Will the Philippines new "investment grade" status spell...

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publicduende
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Post by publicduende »

OutWest wrote:If someone wants some meaningful insight into conditions here in the Philippines, the link posted above by Mr S is on the money.

http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2011 ... rofitably/
So ironic my friend, as every single concept, every single word, every syllable of that article can squarely apply to American society, too.
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Post by ladislav »

publicduende wrote:
OutWest wrote:If someone wants some meaningful insight into conditions here in the Philippines, the link posted above by Mr S is on the money.

http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2011 ... rofitably/
So ironic my friend, as every single concept, every single word, every syllable of that article can squarely apply to American society, too.
Yes, well, Americans do criticize themselves a lot, too. No one is denying that the US is in a mess. But when Americans are in RP, they just carry over their criticism to where they are now.
. In 10/20 years we will see who is laughing.
I am scared that a day will come when Americans will need visas to visit RP and interviews with Embassy staff and they will be turned away. There will be raids on illegal Kanos hiding in the squatters. By then I hope I will have my quota visa.
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Post by OutWest »

publicduende wrote:
OutWest wrote:If someone wants some meaningful insight into conditions here in the Philippines, the link posted above by Mr S is on the money.

http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2011 ... rofitably/
So ironic my friend, as every single concept, every single word, every syllable of that article can squarely apply to American society, too.
Foreign capital is reasonably well treated within the US, and there is a vast amount of it there. This is not the case in the Philippines at all. Foreign capital here is always at risk and most are loath to invest here beyond a certain point if at all.
Intel pulled out of the Philippines...the corruption is just too much.

With a population of about 98 million, the GDP of the Philippines is less than that of the US State of Washington (Population less than 7 million).

There are a lot of grim stats for the Philippines and to sugarcoat them is a fools errand. Profound cultural changes would be needed before the country is anything but the poverty farm it is now. This is not to dislike the country- it is about loving the place in so many ways and being sad about its prospects. It is almost heartbreaking to attend a college graduation as we recently attended in CDO. I know what the real prospects are for most of those graduates.


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Post by Winston »

Great points Mr S. Very realistic and true. Prices in the Philippines is going up while quality remains the same. The only difference is that more is being built, malls are expanding, and new restaurants and food chains are opening up. I don't know why though. If wages aren't going up, then why are more businesses being built? And why are prices going up? If the quality isn't going up, I don't see the point of raising prices.

To make things worse, a lot of restaurants I know are giving smaller portions, and this good Mexican place I like in Angeles City called Tequila Reef even quit giving out free chips and salsa as appetizers. If Mexican places in the US can afford to give out free chips and salsa, then why not in the Philippines?

If you ask, business owners will usually tell you that they do not like raising prices, but have to because their costs are going up. So it seems like a chain reaction. As the costs go up, so do the prices. What is the initial cause though for the inflation and price increases? It really sucks.
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ladislav
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Post by ladislav »

Great points Mr S. Very realistic and true. Prices in the Philippines is going up while quality remains the same. The only difference is that more is being built, malls are expanding, and new restaurants and food chains are opening up. I don't know why though. If wages aren't going up, then why are more businesses being built? And why are prices going up? If the quality isn't going up, I don't see the point of raising prices.
Because there are more people and also more are working abroad and sending more money home and if they don't, the raise in prices will force even more to work abroad and send more money home.

As far as publicduende's statistics, he is right about the peso and all, and small public debts and all the numbers looking pretty good. However, they do not translate into a good life for an average Juan dela Cruz in the street. Students still cannot finish high school without paying, there are no student loans when you go to college, scholarships are hard to get and many have to drop out all the time- there is a huge underclass of under-educated people. There is age and other types of discrimination in workplace which have been done away with in most countries in 1970ies.

Other Asian countries were far more pragmatic- they developed a huge export industry, promoted tourism, and liberalized foreign investment. The Philippines promoted agriculture, did not pay attention to tourism and still has very very old nationalistic laws about foreign investment. Time to catch up with neighbors! But most Filipinos do not even know what their neighbors are doing or even heard of them- where is Indonesia- but are thinking about the States all the time and how they want to be like Americans.

The Philippines is not a poor country but more like lower middle class one and it will stay this way for a long time. Yes, it's developing but so are countries around it and Indonesia recently overtook it.

Before you think me arrogant, publicduende, keep in mind that the country I was born in is just as corrupt and it has the same problems- all the resources are there, but there is little wisdom, a lot of selfishness and dishonesty and it will be stuck in mediocrity for a long time, too.
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ladislav wrote:As far as publicduende's statistics, he is right about the peso and all, and small public debts and all the numbers looking pretty good. However, they do not translate into a good life for an average Juan dela Cruz in the street. Students still cannot finish high school without paying, there are no student loans when you go to college, scholarships are hard to get and many have to drop out all the time- there is a huge underclass of under-educated people. There is age and other types of discrimination in workplace which have been done away with in most countries in 1970ies.

