Asia’s laggard

SINGAPORE — Back in the early 1960s, the World Bank came out with a study predicting that the Philippines, among all the countries in Asia, was in the best position to achieve economic prosperity. The study noted that the Philippines’ gross domestic product was five times bigger than that of South Korea.

What a difference half a century makes.

Today Korea’s GDP is 10 times larger than that of the Philippines. What happened? Among those who want to know is Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore’s former ambassador to the United Nations where he served as president of the UN Security Council.

Mahbubani is now dean of the Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore. He has a book, just off the press in New York, whose theme is obvious in the title: The New Asian Hemisphere/The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East.

Sadly for us, the World Bank’s prediction turned out to be widely off the mark, and we are not the leader of the Asian hemisphere.

Instead it was Japan that became the first Asian country to achieve economic success, Mahbubani told me. Soon after, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan became Asia’s tigers. Malaysia followed closely. Next came Thailand, with Indonesia moving to catch up. These days China and India are rapidly turning into new economic powerhouses.

What happened to the Philippines? Today Vietnam looks poised to overtake us.

“It’s puzzling,” Mahbubani told me last Monday in his office. This was shortly after I addressed international participants in LKY’s flagship senior management program on governance and leadership. On the school’s invitation, I discussed media and governance.

“You’ve tried dictatorship, you’ve tried democracy,” Mahbubani noted, yet nothing seems to work.

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In his book, Mahbubani attributes the economic success of Asia’s achievers to their application of what he calls the “seven pillars of Western wisdom.” These are free-market economics, meritocracy, the rule of law, focus on education, investment in science and technology, pragmatism, and a culture of peace.

If all the countries in Asia would be rated by those pillars, we would flunk in all categories, with the possible exception of free-market economics. But even free market forces in our country are thrown askew by rampant smuggling, crony capitalism and corruption. There is no level playing field in our free market.

The Philippines merits only a few paragraphs in Mahbubani’s book. In them he gives his opinion on what might be holding back Philippine progress:

“… Political clans still reign in the Philippines,” he writes. “Dynasties usually breed mediocrity, which means that middle-class talents have little opportunity to rise to the top of the political ladder… In short, the Philippines is still crippled by the traditional Asian feudal mindset, while both China and India are progressively shaking it off.”

I told him Filipinos are in fact aware that the country lacks those seven pillars. The press writes about the need for those pillars; politicians talk about them endlessly.

So why has there been no change? Because many of those who are in a position to implement reforms are among the biggest beneficiaries of the feudal system, where family fortunes are built on political power and patronage. For such people, there is no incentive to change the status quo.

The rotten system taints even efforts to uphold the rule of law. In our country, only the poor are punished for crimes. From the Marcos regime to the present, the biggest crooks are getting away with everything.

“It is impossible to build a modern society and a modern economy without a modern rule of law,” Mahbubani declares. “This is the pill that all Asians will have to swallow, bitter though it may be in the early years of application.”

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Like the best educators, Mahbubani has an abiding faith in the human capacity to change for the better, and he believes there is hope for the Philippines. He points out that at the start of the 20th century, Australians had typified the Japanese as inherently lazy.

“I don’t believe anybody is lazy,” he told me. Incentives can be created so people won’t be lazy, he said. “I believe that no culture is at a disadvantage.”

He also sees nothing wrong with being a copycat. As premised in his book, Asia’s success stories were inspired by Western models or ideals. China and India are now copying the ways of the Asian tiger economies. The Philippines will have no lack of models to copy if it wants to join Asia’s achievers, he said.

Many Filipinos cannot wait for change to come and are simply leaving their country. The Filipino community in Singapore is one of the biggest in the world. At Lucky Plaza, the bargain center on Orchard Road, there are now many shops offering money remittance services, with Filipinos among the biggest clients. Many of the Filipinos have children of their foreign employers in tow. Across Lucky Plaza are the high-end shopping malls, where the parents of the children shop.

Many of the Filipinos here are maids, entertainers and blue-collar workers. But there is an increasing number of Filipinos in IT enterprises and medical services. And of course the hotels are full of Filipino employees. One young woman in my hotel told me why she left: “Pahirap kasi nang pahirap ang buhay sa atin (Life keeps getting harder back home).”

At least I didn’t notice Filipinas among the many Chinese-looking women who loiter around Orchard Road at night. The women stand out with their heavy makeup and plunging necklines that reveal ample endowments. One of them grabbed a white guy walking ahead of me. The man seemed startled and shook her off.

Mahbubani remembers that when the World Bank came out with its rosy prediction about our country, people from all over Asia went to the Philippines to look for jobs and get quality education.

Today Filipinos are the hospitality workers of Asia. But at least the woman in my hotel is a receptionist at the executive lounge, and not selling her cleavage on Orchard Road. Not too long ago our women were among the biggest victims of sex trafficking rings around the world.

We look on the bright side and measure national progress by minute increments.