Competitiveness

The party is over. The circus has left town. We have, in typical Filipino fashion, given our guests an experience they will long remember. We have sacrificed a week of our lives in Metro Manila to assure the comfort and safety of our guests.

We are known for pulling off the best fiestas in this part of the world. We have the best entertainers… and chefs who are earning recognition on the world stage.

Even on the substantive matters of the conference, our academics and senior bureaucrats did their homework. We even got an agreement on migrant labor approved. It is just unfortunate that ASEAN, being what it is, all that work do not quickly translate into working programs. But so long as regional and world leaders are having fun, conflict is being kept at bay.

Since it has been 50 years since ASEAN came into being, comparisons of how its member nations have fared can’t be helped. The numbers aside, I can say out of my personal experience that visually, it is obvious we have been terribly left behind. I had the privilege of visiting the ASEAN capitals in 1969 as a student and I saw how Manila was well ahead of the pack. Today, we are struggling to keep up.

Philstar.com came up with some numbers and the emerging picture isn’t pretty for us. 

It is no surprise Singapore bags highest score in terms of access to physical infrastructure; Philippines ranks 5th. This is based on the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific’s Asia-Pacific Countries with Special Needs Development Report 2017.

The UN ESCAP’s report captures the availability, quality and type of physical infrastructure investments covering transport, energy, information and communications technology, and water supply and sanitation. We fall below Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.

Singapore has the fastest fixed broadband speed; Myanmar slowest. According to Speedtest’s Global Index for October 2017, Singapore has the fastest broadband internet with a download speed of 148.62 mbps. The Philippines was ranked 7th with a download speed of 13.5 mbps followed by Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar at 11.46 mbps, 9.31 mbps, and 7.40 mbps, respectively.

Singapore is least corrupt in the region. The Philippines settled at the low middle rank, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2016. The Philippines got a score of 35 that was well below the midpoint of the report’s scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).

Sadly, the Philippines is the least peaceful country in ASEAN, according to data from Vision of Humanity’s Global Peace Index 2017. The report used 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators measuring the state of peace using three thematic domains: the level of societal safety and security; the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict; and the degree of militarization.

Not surprising, Singapore is the most peaceful Southeast Asian nation.

I know our peace and order sucks big time, given that the President himself complains about the bad eggs in the PNP. But I didn’t expect us to be the least peaceful in the region. No wonder foreign embassies keep on issuing travel warnings about safety here. If we want a flourishing tourism industry, safety has to be assured.

The ASEAN conference highlighted our natural competitive advantage for growing our tourism industry. God has blessed us tremendously in terms of breathtaking natural resources that have been internationally recognized. Our natural hospitality and ability to give our guests a memorable time also ought to be exploited.

According to Travel and Leisure, we have the best islands in the world. Palawan is number 1; Boracay is number 2 and Cebu is number 6. 

Again, Travel and Leisure has declared we are the friendliest people in the world. Palawan is number 1; Cebu is number 2; Luzon is number 3 and Boracay is number 4. We also have the most number of English-speaking people in our part of the world.

Yet, in an industry like tourism where we should have natural competitive advantage, we trail our neighbors in ASEAN. Vietnam has overtaken us. Vietnam has a tourism promotions budget of $5.3 million vs our $50 million, yet produces eight million visitors to our 5.4 million.

In a country with highly creative people and an advertising industry that exports talent, we are unable to properly market ourselves as a tourism destination. Our problem is simply government bureaucratic incompetence.

President Duterte thinks so low of the tourism industry that he appointed someone totally unqualified to head the tourism department. Whatever gains we may have achieved in the past administration are erased.

Bad infrastructure is also to blame. NAIA is a continuing embarrassment. And the road networks to tourism destinations are sorely inadequate.

But whatever little money we have for tourism promotion can and should be used effectively. I heard they are preparing to use tourism money for a series of fashion shows featuring the work of a local designer. Focusing on local talent is good but this designer is entering the New York RTW market and it is not right for tax payers to finance his marketing launch.

We should also be able to do better than showcase a bartender doing his tricks in tourism expositions we attend. Our media advertising, the little we have, should also be better written and targeted. We received complaints about a recent New York Times advertorial with badly written copy.

Our ASEAN hosting showed we are capable of delivering better. I have no doubt we have competitiveness in the ASEAN region, if we put our best minds to it. Tourism, infrastructure, peace and order… we can and should do better. We owe it to ourselves.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco