On Sunday the Inquirer editorial pointed out that Americans are not only keenly interested in their upcoming presidential election, but have been for some time -far earlier than usual. The editorial says this is due to Americans eagerly looking forward to regime change.
The 2010 presidential race has also begun, for us, rather early, which also points to the public heartily looking forward to installing the next administration in office -and giving thought to the various candidates presenting themselves even at this early stage. This is born out by the (admittedly unscientific) observation made by some bloggers and media people I’ve talked to, who’ve noticed that anything to do with the potential candidates for 2010 gets a large, and highly critical, readership.
Amando Doronila does not make the above point, but makes a different one that’s difficult to contradict:
Truly, 2010 heralds the closure of the turbulent EDSA-driven eras, defined by extra-electoral political change, and the beginning and the normalization of electoral politics now under the specter of military coups or withdrawal of support for sitting civilian governments.
This epochal shift gives us the opportunity to make a leadership change that offers this time a wide range of choices.
It is the advent of a younger generation in 2010 that makes the next election a qualitative change from the previous leadership handovers.
We will be electing in 2010 a new set of leaders who will take power with electoral mandates unblemished by the irregularity of an extra-electoral method of change represented by EDSA I and EDSA II, both marked by military interventions.
Year 2010, therefore, will mark a return to normal election processes as a mechanism of political change. This is what makes it a hopeful transition, although the relatively large field of choices does not ensure the emergence of an honest, efficient and results-oriented administration.
I suspect, though, that what we will find is really a two or at most, three person race, as both the politicians and the public narrow their choices and, who knows, actively seek a truly majority president for once, after a string of post-Edsa minority presidents.
Mon Casiple, in his blog, dissects the options that confront both the President and the opposition this year. In terms of the administration, he boils down the options available to three:
For the people in the GMA administration, the logical first choice will have have to be an extension of her stay in power–by a constitutional change allowing the president a second term or a change to either a parliamentary system or a federal state (which would require a transition provision). This is not possible at this time without a prior effort to dislocate the opponents of a GMA constitutional change–a scenario requiring massive political and electoral manipulation as well as ensuring an undisputed control of the armed forces.
A second choice is the building of a viable presidential candidate without the negative association with GMA in time for the 2010 elections. As in the first choice, this will maintain the ruling coalition but necessitates an early distancing from GMA or–more difficult–the positive upturn of GMA’s popularity.
A variation of this that benefits Vice-President Noli de Castro is an early retirement for GMA that would put him in the presidential chair to push forward the ruling coalition’s eventual candidate. However, it is a given that whoever this candidate will be, he or she will be campaigning with a huge millstone around his or her neck because of the present administration’s unpopularity, especially if GMA is still around in 2010.
Failure to make the above choices will effectively dissolve the ruling coalition and create a free-for-all where the strong presidentiables raid the ranks of the coalition to augment their own electoral coalitions. This will be evident in the incoming year as serious contenders make their moves to create the critical mass for their candidacies.
In terms of the opposition, Casiple lays out the main challenges, chief of which is the one that Doronila (see his piece above) credits Estrada with setting out to do: consolidate its forces (see Fr. Joaquin Bernas, SJ, however, for his views on past presidents being permanently disqualified from running for the presidency again):
The momentary issue for the opposition (or for presidential hopefuls within the ruling coalition) is the possibility of a GMA endrun for a continued stay in power through a constitutional change. This possibility, though more remote than before, has to be laid to rest before the real battle for 2010 commences. 2008 therefore will lay the ground (or set the terms) for 2010.
In a situation where the president steps down or is passive in the 2010 presidential elections, the opposition–and the ruling coalition–will fragment and their component forces will go their own way to form new coalitions behind the presidentiables. The opposition as such will become irrelevant and the GMA factor will be a non-issue, except as another campaign issue against former administration candidates.
On the other hand, if the president continues on to 2010 or actively intervenes in the 2010 elections, then the main issue of the elections will be her administration’s legitimacy and record. The opposition, in this situation, needs to unite to ensure victory against the vast resources and machinery of the administration. Failure to do so will divide the protest vote and effectively jeopardize the chances of all opposition candidates.
The opposition (or the presidentiables from their ranks) will have its work cut out in 2008. A critical mass has to be formed behind one presidentiable capable of getting out the winning votes. The operative word here–crass though it may be to political reformers–is ADDITION.
A shrewd political observer I talked to over the weekend distilled both points into three broad questions which will determine things, politically, this year:
1. Will the President be more liberal, or restrictive?
2. Will the armed forces be adventurers, or remain firmly wedded to the constitutional order?
3. Will the public be active or passive?
My editor at the Philippines Free Press last week gave me my first assignment for the year. “I want you to explore whether the President can turn things around, and recover her popularity,” he said. The result of this challenge was the following:
MARILYN Monroe once said, “I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle… But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” The President of the Philippines is no blonde bombshell, but maintains much the same defiant, even petulant, attitude toward her critics. Divided as her critics may be on what they want to accomplish, the President has only two things to say to them: “I will survive,” and “I will continue to be relevant.”
