizal, Political and Historical Writings, vol. VII, Centennial Edition, National Historical Commission, 1961, pp. 249-250.)

Ganun na pala tayo noon, 134 years ago. Ganun pa rin tayo ngayon.

Sicat: “Bad politics, corruption, rent-seeking infect the country’s policy-making process. Reforms are needed to tame the problems.”

But I don’t see anyone in power today who is ready to give up the perks of corruption. That’s why it is easy to give up on our future.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco