While the racetrack-like Elliptical Road in Quezon City rumbles with noise, fumes, and traffic, a few silent automobiles make their own rounds in the Quezon Memorial Circle that the road borders. Humbly seating four persons max, the curious rides called G Cars (in a pun-loaded attribution to their inventor, Gerry Caroro) can be hired for PHP30 per lap. Caroro laments, however, that he never intended his invention as an amusement park curiosity. He intended it to be the solution to the country’s dependence on imported oil, as well as reduce pollution in the metropolis.

Unfortunately Caroro has difficulty finding an investor for his invention, a plight shared with most of the country’s inventors. As any dutiful citizen of the Philippines tends to do, Ronald Talion of the Filipino Inventors Society blames the government for this:

“It’s already mandated under Republic Act Act 7459 (Inventors and Invention Incentives Act) and yet, for some strange reason, our inventors have to fend for themselves,” Talion noted.

“The only support we get is the P178,000 that is given to us every November to celebrate National Inventors Week (NIW). Obviously this is not enough, which is why a lot of my colleagues were forced to seek support from abroad,” he lamented. [Inquirer.Net]

An automotive industry that never was

The plight of Caroro’s fledgling effort to produce a viable automotive technology is but an addition to the tragic history of the country’s automotive industry, shared with its ubiquitous mode of transport and cultural icon: the jeepney. Originally coming from surplus and left-behind military jeeps, roofs were installed and lavish decorations applied to convert former war-wagons into colorful passenger vehicles able to seat six to ten people at a time. From the 60s until the 80s, a vibrant backyard industry emerged, where jeepneys and “owner-type” jeeps were manufactured as low-cost alternatives to lavish, large-engined American cars or their cheaper Japanese counterparts.

The jeepney manufacturing sector was never able to make it beyond “backyard” status to become a genuine car-manufacture industry, though. Beyond metal pressing and stamping, and fabrication of various “mods” to adorn and embellish each jeepney, they never went to the stage of standardization, efficient mass production, and assembly line automation. Over fifty years of jeepney manufacture remained in the realm of hand-pressed, hand-crafted, hand-painted methods. Moreover, it is peculiarly unclear if any two jeepneys are exactly alike, and it is even dubious if any of them had followed a clear cut blue print of any sort.

The last straw, however, is the country’s dependence on Japanese-made surplus engines. Despite whatever expertise local mechanics could boast about in the knowledge of assembling, maintaining and repairing car engines, not a single company has attempted to create its own internal combustion engine with the intent of mass production. The country was relegated to using surplus engines for jeepneys, as well as assembling completely knocked-down (CKD) body kits for various Japanese and American car manufacturers (and even one type of Armored Personnel Carrier for the Philippine Army). Never was the country able to completely manufacture of any mass-produced automobile from top to bottom.

Due to higher-quality offerings of truck-cabbed alternatives with passenger modules in the rear, the jeepney is now dying a slow death. While they are still “King of the Road” in Manila, low sales and profitability has killed all but the most persistent jeepney assemblers of Cavite. Their demise, however, is more pronounced in Cebu, where Chinese manufactured “multicabs” and truck-cabbed jeepneys with Isuzu Elf and Toyota Hi-Ace engines, chassis and driver modules now rule.

An industrial pariah

This situation isn’t even isolated to the automotive industry: while the Philippines has been home to several multinational companies, none of these had resulted in the creation of large local counterpart enterprises. The Philippines hosted Intel since the 1970s, but has yet to have any local company that manufactures PC components (S3 Graphics, while founded by Filipinos Dado Banatao and Robert Yara, was established in Silicon Valley). This is in stark contrast with Taiwan, which is home to computing giants Acer and Asus, among others. Texas Instruments has long had its electronics plant in Baguio, yet no local electronics company has become prominent. American Power Supplies and International Business Machines has been in the country longer than Intel has. The list goes on and on.

It is obvious that, despite the brain drain brought about by the labor export industry, the country does not lack, or at least at several points in its history, has never lacked the means to produce technical expertise that industrialization requires. Neither is there a lack in investment and funding, as evidenced by the continued presence of big-name corporations in the country, notwithstanding moves to shift factories to China. Further evidence of the above is the continued establishment of business process outsourcing firms in the country, which implies both investment and skill.