Her perpetually having to be in survival mode is a problem unique to her administration; that of making every effort to remain relevant is an occupational hazard faced by all presidents approaching the end of their constitutional term.
Political analyst Mon Casiple says this year “will lay the ground (or set the terms) for 2010.” According to him, the President can do one of three things: try to extend her stay in office; intervene, actively, in the election of her successor; or step down gracefully and not bother with trying to influence the outcome of the 2010 presidential race. At stake is not just her personal and political safety, but also, the prospects for the continuing control of the levers of power by the coalition she’s built up and maintained, and the opportunities for her critics to gain control of those levers for themselves.
The President has been able to face down constitutional and extra-constitutional challenges to her rule; she has done so, not by mobilizing public support, but by capitalizing on public mistrust of the entire political class –and by mobilizing the resources available to her as the incumbent. Patronage, whether in cash or kind, by means of promotions or demotions, has kept her coalition much more united and purposeful than her opponents. She has also managed to step back from the brink whenever any administration initiative, such as the proposal to amend the constitution, threatens to galvanize opposition to her government.
Recently, the President said she was a better economist than she was a politician –a statement that inevitably sparked a debate on whether she was good at being either. What’s significant is not whether her self-analysis was objectively true, but rather, what it revealed about her. Her belief in herself as an economist first, and a politician second, may have been there all along, but has been unevenly expressed throughout her term. That she is more comfortable with herself helps explain, to my mind, why she has both endured and continues to maintain the allegiance of a significant portion of the population. Her self-satisfaction taps into a yearning from those sectors who consider it a virtue to sacrifice some of their freedoms in order to move the nation forward.
In contrast to the equally significant portion of the population convinced she has indeed presided over the erosion of freedom while not really moving the nation forward. To be sure, this analysis requires the stipulation that we accept that the surveys are correct: a quarter of the population solidly supports the president, another quarter tolerates her as the lesser evil and the least-inconvenient option, and the other half of the population can’t stand her but are utterly divided among themselves on what they want as an alternative.
In such a situation, essentially a battle of attrition, survival is highly probable so long as both sides continue to have access to resources. The President, by virtue of her controlling the national treasury, possessing the appointing power, and playing off the provinces versus the metropolis. Her critics, by means of their ability to marshal public opinion, have denied her total control of Congress and continue to flourish in pockets of opposition-controlled provinces and cities. Neither side, however, is capable of mounting an offensive to crush the enemy.
But the President’s attempt to make a virtue of her unpopularity, can’t obscure the fact that she holds a job whose powers are built on the cultivation of popularity. It is popularity that provides a president with room to maneuver, which allows a chief executive to pull the rug out from under the opposition, and which cushions the impact of programs or policies that may be unpleasant, but necessary for the common good.
The President and her team have tapped into simple, but effective, messages that resonate with enough of the public to keep the opposition divided and the rest wedded to the status quo. These messages are: the peso is strong, and the stock market high; we are attending to the serious business of governing while ignoring political noise; and we are pursuing infrastructure and economic reform while avoiding exotic and frightening economic options beloved by certain sectors in the opposition.
In the meantime, the administration has been fairly careful to avoid closing off the avenues that allow the public to do their own thing, never mind if the government takes credit for private sector achievements. Emigration abroad is encouraged; overseas contract work continues to be proclaimed a form of heroism. The real mass media, radio and television, has been kept manageable through a combination of co-opting individual media practitioners and the use of government media to sound a constant note, if not of reality, then of achievement and optimism. Print media has born the brunt of government pressure, applied more consistently and daringly than in the case of other media, which anyway has proven liable to being divided and easily intimidated.
Intervention in the business sphere has been less clumsy than in the case of past administrations: there is no Midnight Cabinet, deal-making is done overseas or in private homes and golf clubs, no particular business group or company has been targeted for destruction, and presidential corruption can at worst, be whispered about, but there are no obvious cases of high living or high-profile acquisitions to make businessmen and the middle class particularly nervous. Even in terms of the political class, the administration can be said to take things less personally than the opposition: once back in the administration fold, there’s far less lecturing and hectoring than takes place in opposition ranks.
Every bill, however, has a due date. Presidents use popularity to both charm and intimidate not only their critics, but their followers. Kissinger famously said power is an aphrodisiac and the art of seduction is an integral part of the political game. Bereft of charm, the President’s policy has been to buy the love of her supporters, but being transactional, there isn’t any real warmth: diamonds may be a girl’s best friend but cannot sustain political friendship. What real loyalty does the President command, or more precisely, can she continue to command, as the country prepares to select her successor?
