'Opening up' RP

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

11/23/2012

Daily Tribune

There's a foreign business consultant cum commentator in the Inquirer pressing for constitutional change for unmitigated "opening up" to foreign investors. But aren't foreign investors already welcome? However, like all other countries in Asia, limits are imposed to keep nationals in control, except in sectors where locals have no competence, inclination or capital to venture in. That's only fair. The Filipino Internet's social network also has rabid activists for radical opening up to foreign capital as a way to fight the local oligarchs' abusive business monopolies, but they "miss" the similarity of that "foreign capital" with local Big Capitalists and have created economic crises in their own lands such as the US and Europe. There is another way for Philippine growth: the State ending foreign debt, and releasing available domestic capital and credit for collective or individual Filipino enterprises.

The country already has significant surplus in foreign exchange holdings relative to its foreign debt, and P1.8 trillion in savings from overseas Filipino workers, export and BPO sectors held in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) paying four percent to keep in its vaults. This capital is ready and waiting to fund large, medium and small scale enterprises. However, if these trillions of pesos were used only for consumption, horrendous inflation would ensue. These billions should be used for productive agriculture and manufacturing enterprises which would necessarily compete and substitute for goods imported today today — local dairy, shoes, clothes, steel, machinery, ad infinitum. That would be very good for the economy. This was this nation's dream in the 50's, 60's and 70's, dreams set aside during the 80's globalization that continues to be the doctrine of this country's economic planner today.

There is no lack of domestic capital, only the lack of political will to carve an independent and productive national economy reminiscent of the dreams of our economic nationalist leaders from the likes of Mike Cuaderno during the Filipino First policy era, while industrialists like Ysmael and Delgado starting on the road to manufacturing local appliances and transport vehicles, nationalist ideologues like Hilarion Henares and Alejandro Lichauco were recruited by Congress to plan the industrialization of the nation. This is the paradigm that all wealthy Asian nations followed to success, from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and, now China which weathers the global economic and financial "perfect storms" by tweaking it policies toward domestic pump priming and economic development. We have trillions of pesos now ready to pave the road to this type of success.

The foreigner inveigles Filipinos with arguments such as, "The dream of many Filipinos is to gain a foreign education to add to what they've learnt here… going to Harvard, but the cost is prohibitive. Why not bring Harvard here?" Do Filipinos really need or want Harvard education? Harvard graduates in the US are hard put to find jobs and can't pay their student loans. Did Henry Sy Sr. or Lucio Tan, or for that matter many successful businessmen siblings and thousands of successful Filipino and Tsinoy entrepreneurs go to Harvard? I can say with certainty that 99.99 percent of them never did go nor needed to go to Harvard. Maybe if one wants to be an atsoy of a Western multinational that would be necessary. In the age of the Internet, what can be learned in Harvard can be picked up over the Internet; besides, the best schools in the world's list of top universities are already in Asia.

The foreign commentator added, "In 1935, there was rudimentary AM radio, negligible commercial air travel, cars that could reach 100 kph if they struggled hard enough. TV was unheard of … Fifteen years ago, we didn't have cell phones; today, we can't leave the house without them. Imagine if the Constitution had banned mobile communications in the name of protecting national security. (But even North Korea has cellphones!) Today, I can turn on the TV and CNN is right there in my living room. It doesn't need a transmitter here… so why not let it have one if it wants? "But if they're in already, what's their need to have a transmitter here? If they're already in, what's the need for "opening up?" Inane logic! He is saying Filipinos would still be "Monkeys in trees" if the White Man like him hadn't come. He should be kicked out and returned to his land of "bandits, rogues and garbage" thrown out by England.

It is the colonial mentality of some Filipinos, even Big Business Filipinos who are nothing more than compradors and domestic gents of transnationals, that this foreign commentator faces regularly (such as in the Makati Business Club) and thinks these represent Filipinos in general. Those Filipinos may be in pinstriped suits and ride around in chauffeured Mercedes Benzes but they don't represent the vast number of independently employed and productive Filipinos, from tobacco farmers to self-made industrialist, who have no patience for condescending foreign parasites preying on the Philippines.

(Watch GNN's HTL show, GNN Channel 8, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., 11:15 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m., and over www.gnntv-asia.com: "Comelec-Smartmatic 2010 Fraud" with lawyer Bono Adaza, Toti Casino and Ado Paglinawan; tune to 1098AM radio Tuesday to Friday 5 to 6 p.m. http://newkatipunan.blogspot.com)