The government is not entirely remiss in its support to local industry either. Just last month the Department of Science and Technology launched the One-Stop Information Shop of Technologies (OSIST) website (http://www.osist.dost.gov.ph) to assist technology experts and inventors in finding venture capitalists and buyers. While several online pundits question the PHP20 million funding of what essentially is a turtle-paced-loading website, the project will hopefully take off and become a useful tool in aiding inventors like Mr. Caroro in fielding tech innovations like his G-Car. It has to be noted, however that this is not the first time the DOST attempted to set up a program that it hoped would help local industries take off.

Asia’s uncommon manufacturing industry roots

Asia has, arguably, three main manufacturing powerhouses: Japan, China and South Korea, but they each have unique histories in terms of the growth of their manufacturing sectors.

Japan embarked on a sizable Meiji Emperor-sanctioned industrialization effort during the late 19^th century, and while for most of mid-20^th century they had the reputation of producing cheap imitations, relentless improvements in process and technology eventually allowed them to come up with advances above and beyond their Western counterparts.

China, meanwhile, isolated for much of the half-century after the Second World War, had to rely on reverse-engineering much of Western technology, as well as technology-sharing with the USSR, and thus almost forcefully expanded its local manufacturing capability, even before its shift to the capitalist market model.

South Korea, on the other hand, was a little bit more orchestrated, with the regime of Park Chung-hee implementing continuous 5-year development periods during the 1960s that nursed and encouraged industrialization, in a rapid expansion that was eventually termed as the “Miracle on the Han River”.

During the 1950s and 60s the Philippines enjoyed a vibrant economy and an apparently advanced manufacturing sector. The sense of security this brought, however, was false: the industries that the Philippines relied on were primarily American and non-indigenous; and whatever prosperity Filipinos enjoyed rested on the mistaken belief that these foreign investments will remain on the country indefinitely. By the time the problems brought about by the Marcos dictatorship manifested itself in economic collapse, the happy-go-lucky era of American-funded industrialization was already on the way out.

An unwanted local manufacturing industry

The local market was, itself, a challenge. While the Chinese had no choice but to use whatever products are allowed by the Communist government, and the Japanese and Korean markets are fiercely nationalistic in patronizing their own products, moneyed Filipinos were obsessing themselves with everything “state-side”. Everything imported from the US was a godsend; anything local was cheap and “bakya” (out-of-fashion).

Whatever local manufacturing industry offering there was on its own, save for those that were American-branded (e.g., Concepcion Industries’ locally manufactured Carrier air conditioners). Probably the only thriving local manufacturing industry was involved in textiles, clothing, or jeepney manufacture: the latter was even threatened to be usurped by the introduction of Asian Utility Vehicles like Ford’s Fierra and Toyota’s Tamaraw.

What eventually killed the jeep industry, however, were steady albeit imperfect improvements in the local transport systems, as well as increased spending power that weaned private vehicle owners to vans and cars and away from locally crafted jeepneys and owner-type jeeps. It did not help that the local market did not have a genuine automobile product to respond to the demand.

Questions in catching up with a global economy

It is not difficult to surmise that it is now nearly impossible to catch up to the manufacturing behemoth called China. It’s hard to compete with the business viability of going Chinese: cheap labor, power, and highly developed infrastructure trumps any sort of nationalist lament; it simply dictates against the principles of profitability and sustainability. It would be rather ironic to even note that Caroro and his G-Car might turn out to be better cheaply manufactured abroad than made in the country. It should be noted that the e-jeepneys in Makati, Bacolod and Cebu are all made in China.

However, the ill-effects of the Philippine labor-export industry tend to undermine whatever benefits, both real and unrealized, that the said industry has. Large populations of disunited families will be more damaging in the long-run, and skilled overseas labor has brought neither expertise nor industry that the country could positively exploit. The questions now arise: should the Philippines try, daunting as it may seem, to catch up with the Asian manufacturing giants? Should it refocus on other sectors, particularly in services (perhaps, business process outsourcing), which might have been effective for some economies (Hong Kong comes into mind)?

Will Filipino industrialization remain as an electric dream?

Reciprocity

My wife, a travel agent, got fuming mad at a “friend” last weekend. Her “friend” inquired regarding passport renewal application with a caveat: “friend’s” birth certificate has some problems, preventing her from obtaining one from the NSO. My wife asked if she had consulted her local civil registrar or a lawyer to fix whatever her problems are. The reply (this was going on in SMS, if I recall correctly) made my wife hurl:

Nagpagawa na ako ng birth certificate sa Recto. Nakaprint naman sa NSO paper.