This is her dilemma. It is a dilemma that presumes she is no different from her predecessors in wanting to accomplish three things in her last years in office: go down in history positively; remain influential (and safe); and possibly, convince the country it needs the incumbent more than it needs a replacement as chief executive. Ideally, every president (except for Corazon Aquino, the only exception in terms of never showing an interest in perpetuating herself in power) wants to accomplish all three. Though of the three, the last is, perhaps, the most expendable.
If we take the President at her word, meaning she looks forward to stepping down on June 30, 2010, her main problem becomes figuring out when to make her resolve unambiguous, without turning herself into a very lame duck. If her last State of the Nation address is any guide, she prefers ambiguity to the certainty of being a lame duck. In adopting this attitude, she makes recovering a semblance of popularity, virtually an impossibility. No President likes being unpopular, but any president would prefer actual power, to impotently enjoying the affections of a fickle people.
The President’s main task, then, becomes threefold: continuing to pay off political debts but not so recklessly and lavishly as to arouse the people; keeping everyone guessing as to what she truly intends to do in 2010, while pursuing every means to keep every option (including an extension of her term or a change to parliamentary government) on the table without, again, solidifying the opposition; and keeping the pressure valves –the OFW remittance cash cow, a healthy stock and property market, a content upper and middle class- operational.
She does not have to do these things particularly well; she never has. She only has to keep the impression going, that everything she does is not on an ad hoc basis, but instead, is based on a plan. That plan is simple: keep remittances coming in, which obscures the weaknesses of the domestic economy; keep the deficit under a semblance of control, by means of selling off government assets; juggling tax collections and spending so as to never put a crimp on her doling out patronage; and creating as many jobs as necessary for her supporters, whether civilian or military to maintain their tactical support.
Along the way, she can hope that she continues to enjoy better luck than her enemies. This includes hoping that nothing takes place in the outside world, that threatens to close off any of the safety valves in our society and economy. In the absence of anything extreme taking place, she can expect to coast along, and with her, the country. Lurching from event to event, but without risking any fundamental change, may not seem much in terms of governance, but what matters is that the President believes –and with her, her supporters- that along the way, small, incremental changes have been made.
At the start of her term, the President said she hoped not to be a great, but simply, a good president. Her legacy has been to take these diminished expectations, and convince enough of the country that it is better to do small things, and not bother with the big things –and who, in the end, can argue that this is not a genuine achievement? For a President who may not be loved, but who is tolerated, still gets to wield the same thing –power.
My column for today, Shod and unshod, takes its cue from the Sunday column of Joseph Gonzales. My column also makes reference to Randy David’s Civic duty and national renewal. In his column, David does his own distilling, this time in terms of what modernity demands of the citizenry:
The modern society that is upon us demands that we abide by its most basic rules. They are not difficult to understand. What are these? Three things, basically: (1) Fall in line and wait for your turn; (2) Know the rules and follow them; (3) Come on time. These simple rules will permit us to navigate the complex terrain of the modern world with ease. There is not a single modern society in the world today that does not strictly enforce these rules.
He then goes on to make a point about the evils of patronage, and with this particular point in mind, I’d like to refer you back to my entry, Charismatic expectations in noncharismatic times, where David’s point is echoed in the writing of Gary Wills, who makes reference to Max Weber and others whose thinking has influenced David’s, as a Sociologist.
At its simplest, the point is, a modern society relies on a bureaucracy to fulfill the social purposes that politicians dispensing patronage used to provide.
Via Touched by An Angel, found out about this article in the January 6 Manila Bulletin. Am grateful to WikiPilipinas.
Technorati Tags: elections, ideas, philippines, politics, president, society
bencard, up to 2003, the president could have achieved the things you admire her for, now (and i don’t grant she has achieved them). i felt the greatest pride in working for when she declared she wouldn’t seek office in 2004. that was a time she could have, possibly, exercised the maximum political will.
there are always forks in the road. after 2001, she had really strong winds behind her sails, the expectation from the public that a new administration could buckle down to work. nani perez started tearing holes in the sails and the arrest of estrada starkly demonstrated to the president that civil society was good at plotting but couldn’t muster popular support behind her. so she began depending more and more on the operators and the armed forces, with no other force being able to balance their influence.
her declaration not to run might have been a last ditch effort on her part to seize the moral high ground in terms of history. when her government kept lurching from one ill-conceived public relations scheme to another, it made the opposite -accepting black ops as a necessity- inevitable.
oddly enough what the president’s been presenting herself now, as a no-nonsense, tough, unlikeable but capable leader, is what i was advocating prior to 2004. it really is, whether based on reality or not, at the core of her competitive advantage as a politician.
