Different systems

In a land where government forces are battling a four-decade-old communist insurgency, a bust of Ho Chi Minh, founder of communist Vietnam, was unveiled last week in the city of Manila.

Gracing the unveiling was Truong Tan Sang, president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam since July and, more important in the totem pole of power in that country, top man of the ruling Communist Party since January this year.

Uncle Ho’s Vietnam is no friend of the free press. Compared with the controlled press in Vietnam, the press in China now enjoys more breathing space, even if China is still seen as the largest prison in the world for journalists. Perhaps Myanmar has surpassed China in this regard, but the global spotlight is focused on Beijing.

Even in this land of people power, however, Ho Chi Minh has his admirers, together with his world-renowned wartime military commander, defense chief and interior minister, Vo Nguyen Giap. One day we might also have a bust in honor of General Giap in Manila, but for now, having turned a spry 100 last August, he’s still available for a chat in Hanoi.

Anyone who defeated French and American forces in two wars, as Ho and Giap led their compatriots to do, will get respect if not admiration even from old enemies. The Philippines, which hosted US bases and sent a military non-combatant contingent during the Vietnam War, is not seen by Hanoi as a former enemy.

President Sang (it’s his first name, but his embassy’s staff said it’s their custom to refer to him by his first name) fought under Giap and spent two years as a prisoner of the South Vietnamese. Sang would later become the party secretary, the highest government official, in the former South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, now renamed Ho Chi Minh.

These days it’s not just Ho and Giap who are reaping admiration but their country itself, despite its restrictions on certain civil liberties.

Like China after the late Deng Xiaoping unleashed the natural capitalist, entrepreneurial Chinese spirit that Mao Zedong tried to suppress, the Vietnamese have implemented reforms geared toward creating what Sang describes as a “socialist-oriented market economy.”

These days there are Filipinos who admire Vietnam not just for defeating two major powers but also for its economic achievements since the end of the war. In certain aspects such as tourism, agricultural output and level of foreign direct investment (FDI), Vietnam is looking better than the Philippines.

A foreign observer of Vietnam cautioned me about this last week, pointing out that the Vietnamese currency hit its lowest in October, the property market in Ho Chi Minh is collapsing, state-run banks are “technically bankrupt” and FDI is “massively down” this year, with Jetstar Airways and Air Asia pulling out.

“The Philippines looks like a bastion of economic rectitude by comparison,” the observer told me.

Sang, however, acknowledges that his country is having problems and feeling the impact of the global economic downturn.

Inflation is at double digit and growth has slowed down, he said. But Sang is still aiming for 6 percent growth this year – pretty high in a year of financial meltdown. Between 2012 and 2015, he expects average annual growth of 7 percent.

“The picture will be brighter in 2012,” he said through an interpreter, although I think he speaks and understands English well enough. “Our people’s life will continue to improve.”

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He is the first head of government to be hosted in a state visit by the Aquino administration. P-Noy’s first state visit was also to Vietnam.

Sang has invited Philippine businessmen to invest in infrastructure development in his country as well as in agriculture, forestry processing, manufacturing support and tourism development. The response to his call during his visit, as far as I can tell, was enthusiastic.

As China can attest, investors don’t care much about press freedom or civil liberties; their principal concerns are protection of their investments – including contracts, facilities and personnel – plus some assurance of turning a healthy profit.

In return for FDI, the country gets jobs needed by its people, and in many cases the infrastructure needed to further spur economic activity.

Sang is aware of misgivings about his country’s system.

“Both our countries share a rather similar history of foreign domination,” he told me in an interview. “When our country was liberated, we settled one very important question of freedom and liberty for our people. If any country boasts of having democracy without independence and freedom, that is a fake democracy.”

Quoting Ho Chi Minh, he said, “If a country gains independence but cannot provide freedom and happiness to its people, that independence is meaningless.”

Sang said Vietnam wants to develop both direct and indirect democracy.

To illustrate the direct part, he said, “I myself am very proud that wherever I go in my country, even the ordinary people could approach me to raise their problems without any hesitation.”

“For instance, when we run for the elections to the local people’s council or to the National Assembly, we have to meet with the voters and they will scrutinize us. And every year we have to meet our voters four times. And after five years in office, we have to meet them again … to see how well we performed,” he told me.

People can air complaints and criticism of the government indirectly through organizations, the people’s council, the National Assembly and the media, he explained (although all news reports are vetted by the state).

Sang points out that all political systems have their strengths and weaknesses. He says Vietnam is constantly learning from other systems in its effort to improve its own and serve its people better.

“You are much luckier than the Vietnamese people because the Vietnamese suffered from 1,000 years of foreign domination, then 100 years of foreign colonialism and 25 years of imperialism,” Sang told me. “We fully understand the price of democracy.”

At the end of the interview, he asked me if I was satisfied with his answers. “We’ve suffered a lot of hardships,” he said.