The “friend’s” excuse for taking desperate measures is the fact that she wants to become an OFW — our latest breed of national hero. And doubtless, nothing will stop her — if she has resorted to Recto to rectify (pun intended) her birth certificate issues and the DFA refuses to issue her a legit passport, she would doubtless return to those run-down shanties alongside the LRT Line 2 terminal at that avenue to obtain a fake one.

Read more…

Filipinos and Entrepreneurship: What’s the real score?

The result of the GEM Philippines 2006-2007 National Report, as cited by CVJ, is baffling, to say the least. In the study, GEM Philippines states that the distribution of entrepreneurs by socio-economic status is as follows: Class ABC+ 7%, Class C- 19%, Class D 54%, Class E 20%.

Results show that four out of 10 Filipinos (39.2%) aged 18 to 64 have businesses (see Figure 3) and the Philippines ranks second among the 42 countries surveyed by GEMfor 2006. The country is only second to Peru among middleand low income countries and ranks first among benchmarked countries in Asia.

This appears to state that Filipinos are, in fact, business-oriented. This is in stark-contrast to the often maligned notion of the Filipino as culturally biased against entrepreneurship, and having a seek-employment mentality as opposed to a business-oriented culture.

Read more…

Hope you check out Filipinovoices.com

The man, who was snorkeling in a lake adjacent to where the Filipino nurses were picnicking, stumbled up to shore crying for help. The nurses worked to stop his bleeding and kept him awake until paramedics arrived.

I’m sure that Bill Hedden, the victim of the attack, would gladly feed to the ‘gators anyone who would ridicule Filipino medical professionals.

You can watch the CNN Heroes video here.

Over the comments at the blog post linked above, I saw her say something about being called “uragon” as an insult when I had the impression that it had a positive connotation. See, the Legaspi chapter of IPMS Philippines – Bert Anido calls itself the Uragon chapter, and that made me think that “uragon” was actually positive thru-and-thru.

Reynz explained that, if a person close to her called her “uragon”, it may sound positive and treated like a term of endearment, but if it was someone else, “uragon” would actually be an insult.

It took me a while to get it, but I realized that, among gay Filipinos, if one is called “bakla” by a person close to him, it is likewise treated as a term of endearment. However, it would be insulting if that same gay person is called “bakla” by someone he doesn’t know.

Later in the day, Wake T-Rex posted an entry positing that Desperate Housewives was taken out of context and illustrates through this videoclip:

Likewise, Tess, a practicing physician, and Benj, a med student, both stated that they didn’t find the statement offensive. Tess even laments that a person is annoyed that she wasn’t offended.

There are valid points on both sides of the argument, but at the end of the day, I might ask, were we genuinely offended because the statement was invalid? Or were we riled because the person stating it is a foreigner — an American at that? Forget the fact that it’s actually a comedy show — because the joke is on us? Forget the fact that we’re just as guilty of having racial stereotypes?

Or are we reeling because it rubs salt on the wound opened by the nursing board exam fiasco of 2006?

Apl.d.Ap, in the lyrics of “The APL Song”, a song that was released internationally, laments that life in the Philippines is a mess. Why aren’t we offended despite the fact that he’s American? Or is it okay because he was born here and he’s half-Filipino anyway? If a Filipino character in Desperate Housewives said the offensive statement, would we have been offended?

I agree with those who find the calls for a boycott of Desperate Housewives unnecessary, and I seriously think that this might be a case of oversensitivity. Oversensitivity that can actually be a telling sign of a deep insecurity — a deep insecurity fueled by the painful truth that there are diploma-mill med schools in the country, and many of these schools churn out graduates who has the United States in mind.

Honestly, tell me, are you offended that I am not offended?

After I managed to calm down, I think I inadvertently put on “paper” a lot of my sentiments on the current political situation, and why I think that we should rather discuss on solutions that we as a citizenry can carry out. Here is the body of one of my saner, more sensible emails:

Hi Chimi,

I’m sorry if you feel misconstrued; and I know that it is very very important that we tackle the core problems to be able to find the solutions. I am also sorry if someone starts to think that I am against the concept of people going out of the country to become OFWs. I will explain:

On discussing problems

My beef with regards to discussing the problems is that that’s all we ever do — discuss problems. Open the newspaper — any newspaper, read the opinion section.