“I used to lament the fact that the ‘poor country’ auto industry we had has almost disappeared. Im talking about those small shops that made ‘owner-type’ jeeps and their variants.”
Like most Pinoy indigenous industries, these failed to make that transition from labour-intensive to capital-intensive production.
btw, jeg, survival from what? extra-constitutional ouster? do you think we will have the economic growth we are having now (compared to that of her predecessor’s) if all she did was trying to survive? i think you are giving a lot of credit to the noisy but ineffective and puny attempts to unseat her by hook or by crook. tell me, which president among those we had did not worry about survival. i bet all of them, from quezon to estrada had enemies wishing their downfall, pronto. even magsaysay, with all his adoring supporters from the “masses”, and all-out backing by uncle sam, worried about the ever growing communist menace then that could have snuff out our democracy and hence, his presidency. to think that gma was consumed exclusively by fear of removal is just another example of pinoy proclivity for laughable exaggerations and tall tales. remember what they said about cory hiding under her bed, shaking in fear of the ram coup plotters?
bencard, ‘you sure you are not gma’s father? from your comments, i get the impression of an adoring father looking at his little princess. lovable or great, never mind that she vowed not to run again. but then she did not lie to herself since she had no intention of not running, only to the public. lovable or great indeed.
If Korea followed that advise, they would still be selling exporting wigs, textiles and other primary commodities.
Technically, that’s wrong. If we’re ‘merely consuming’, then Philippine GDP (aka Gross Domestic Product) should be zero. However, at Benign0’s woolly and imprecise level of discourse, i thinnk i know what he’s trying to say.
tell me, which president among those we had did not worry about survival.
If youll remember, Bancard, we were talking ‘be-all and end-all’. We were talking about the extent to which survival is given priority. So your question is immaterial.
survival from what? extra-constitutional ouster?
That, and constitutional ouster as well. Impeachment, calls for resignation.
If Korea followed that advise, they would still be selling exporting wigs, textiles and other primary commodities.
Which isnt bad. Wigs, textiles, and primary commodities I gather is a rather large market. See Koreans had to start from somewhere. Our auto industry for Filipinos never even got off the ground.
Our whole economic growth plan it seems is to get into the rich people’s market. Maybe our niche should be to get into the poor people’s market, like mega-corporations like Unilever did with their shampoo sachets.
“Technically, that’s wrong. If we’re ‘merely consuming’, then Philippine GDP (aka Gross Domestic Product) should be zero. However, at Benign0’s woolly and imprecise level of discourse, i thinnk i know what he’s trying to say.”
Black and white guy as always.
When saying “merely consuming” we are not necessarily saying that our economy is 100% consumption-based. The fact that balot is produced in Pateros and dikdikans manufactured in Romblon proves that there are indeed things produced in the Philippines.
Step back a bit from your fundamentalist style of interpreting blog comments, dude. 😉
beancurd,
obvious ba? si bencard ay reincarnation ni diosdado macapacal, glorybe’s daddy. or maybe he worked as a yayo of little gloria when she was a little princess growing up in the palace beside the pasig.
Jeg, what sets apart Korea from the Philippines is that it had an effective industrial policy based on their national interest, one that was not (until recently with disastrous results for them), dictated by the IMF.
Ooops. Missed this:
Bencard: do you think we will have the economic growth we are having now (compared to that of her predecessor’s) if all she did was trying to survive?
Yes. There may be some truth to the statement that our economic growth is happening despite her, and not because or her.
mlq3, for the life of me, i’m really at total loss as to why gma’s decision to run for re-election, after supposedly having said she would not do so, is such a “big” issue. was that some kind of a binding covenant, a quid pro quo for ousting estrada to pave the way for her assumption of the presidency until, but ONLY until, 2004?
it is never unusual for any politician to say they are not running even as they are already actively preparing for election campaign. “only fools don’t change their mind” is one of their favorite cliches. why hold gma to such a loose unilateral “promise” as though the breach of which is an unpardonable sin? is it because the ambition of some salivating power-seeker has been thwarted?
i, for one, believe that 3 years was not enough for any president to rectify and turn around the economic havoc the country suffered under estrada’s incompetent leadership. i would like to believe that you were thoughtful enough to see what an fpj, a noli or even a ping, could possibly do to put the country back on track.
i didn’t think any of them is better prepared and able than gma.
i’m convinced that gma did the right thing for her country by running for re-election. indeed, it was an exercise of political courage, knowing that her action would make the drooling wannabees and their expectant courtiers raving mad.
ah, jeg. give her no credit for anything good, and blame her for everything bad, huh? brilliant!
I think Pinoys are generally unable to grasp the reality that it takes more than six years to implement systemic change — the kind that yields sustainable benefits.
