A Heritage Of Smallness

[alsuave]

"in the West, if you go out at seven in the morning you’re in a dead-town. Everybody’s still in bed; everything’s still closed up. Activity doesn’t begin till nine or ten– and ceases promptly at five p.m. By six, the business sections are dead towns again. The entire cities go to sleep on weekends."

Not true except in very small communities; it's certainly not the norm, at least not in recent times. The author of the article died in 2004 at 86, perhaps a bit dated.

The essay was published in 1966. Joaquin even refers to Manila as a small city. Many of the points the author makes are still valid today, some even more so. For example, why are there still jeepneys? Those were used during WWII as a makeshift means to move people around. Now we're creeping up on a century later and they haven't come up with a better method of public transportation. It's sad.

Edited February 26, 2014 by alsuave

[Jack Peterson]

It has everything to do with Filipinos thinking small and limiting themselves to small endeavors, small plans, small growth. If you think small, you will never achieve anything grand.

To me, it seems that they just cannot, get out of the day to day habits, Today, is Today, They tend to dwell, on the Yesterdays, Even the schools prepare a lesson for tomorrow,  only today. Unless they are taught to plan ahead, and the education system is not allowing, this to develop, they will continue to live for today and just hope, tomorrow will dawn

 

So many times we have been invited at 6pm for a 7pm birthday party. Why I ask?  well Sir, we did not know if we would have a budget till  4.30pm. now that's, what they call, planning, They have had a year to plan this birthday party, it happens every year for someone in the family.

 

Everything seems spur of the moment, It is not helping them to achieve any sort of success. I am by no means, one of life's philosophers, just an ex Military man, that still believes, preparation, is the key word to make a plan, come to fruition. 

 

To aim is to Plan 

To Plan and follow it, will lead to success ( Hopefully   :) )

If you think big but only achieve 50%, at least, you have achieved.

 

small motto to live by Today, is the Tomorrow, you were so worried about ,Yesterday  :thumbsup: 

 

 

:tiphat:  

[Miguk]

Thank you for posting this excellent.  I have a book on Manila by same author.  Excellent.

[robert k]

Al, I am sure there are plenty out there with entrepeneurial spirit but the environment is not conducive. The kind of investment the RP needs to start succeeding will not come in until they relax property ownership laws. Until then their motto may as well be "A Poor Philippines for Poor Filipinos" because the investment has not and is not coming from inside the RP although I believe it could. Not that long ago it was announced that an Australian company was going to be allowed to build a $20 million shipyard. I asked myself why no Filipino individual, or consortium could have put up $20 million for a shipyard? The investment is not coming from the inside and if it doesn't come from the inside and you discourage it from the outside, what you have today is what you get.

 

A really good sign would be their own automotive and derivitive industries, not just vehicle assembly. Mines for ore if they have it, smelters, foundries for heavy industry, machine tool and die companies, companies to make the plastic parts, companies to make the electronic parts, Filipino labor all the way, providing good paying jobs, you create a product and customers to buy the product. If you just import all the parts and use low paid labor to assemble them, you are putting bread on the table but you are not creating a wealthier country. If you have to cut in a foreign company to get the ball rolling, that's what you need to do. I think all those industries could evolve over the next 100 years but they might not, too. I think they could be selective on who they let in, have a goal, such as a homegrown automotive industry, that could lead to exports and not just assembly plants full of cheap labor and imported parts for assembly of someone elses product.

 

Another good sign would be plentiful cheap energy. The RP really needs to get any offshore deposits of energy resources into production. Home grown natural gas and petroleum products could be a great shot in the arm, reducing imports while providing nore energy from gas fired powerplants. Some industries just do not develop in the absence of cheap energy, aluminum recycling is one of them.

 

They could always pull a fast one like Mexico with the oil fields and nationalize everything once they are fully going and then kick the corporations out  :thumbsup:.

 

The Philippines needs a boost, that could come from inside but it hasn't yet, they will not make it attractive enough for someone from the outside to help in the areas they really need the help in. I think they have the carpetbaggers right now, renting space to make what they can and get out, but then again, with the way things are, that is what they attract.

 

As things stand, individuals can become modestly successful through hard work and the drive to succeed and in many cases no small amount of personal sacrifice. I am talking about the creation of a successful economy and society.