Day in day out for the past decade and a half of my 27 years alive (I’ve started reading newspapers daily as an adolescent… with my father ranting in the background) all I’ve ever read about are problems and problems and the problem with this and the problem with that. Most of them are critical, comprehensive, and well-researched. Well-analyzed.

However they all contain one flaw : all the solutions they present rely on the government, which, unfortunately, almost always means that the solutions are neither implemented nor heeded.

And of course the analyses continue. Day in and day out more and more analysis from pundits and columnists and all I ever see are problems. They have a name for this phenomenon: analysis paralysis.

Meanwhile, the entrepreneurs that I mentioned (in a previous email, I mentioned Henry Sy, John Gokongwei and Socorro Ramos, all of who didn’t finish college but managed to become multi-millionaires) just kept on working harder and harder, and thus getting richer and richer. It was almost as if they were immune to the problems of the nation, but they are not. It was as if they were apathetic to the problems of the country, but they aren’t. They’re just too busy earning money, improving their businesses, and creating more jobs.

So I am not saying that we ignore the problems. What I am saying is that we already know the problems. It’s time to ask what can we do about them? Or to be more specific, what can we do with our lives so that despite these problems we would be protected from their adverse effects?

On OFWs

I’m sure all of us know the importance of the OFW to our current economy. The Balance of Payments surplus we are enjoying is due largely to the dollars that are flowing in to the country. But just like the 60s, we should not rest on our laurels and treat it as a permanent solution. The long-term social and economic costs ( e.g., the separation of families, the brain drain) of sending workers overseas are too great and will damage us in the long run.

So how will we offset the necessity to earn abroad? By encouraging OFWs to become entrepreneurs as well. This is viable because they earn enough savings to put up their own businesses, and necessary out of the need to continue earning money during their retirement years.

On entrepreneurship

Now you might ask why the over-emphasis on entrepreneurship? That’s because entrepreneurship generates jobs — and if enough people become entrepreneurs then those who do not have the ability to be so or those who are still learning about it can be employed by them. And if there are enough jobs, the requirement for UP, Ateneo, or DLSU grads will start being considered absurd because these universities can only churn out so much graduates in a given year.

Fortunately even in the current situation there are industries that have stopped giving a premium on the Big 3 graduates because they have become both expensive and scarce. I will admit that I did not face this problem (I graduated from DLSU) but many of my best colleagues (I’m in the IT industry) come from a plethora of universities both belittled and unknown: AMA, STI, Bicol University, Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila to name a few. They are very good (most are admittedly better than myself) and the IT industry simply cannot afford to ignore them because of the ongoing brain drain, with many of these guys gone forever to Singapore.

It’s hard.. but I choose to stay here. I believe my fight is here. Praise the Lord, however, that I am provided with larger than usual earnings because of my profession. At the moment I’m still employed as an IT professional, but my wife is running a home-based travel agency business by which we hope to learn the ropes of entrepreneurship.

There have been opportunities to work in Singapore as well, and it’s hard to resist, but I believe that what we are doing is for the best. When the time comes hopefully I could put up my own IT-related/empowered business (or expand our travel agency business towards that direction) to be able to educate and later employ impoverished-but-deserving countrymen, out of my own earnings and effort.

This is the way that I believe I can help in pushing this country forward, and I hope some, if not many of you, will join me with my dream.

I apologize for the length of this response, and the tone of my previous mail. I hope I have not offended anyone.

God bless,
-Jonjon

The following is the text of the letter, which can be found here. I have provided this copy because I am not sure if The Philippine Star has implemented caching of articles and entries beyond recent ones (they don’t have an archive of past articles):

Statement from Malu Fernandez on the OFW controversy

Friday, August 24, 2007

I am humbled by the vehement and heated response provoked by my article entitled “From Boracay to Greece!” which came out in the June 2007 issue of People Asia. To say that this article was not meant to malign, hurt or express prejudice against the OFWs now sounds hollow after reading through all the blogs from Filipinos all over the world. I am deeply apologetic for my insensitivity and the offensive manner in which this article was written, I hear you all and I am properly rebuked. IT was truly not my intention to malign hurt or express prejudice against OFWs.