It’s the reason why this whole hollow-headed argument about presidential terms, re-elections, etc. rages on without any kind of resolution or insight actually produced.
The framers of our current constitution were too shell-shocked by the whole Marcos mishap (and, being Pinoy, small-minded and imagination-challenged) that they imprisoned Pinoy politics in this idiotic six-year/one-term thing.
We are prisoners of our own moronic thinking.
One would be tempted to buy the stupid sentence that “rich countries manufacture rich-country goods”, until reality-check kicks in. Canada manufactures aircraft, buses as well as jackets, hats and hand-carved Inuit souvenirs. Brazil manufactures aircraft, Beretta-clones and Murano-glassware. The Philippines manufactures chips, auto headlamps, cal-22 rifles, Polo and Adidas shirts and hand-carved souvenirs. China manufactures ecstasy pills, laptops and desktops, pliers, screwdrivers, electric drills, Burberry- and Coach-bag clones. US-of-A “manufactures” rice, corn, wheat, chicken, beef, pork… as well as cal-22 rifles, ecstasy pills, condoms, aircraft, high-speed routers and switches.
“The Philippines manufactures chips, auto headlamps, cal-22 rifles, Polo and Adidas shirts and hand-carved souvenirs”
This is such a small-minded argument.
The economy gains for what the labour that goes into these goods is worth, not for what the end product actually sells for in the market.
For example, an Addidas pair of shoes sells for about $100. But the labour input into those shoes probable does not exceed $2. That $2 is what the 3rd World gains from all this.
The pathetic thing about all this is that those same shoes then get exported from the 1st World to be snapped up for $100 by some loser in the 3rd World all because he/she was convinced by the clever marketing of Adidas that he/she looks cool in said shoes.
It comes down to WHO owns the brand equity (the thing that enables MNC’s to mark up 3rd World produce by 3000%) in these products. Pinoys may host the pineapple plantations, but Dole and Del Monte sell their produce for 10x the cost of growing and harvesting them in Bukidnon.
Pathetic talaga ang Pilipinas kahit anong sabihin mo. 😀
ah, jeg. give her no credit for anything good, and blame her for everything bad, huh? brilliant!
I dont know how you got to that conclusion, Bancard. I dont blame her for everything bad. I just said economic growth happened despite her. Economic growth would have happened even if she just spent time with her grandkids. Maybe the business community had faith in the Filipinos.
bencard, it all depends whether you want to take a president seriously, or not. you can’t ignore the symbolism of her choosing rizal day, a day of national consecration, to make a promise. the kind that is so serious that you assume when a president does the unthinkable -declare she’s sacrificing ambition for the greater good- she means it. not least, because what she said then made perfect sense and continues to make sense: she recognized she was the cause of a great division among the people.
i did reconcile myself with her decision to run, anyway, which is why after leaving her service i continued to support her candidacy. i was even one of those who proposed she take her oath of office in cebu city. and my support continued up to the hello, garci thing.
but i did not think an fpj victory would be an unmitigated disaster, and during his candidacy and upon his death, i pointed to the virtues he represented and what his candidacy represented. his critics have never given him credit for consciously, and firmly, holding back his supporters. you want rule of law? it’s greatest adherent was fpj, not the president. actually, the same can be said of susan roces: if you think of how people with pull can abuse it, she quite deliberately held back on a couple of occasions when she could have attempted to unleash an open civil war.
which is not to say that if attempted, a civil war would have entirely broken out. we all know politics requires, if not always resorting to lies, sometimes telling untruths. but it can also involve being succesful without making deceit your principal political rule of thumb.
i myself believe in the old adage that “six years is too long for a bad president and four years too short for a good one.” but we shouldn’t overlook the unique circumstances surrounding the rise to power of the president. this dictated my own view that she’d be better off having left estrada to his own devices rather than give him a new lease on political life by arresting him. the president’s eventually decided on pretty much the same thing, hasn’t she, by pardoning him?
the one thing most sides give the president credit for -the expanded vat- was made necessary by her belief she had to bet the farm by rapidly expanding the deficit, so as to fund her election in 2004. for myself, that’s one reason i don’t think she deserves credit for that act of will, it was an act less of national salvation than personal political survival. she dug the hole, she had to fill it. it’s in the strange and essentially amoral nature of bankers and businessmen that they continue to admire her for it.
i think it’s fair to expect presidents to have an essential faith in the citizenry, and that includes trusting them to throw you out of office. an electorate you trust with your fate is more likely to be kind to you after you leave office. the best the president can hope for, now, if talk is to be believed, is that she can settle down to a comfortable exile in spain. is there any truth to this? you and i will only know after 2010, when she either proves the talk right by going into exile, or false, by staying home and sticking it out.