 

 The US has been accelerating away from actually producing things, we import and we have service industry jobs, but we have illegal immigrants who come in and start doing jobs cheaper than we would. My second partial plate was made by one such woman, she did the work at 1/6th the price that an orthodontist wanted and did a better job than the American who made my first partial. People think it's only the low paying jobs are going to people from south of the border. I think it's all jobs. Look at the US today, tell me how the "service" economy is working? Actually making things raised America high, it has a long way to fall but falling it is. There are lessons to be learned from the rise and the fall. One of which is if you want to be a successful society, you should produce things from scratch and to deviate far from that is perilous. People who think the stock market is an indicator of the health of an economy need a reality check and it's coming. :tiphat:

Edited February 26, 2014 by robert k

[alsuave]

Al, I am sure there are plenty out there with entrepeneurial spirit but the environment is not conducive. The kind of investment the RP needs to start succeeding will not come in until they relax property ownership laws. Until then their motto may as well be "A Poor Philippines for Poor Filipinos" because the investment has not and is not coming from inside the RP although I believe it could. Not that long ago it was announced that an Australian company was going to be allowed to build a $20 million shipyard. I asked myself why no Filipino individual, or consortium could have put up $20 million for a shipyard? The investment is not coming from the inside and if it doesn't come from the inside and you discourage it from the outside, what you have today is what you get.

Part of the problem stems from glorifying overseas workers. The keyword there being "workers". Filipinos are great workers and many aspire to become OFWs. That's setting the bar pretty low, in my humble opinion. They need to take the next step and become more enterprising.

[Tukaram (Tim)]

They are the least inquisitive people I have ever seen.   But it is like - if this is the way it is done - then it is the way it is done.  They don't question it, and they certainly don't try to improve it.  A lot of it is that they live in today.  How many plan for tomorrow?  Improvement takes planning for tomorrow.

 

As for mass transit I really like the jeepneys.  In Iloilo there are some taxis, some private cars, and tons of jeepneys.  Each jeepney holds 15-20 people.  It would take a lot of buses to replace that!  And our city is so small light rail is not much of an option except for long distances, like to the outer towns. 

 

But as long as they export their best people as OFW's I doubt any real change is going to come.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Tuka Ram

[jpbago]

It is a good thing that the Manila airport was built by foreigner companies or else the runway would have been so short that we would have to come in 3 passengers at a time in a Cessna 172.

[Thomas]

They could always pull a fast one like Mexico with the oil fields and nationalize everything once they are fully going and then kick the corporations out :thumbsup:.

Well. It's a hard/impossible problem to solve, if the government have sold the rights to oil and mining to cheap,

BUT nationalize investments others have done would be BAD, because that would scare away other foreign entrepreneaurs and investors...

The Philippines needs a boost, that could come from inside but it hasn't yet, they will not make it attractive enough for someone from the outside to help in the areas they really need the help in.

Yes. It's allowed for foreigners to own  100 % in export zones, I don't know if that goes for export companies stationed elsewhere too,

but it's a big problem with the maximum 40 % ownership law against foreigners (in most cases) because who want to make biger investments 100 %, but only get 40 % and don't get majority of the wotes?...  :th_unfair: :1 (103):

The US has been accelerating away from actually producing things, we import and we have service industry jobs

It's similar in West Europe.   =Such internal jobs don't add but LOSE money for the COUNTRY. That's why I claim our such home countries are doomed* economical in the long run. That's why I will move to the Philippines  :)

 

*=Incomes will drop in high salary countries until it become similar to low salary countries, so it will become profitable to put production in out birth countries again. BUT it would still be a huge problem, because mentaly it's much nicer to get raised than lowered salary  :)

[robert k]

Thomas, I don't think we are on the same page here. They don't have to kick the corporations out but if I were trying to sell the idea to a politician....... :thumbsup:

[Thomas]

Thomas, I don't think we are on the same page here. They don't have to kick the corporations out but if I were trying to sell the idea to a politician....... :thumbsup:

They could always pull a fast one like Mexico with the oil fields and nationalize everything once they are fully going and then kick the corporations out :thumbsup:.

Nationalizing is kicking the owners out, isn't it?   :)

 

I don't remember the history for sure, but I believe USA supported the military dictators in Chile against the Chile people and the DEMOCRATIC elected goverment because the later had nationalized the copper mines...