In review and in prospect
The trouble with the Philippines’ political discourse today is that it is hopelessly partisan. As a result, there is no energy channeled into mapping a way forward for the Philippines. Instead, much of the talk is around discrediting one another. Whilst there is a small niche within the social media chatter that appreciates and rewards the soundness of arguments (and even the wit with which these are presented), much of the rest mainly revolves around nitpicking on little faux pas made on a day-to-day basis by a who’s-who of influentials.
The problem with this sort of chatter is that nothing gets resolved (because both sides are adamant in the arbitrary righteousness of their positions) and no way forward is proposed. No surprise there as much of the quality of the chatter today simply mirrors that of the past several decades.
At some point one just needs to step out of the fray and regard all the noise from an outsider’s perspective. When one does that, one is able to boil the Philippines’ problems down to just a handful of things that its society and decision makers need to focus on. It really just all comes down to three fundamental challenges that Filipinos have consistently failed to step up towards creating capability to achieve…
(1) Create and raise capital indigenously.
(2) Abide by the law.
(3) Think critically.
When we consider our elegantly simple and original definition of poverty, it suddenly all makes sense:
Poverty is a habitual entering into commitments one is inherently incapable of honouring.
In short, the Philippines remains wretchedly impoverished because it is held to commitments (e.g. growing population, mounting consumerism, debt-funded investments in infrastructure, etc.) that require a capability to raise capital indigenously, abide by the law, and think critically to honour in the long-term. Having failed to develop these capabilities since “independence” in 1946, the results are not surprising. The commitments are maturing and coming due, but the capability is not up to scratch to pay up.
For a society to develop into a modern and prosperous one requires that these fundamental capabilities be in place in order to mitigate the risk inherent in putting capital to work. Indeed, if we examine the histories of the economic development of the world’s great nations, the above three would be the common denominators at work. Closer to home, the late Singapore leader Lee Kuan Yew focused on just these three things for the most part of his half-century effort to leading his country to greatness.
From what we have seen so far, the Philippine National “Debate” has also failed to come up with a roadmap along these lines simply because the quality of the discourse has never elevated to a level that tackles these fundamental challenges. Perhaps it is because, in a society of small minds, the topic of choice is always people rather than ideas. Small wonder that the Philippines remains doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again.
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Great read as always! Would like to point out that the first and third points are a miscegenation at its philosophical core: to create and raise capital indigenous to Filipinos involves thinking critically, something Filipinos inherently lack.
One might assume that all the Western-fed information the Philippines daily consume will transcend Filipinos into sentient beings, one capable of deductive autonomy. At 2024, with nepotism still at the forefront of everything Filipinos do, one can't help but beg to differ.