two things we ought not to sweep under the rug. first, that the president engaged officers of the afp in election operations, and second, that she wanted to impose martial law except that negroponte was dispatched to talk her out of it and her secretary of national defense put up a fight against the proposal.
which is why i can’t help but cast a cold eye on those who say, “well, she’s not actually doing a marcos, is she? everyone’s free to bitch, aren’t they?” there are many reasons why this remains so, but not due to her.
mlq3, the old adage that “six years is too long for a bad president and four years too short for a good one” is true only because we do not have long-term domestic, economic and foreign policies implemented by agencies the heads of which cannot be changed at the whim of the sitting president. the experience of western industrialized countries show that basic state policies do not change no matter who holds the most powerful office in the land.
bencard, so it is acceptable for politicians to lie? if that is the case with the country’s leaders, then i guess it would be perfectly acceptable for your kids or your kids’ kids (if you have one) to lie too, especially to you? and because you stand by your convictions, you can of course show your justifications to them without any reservation. thank you though for showing us a glimpse of the man behind the name bencard, the supreme advocate of the rule of law.
This paper presents a communication briefing on how a senator can generate public support for the water crisis issue.
Mind Bullet Briefing Paper: Communicating the Philippine Water Crisis as a Defining National Issue for Candidates Running for the 2008 Presidential elections
I. Rationale
Defining moments are very important in capturing the imagination, hearts, minds of the people to genuinely entrust leadership. Through conscious efforts and expected historical milestones, defining moments can be laid out as a story line leading to a positive perception or conclusion. Defining moments establish how the market (electorate) will perceive and decide what to do with the product (politician). Simply put, defining moments in history will determine the market positioning of candidates running for President in 2008.
More at: http://www.mindbullet.org/media.html#ref3
“the heads of which cannot be changed at the whim of the sitting president. the experience of western industrialized countries show that basic state policies do not change no matter who holds the most powerful office in the land.”
I agree with this. The reason the Pinoys are so hung up on this stuff is because our politics is underpinned by a vast wasteland of impotent institutions and convoluted policies and a vacuous consistency that is unable to grasp the whole point behind the layers of disciplines that sit between themselves and the show put up by politicians.
For Pinoys, democracy is only about the politicians and the voting. There is no concept of the framework of due process and governance that exists between the two.
Pinoys pin their fortunes on their politicians rather than on THEMSELVES, which is why the amusing comings/goings and alliances/dalliances of politicians as well as the speculation and brokering of trivial information of those who observe them continue to be a pathetic national obssession.
I saw her on TV when she made a vow she won’t run for reelection in 2004. It’s something in the way she said those words and the look in her face that made me believe she was gonna take them back in no time. It was a tactical retreat pure and simple. She ran because she couldn’t take it in herself she did no better than Erap, a mere comma to Erap’s exclamation point haha! And the rest of civil society had to back her up again because she has yet to show something to justify EDSA 2.
Benign0, I agree with your exposition at 1:08pm (except of course for the verbal tic at the end but that can’t be helped). I think you do understand the essence behind the statement:
More than brand equity, what counts is the manufacturing value added that we contribute.
The policy question is, are we able to enhance our value added capability by hosting Multinationals or via home-grown firms or a combination of both? The development approach followed by our neighbors entailed different mixes from Japan and Korea’s largely homegrown approach to Singapore and Malaysia’s heavy dependence on foreign investment to China’s approach which is somewhere in between.
The thing is, regardless of the strategy followed, the State had heavy participation. That’s why, contrary to what you say, politics and politicians matter. The people need to reclaim the State from the oligarchs.
cvj,
The key is in attracting the actual design and R&D operations (not just the manufacturing operations) to set up shop in the Philippines.
The catch here of course is in whether MNCs see the Philippines as a great environment for doing creative work. Given our penchant for ocho-ocho politics and jeepney-class engineering, medyo tagilid tayo in that area.
Here’s Rodrik’s explanation of
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4WZPA_enSG207SG208&q=%22rich+country+goods%22+rodrik
See slide #4 above.
In another paper, Rodrik and Hausmann rephrases it to:
UPn Student, maybe their use of ‘export’ (instead of ‘produce’) would sound less stupid to you.
Any third-world bunghole can manufacture. But what sets apart the men from the boys is the ability to design and innovate at world-class levels.
Here’s the correct link:
http://www.eclac.org/prensa/noticias/comunicados/0/22400/RODRIK.pdf
See slide 4 above.
At the frontiers of technology, that’s true. However, a lot of catching up can be done by taking advantage of knowledge spillovers (e.g. reverse-engineering). Before they became innovation leaders in their own right, that’s how Japan and Korea for example, started catching up.
We’re a poor country trying (and failing) to export rich country goods. To compete, leave the export of rich country goods to the rich countries (for now) and concentrate on marketing to the poorer countries.