As the recent recipient and target of death threats, hate blogs, and deeply personal insults, I now truly understand the insidiousness of discrimination and prejudice disguised as humor. Our society is bound together by human chains of kindness and decency. I have failed to observe this and I am now reaping the consequences of my actions. It is my fervent hope that the lessons that I’ve learned are not lost on all those who through anonymous blogs, engaged in bigotry, discrimination, and hatred (against overweight individuals, for example).

I take full responsibility for my actions and my friends and family have nothing to do with this. To date I have submitted my resignation letters to both the Manila Standard and People Asia, on that note may this matter be laid to rest.[The Philippine Star]

I hope that this lays to rest this deeply divisive and scandalous issue.

UPDATE: Here is the video of the TV Patrol report regarding Malu Fernandez, the OFW reaction, and her resignation:

It remains, however, that the OFW psyche that she maligned has been deeply hurt, and I believe it is but apt to once more remind and underscore just what our countrymen are doing to support the land were they were born. I likewise think that the best way to do that would be to talk about the person who is, for me, the quintessential Overseas Filipino Worker.

His story isn’t extraordinary. I’m sure we’ve heard his kind of story over and over.

He was born to poverty in Pampanga to a Filipino mother who was left by his African-American father. He grabbed the opportunity to move to the United States at a young age. He came to the land of milk and honey knowing very little English. But he learns the language and pretty soon masters it while improving his innate talent. He performs onstage to be able to send money to his mother.

His brother commited suicide due to depression and poverty.

When he became successful in his career he went home every Christmas, and whenever else he can he would go home. He may be an American citizen with African-American roots but he can’t live without rice and adobo. He takes on the opportunity to use Tagalog to talk to his fellow Filipinos.

In fact, he used his success to be able to use Tagalog to sing his Filipino pride to the world.

His name is Allan Pineda Lindo. Most of us know him as Apl.de.ap, member of the world famous hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas.

In The Apl Song, he holds nothing back. He talks about how difficult life is from where he is, and professes that in the Philippines life is a mess, so much so that his brother took his life:

I was fourteen when I first left Philippines
I’ve been away half my life, but it felt like a dream
To be next to my mom with her home cooked meal
Man, I felt complete, my emotions I feel
Now life has changed for me in the U.S
But back at home man, life was a mess…
I guess sometimes life’s stresses gets you down
On your knees, oh brother I wish I could have helped you out…

However, his poverty and his experiences of hardship and pain never led him to despise his homeland and his identity. In fact in the song Bebot, not only does he profess his being truly Filipino, he does so in his own language:

Hoy pare, pakinggan n’yo ako
:Hey man, all of you listen to me:
Heto na ang tunay na Pilipino
:Here comes the real Filipino:
Galing sa baryo – Sapang Bato
:Came from the barrio – Sapang Bato:
Pumunta ng L.A. – nagtrabaho
:Went to L.A. and labored:
Para makatulong sa Nanay
:In order to help my mother:
Dahil sa hirap ng buhay
:Because life is so hard:
Pero masaya pa rin ang kulay
:But the disposition’s still bright:
Pag kumain – nagkakamay
:When eating – we use our hands:
‘yung kanin – *chicken adobo
:What we eat – chicken adobo:
‘yung balut – binibenta sa kanto
:The *balut – being sold at the corner:
Tagay mo na nga ang baso
:Share the glass already:
Pare ko, inuman na tayo
:My friend, let’s start drinking:

This was taken from what I think is the most complete and contextually accurate translation of this song, and can be found here.

Despite the obstacles that he faced in his colorful life, Apl.de.ap embodies the realization of the hopes and dreams of millions of Filipinos; the hope that one’s talent, ability, and hard work will bring about prosperity and, perhaps, recognition, and the dream of being able to live a better life with one’s family.

Dreams and hopes that can never be shattered by the irresponsible ramblings of the apathetic and insensitive; hopes and dreams that will never be swayed by pessimists and naysayers. That millions are fighting, and fighting hard, in the country or abroad, is reason enough to be proud in being Filipino.

So come on, sing with me.

Kung Pinoy ka sigaw na, SIGE!

Kung maganda ka sigaw na, SIGE!

Kung buhay mo’y mahalaga, SIGE!

Salamat sa iyong suporta.