A rejoinder to "Asia's Laggard"

There’s a depressing article on the Philippines in last week’s issue of an international magazine. Bannered “Asia’s Laggard”, it opens with “The world has been passing the Philippines literally”. Then it recounts how the country has fallen behind its Asian neighbors economically from its status in the 1960s when it was second only to Japan. In the 1970s South Korea and Taiwan overtook it, then in the succeeding decade Malaysia and Thailand, and in the 1990s China bypassed it. Yet the slide is not over yet because recently Indonesia has just edged us out of the development race.

Actually, this information is not new. Local media have now and then pointed out our sad predicament as a developing country. But viewed as it was by a foreign observer and published in an international outlet the write-up impacts a disturbing effect on a Filipino reader like me. Laggard of Asia, what a stigma!

But then the facts are there: Slackening foreign investment, alarming unemployment, large number of poor families, thousands leaving the country for jobs abroad, food insecurity, insurgency and other negative factors – all these piled upon the understructure of bureaucratic corruption.

Corruption, however, was not mentioned explicitly in the story but these: Low grade infrastructure and transportation facility (e.g. an ageing NAIA), political instability, lack of a liberalized economy, subjective interpretation of investment laws, and business monopoly by oligarchs.

Foreign visitors arriving in Manila are surprised why our airport has remained as it has been in the last two decades. There’s the new NAIA, it’s true, but compared to those of other Asian countries, ours is antiquated by modern standard. And transportation is worse, what with ancient jeepneys still plying the streets. As for railroads conveyances, the culture gap is even more pronounced because in other countries high-speed trains are now the in-thing. Yet even the old engines would have been a boon to outlaying areas in Northern Luzon or to such provinces as Cebu, Samar, Negros Oriental and Occidental, and in the entire Mindanao. But sadly, these are not available.

Because transport facilities are substandard in many places, development therein is niggardly and urbanization is at turtle-paced, or is not happening at all. The consequence is concentration of population in old urban centers, a trend which exerts pressures on social services and enhances anti-communal behavior. That’s why the need for efficient, safe, and reliable transport system is a must for a developing country because it encourages dispersal of people and dispersal too of socio-economic initiatives. Once such system is at hand, idle tracks of land which one can see in the country-side would become centers of agricultural activities, thereby enhancing productivity and reducing rural poverty.

Political instability was also cited as a factor on the Philippines’ snail-paced development. With more than a decade of dictatorship followed by Edsa I and later Edsa II, the county’s reputation as Asia’s exemplar of democracy suffered a set-back. Marcos dismantled our democratic governance while the first People Power restored it. With the Cory Constitution in place, a sense of stability was attained and investors started bringing in their money. But Edsa II exploded, and constitutional succession went awry. Again investors started getting the creeps and foreign investment declined. With PGMA, however, confidence was slightly regained, what with her reputedly strong economic exposure. But in 2004 the “Hello Garci” controversy broke loose. This, along with accusations of multi-million corruptions, fueled three impeachment attempts. Frequent street demos by cause oriented groups, plus the Oakwood coup attempt rocked the government to such an extent that investors confidence was dampened. Now our GDP per capita has plummeted to 3,383 dollars placing us at 24th rank among Asian countries, much below Malaysia and Thailand and even a rank lower than Indonesia.

Clearly, corrupt governance is a major cause of sluggish economic development. Because it spurs congressional inquiries and incites mass actions the stability of the state is compromised. Moreover, this flaw weakens the legal system and encourages subjective interpretation of laws affecting economic activities, thereby generating fears among local and foreign businessmen.

What has been underscored in that write-up as factors that have made the Philippines the “laggard” in Asia are factors traceable to poor and dishonest leaderships.

This should serve as a wake-up call to Filipinos as they go to the polls in May 2010.

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