I found this link
(www.12manage.com/methods_prahalad_bottom_of_the_pyramid.html)
that says just that. We can do that on a global scale. All it takes is imagination and creativity.
The trouble with Filipinos (and most other countries) is that they have adopted the consumption patterns of the West. We have to have cars and gadgets and all those other status-bringing goods.
“At the frontiers of technology, that’s true. However, a lot of catching up can be done by taking advantage of knowledge spillovers (e.g. reverse-engineering).”
But we did that with the jeepney and many other products. Yet to this day we have no world-class branded manufactured product to speak of.
Yet in half the time, China has already started exporting cars to Russia and Eastern Europe and is now even building factories in those countries.
Jeg, thanks for the link. I think the Pralahad’s statement…
…is something Bayani Fernando and his anti-squatter/anti-sidewalk-vendor supporters should chew on.
As for the ‘trying (and failing)’ part, that’s because of the leave the government to politicians mindset of those who ought to know better.
That’s because we have adopted the ‘Great Leap Forward’ approach instead of implementing a proper industrial policy. To come up with a world class-branded product, we need the State working together with the private sector on productive activities and not rent-seeking (based on real-estate or access to natural monopolies).
“o come up with a world class-branded product, we need the State working together with the private sector on productive activities and not rent-seeking (based on real-estate or access to natural monopolies).”
See, that’s you again with this approach of bloating the government’s responsibility for getting things going. A lot of what the Chinese community achieved both in the Philippines and in other parts of the world were achieved despite their respective governments and despite being treated as 3rd class citizens.
Even Mahathir’s experience in trying to give favourable treatment to Malays in Malaysia failed to result in any measureable predisposition to capitalise anything amongst the Malay ethnic majority. Same can be said of Pinoys. The Chinese minority started out as taho vendors, AND THEN eventually owned the taho business and employed Malay-Pinoy taho vendors.
As I said, it’s the CULTURE of Pinoys that is fundamentally the cause of our utter inability to prosper.
Don’t you have a better argument than this. You sound like you’re running out of one. Pambata lang ito at bagay sa mga forum ng celebrities. duh.
I’ve been reading this capital intensive vs labor intensive issues and just can’t help but scratch my head.
If you have read Alan Greenspan’s the Age of Turbulence, you will read that he attributed China’s economic turnaround by embracing labour-intensive-manufacturing for export.
They have a lot of manpower, willing to receive small pay compared to other Asian countries. In fact that’s where we lost to China. Before we used to have that competitive advantage–the lowest wage in the production that many MNCs flocked in the Philippines for their labor-intensive industries.
Since the government regulated labor activities in China, another come-on was the assurance that there will be no strike or work stoppage initiated by laborers. The workers’ strikes were serious problems which caused some MNCs to shutdown operation in the Philippines.
Contrary to the belief of many, the products that China exports used imported materials instead of locally produced material components.
Part of the deal with MNCs investment in the country to asssure quality exports is the use of their raw materials.
So what’s the input in the intermediate products? You guess it right, labor.
So the question of Greenspan is,” IS China merely assembling sophisticated products produced by other countries ?” He answered it with a yes but with the hope that in the future, they may be manufacturing-for-export from locally produced material components.
What is its difference from the Philippines’ electronics exports? Nada.
The choice of not to automate assembly of Sarao Jeepneys was the decision of Leonardo Sarao. He was providing employment to the people in the community particularly that part of Las Pinas. Hiring policy was that preference was given to those who lived in the area.
There was an opportunity for him to use sophisticated machines to speed up production but he decided against it. Many people would lose jobs.
In China, they also give priority to investment projects which would generate more employment. There are just manufacturing processes which can not be automated.
I was just thinking, since the Term of the President is limted to Six Years, then GMA should have vacated in 2006 since her started in 200l. Also her succession was not in accordance with the constitution, but only at the Ad Hoc decision of the SC (chief Davide) which for so many still considered as part of the conspiracy. Well, you have seen the pay back to those who made the decision.
and for the record, GMA didn’t run for re-election. She was not elected President the First Time…
Bencard and UPn, matagal ko na rin sinasabi na nobody wants to take responsibility for their welfare…lahat sa gobyerno. Gusto ng lahat welfare state.
“…nobody wants to take responsibility for their welfare…lahat sa gobyerno. Gusto ng lahat welfare state.” – Silent Waters
______________________________
Kasali ba dito ang mga OFW’s?
Cat,
I agree with your statemnet regarding CHina’s industrial policy now.
qwert:
I agree…exception ang OFW…except kapag gumawa sila ng kabalatugan sa ibang bansa…then they start asking government to get them out of the hole they dug themselves in…
Silent Waters,
Ok, maliwanag.
qwert
I guess my point is that marami sa ating kababayan, lalo na yung tinatawg nating mahihirap, iniisip nila na di nila kayang makaahon ,sa kanilang kalagayan sa sarili nilang pagsisikap. Di ko maintindihan kasi kung bakit lahat inaasa sa ating pamahalaan. Yan ang ibig ko sabihin sa pagiging responsable. Dapat kasi, magsumikap sila. Di ko tanggap ang sinasabi ng iba na dahil mahirap sila, wala silang magagawa. Sa aking pananaw, kung sila ay mag-iba ng kanilang attitude, may mangyayari sa kanila. ANg isang milyon, di magiging isang milyon kung walang piso. Huwag magmadaling yumaman, magsipag, magtiyaga at darating din ang kaginhawaan. Huwag maiingit sa magandang katayuan ng iba, imbes, dapat magsumikap lalo umanag matamo ang kinaiingitan.
SO ang OFW, responsable, kasi may ginawa sila upang makaahon sila sa kanilang dating kalagayan. Yun ang punto ko. Like I said, di ko matanggap yung mga walang gagawin kundi ang ilabas ang palad sa gobyerno….
“But we did that with the jeepney and many other products. Yet to this day we have no world-class branded manufactured product to speak of”
“As I said, it’s the CULTURE of Pinoys that is fundamentally the cause of our utter inability to prosper”
ingrained in each Pinoy is the desire to migrate to a first world country. the Pinoys who had the resources and capacity to begin world-class manufactured products here packed up their bags and went to the first world.
Silent Waters,
I agree with you, as the following personalities pointed this out succinctly:
“Take care of the dime and the dollar will take of itself” – Booker T. Washington
“Take care of the family and the country will take care of itself” – Confucius
“And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.” – The Lord Jesus Christ(Luke 19:17)
But, realisticaly, this is not a simple problem, there must be a concerted effort from all sectors of our society and that includes the government.
Let’s set things clear about the OFW phenomenon.
(1) The rise in OFW remittance is fair and square directly the product of changing OFW labor demographics. The proportion of skilled workers deployed abroad has been increasing in this decade. This is consistent with numbers revealing that total OFW remittance is increasing despite the decline in number of workers deployed.
(2) Migrant labor is driven by foreign demand for it. It sounds too obvious as to make it sound stupid to say it, but reading previous posts, it doesn’t sound too obvious to everyone.
(3) The Philippines is in a unique position to respond to this demand because aside from a BASIC english speaking labor force, our tertiary education system is so loosely regulated as to make the local educational system able to rapidly respond to the dynamics of foreign labor demand. Here’s a concrete example. Remember in the late 90’s when physical therapists we’re so popular abroad, local nursing schools responded overnight by offering a PT degree from out of nowhere. However in the early part of this decade, changes in the U.S. healthcare regulation removing the minimum PT numbers in state run hospitals drastically reduced demand for it. Now, we have an aging population in developed countries creating demand for nurses again. And voila! We have new nursing schools popping all over the country and student enrollment flowing from PT to nursing courses. Most countries cannot compete as fast because their mechanism for training the labor force is tightly regulated.
In early 2006, economists at HSBC were already saying that this changing OFW labor demographics will bring down the peso exchange rate. During that time, saying that the peso will strengthen will illicit laughter and derision that you’re pulling Gloria’s wagon (which illustrates how our views could be so partisan and so myopic as to think that our economic life revolves SOLELY around Malacañang). Meanwhile, the investment team of HSBC were laughing their way to the bank with hefty bonuses.
My point is, crediting the perceived positive effect of increasing OFW remittances in the economy to this administration is the same bullshit as criticizing the government for the perceived negative effects of such a labor phenomenon. If such a labor phenomenon is indeed deterimental in the long run as some of us advanced here, then this government is guilty only to the extent that it tolerated such. It is easy to see that is not wise to make an economy dependent on emigrant labor. But to allow an emigrant-friendly labor policy when situations call for it? The final verdict is not yet out. It may not be the most ideal solution, but given the situation and constraints, it certainly looks like ONE optimal solution.
Silent Waters,
My response to you is awaiting moderation…
cvj,
“If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up”
for sure Jojo Binay does not agree to that! if he did, he won’t be mayor anymore!
president? God forbid! he could not eradicate poverty in Makati in 20 years!
as for Bayani Fernando and his group – there are more profitable opportunities aside from sidewalk vending. squatting just prevents the more productive use of a land
lets see/hear the opposition take that quote to heart! ha!
On the discussion on “rich countries produce ‘rich country’ goods…”, it is interesting to mention that economists here in the UK fear that their economy is dependent on producing what the world “wants” rather than what it “needs”, making their economy vulnerable to a looming global recession.