Other Asian countries were far more pragmatic- they developed a huge export industry, promoted tourism, and liberalized foreign investment. The Philippines promoted agriculture, did not pay attention to tourism and still has very very old nationalistic laws about foreign investment. Time to catch up with neighbors! But most Filipinos do not even know what their neighbors are doing or even heard of them- where is Indonesia- but are thinking about the States all the time and how they want to be like Americans.

The Philippines is not a poor country but more like lower middle class one and it will stay this way for a long time. Yes, it's developing but so are countries around it and Indonesia recently overtook it.

Before you think me arrogant, publicduende, keep in mind that the country I was born in is just as corrupt and it has the same problems- all the resources are there, but there is little wisdom, a lot of selfishness and dishonesty and it will be stuck in mediocrity for a long time, too.
It's true that students often don't have money to go to good (private) universities and many of them have to make immense sacrifices to afford their tuitions, only to find themselves working in a call center for 8000 pesos a month, if they're lucky. It's also true that the Philippines still have better universities than Malaysia and Indonesia (Indonesia education system is one the worst in the world, heard from two different Indonesian friends whom I met in London) and there is still an army of well educated students who are quickly snapped up by the best companies in Japan, Singapore and HK, and the Middle East. I think the issue is that many of them won't return until they're ready to retire - their remittances do help the domestic economy to open up to more and more of the usual Western luxuries, but don't add much to the local talent pool.

But then again, brain drain has always been a problem in Italy, and for more than 2 centuries. If we didn't have our brain drain, stuff like the radio (Marconi), the telephone (Meucci), the atomic bomb (Fermi), the first modern microprocessor (Faggin) would have been invented in Italy.

As far as I could read both Macapagal Arroyo and Aquino have been implementing quite a bit of economic reform to make trading and foreign investing safer and more transparent. There is indeed quite a lot of optimism about the state of the Philippines economy, especially considering how much leeway they have in terms of generating low-cost long-term debt and flooding the country with quality capital for first-world infrastructure, perhaps asking the Japanese and the Korean to help. Banks are well capitalised and so are conglomerates (Ayala, Rockwell, San Miguel, Mabuhay, etc.). True, Indonesia has opened up to the free market much faster, but at the cost of rampant corruption and dodgy practices - you must have seen the recent Bumi mess, and that's just the tip of the iceberg, as many say.

Of course many Filipinos in rural areas have very little education and knowledge of the world and its affairs...but isn't it the same in Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia? For how unique they are in the SEA landscape, I wouldn't want to single out all of the issues you mentioned above as Filipino-only. They are endemic in most emerging countries, Asian and not. It's more or less the same in Colombia, as far as I could see.
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Post by publicduende »

OutWest wrote:
publicduende wrote:
OutWest wrote:If someone wants some meaningful insight into conditions here in the Philippines, the link posted above by Mr S is on the money.

http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2011 ... rofitably/
So ironic my friend, as every single concept, every single word, every syllable of that article can squarely apply to American society, too.
Foreign capital is reasonably well treated within the US, and there is a vast amount of it there. This is not the case in the Philippines at all. Foreign capital here is always at risk and most are loath to invest here beyond a certain point if at all.
Intel pulled out of the Philippines...the corruption is just too much.

With a population of about 98 million, the GDP of the Philippines is less than that of the US State of Washington (Population less than 7 million).

There are a lot of grim stats for the Philippines and to sugarcoat them is a fools errand. Profound cultural changes would be needed before the country is anything but the poverty farm it is now. This is not to dislike the country- it is about loving the place in so many ways and being sad about its prospects. It is almost heartbreaking to attend a college graduation as we recently attended in CDO. I know what the real prospects are for most of those graduates.


Outwest
Yes, of course, there is no comparison with the US in terms of foreign investment and economic performance. I was referring more to the points the blogger makes about Filipino people being dumbened down by rubbish TV feeding them with whitewashed small-time stardom and inane comedy, and about them being groomed as a obedient consumers.

The situation about safety and transparency of capital is a pressing one and won't be solved overnight. However, as I wrote to Ladislav above, there has been some good steps in the direction of economic reform and there is more optimism right now. You're right, the Philippines will never rise faster, but lots of economic indicators are healthy...

I agree with your frustration in seeing so many fresh smiling graduates being thrown on the turf because of meager employment prospects. I am actually even sadder when thinking that the same is happening to US graduates, who will have paid 10 or 20 times the amount Filipino students pay to get their degrees, with the added indignity of e few tens of thousands extra in debt!
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Post by ladislav »

Publicduende, this is a Filipino thread and of course the Philippines will be "singled out". And people who love it will be even more painfully aware of its problems and write about them. If this were an Italian, a Malaysian or an Indonesian thread, we would be writing about their good and bad points, too.

And in the threads dealing with America, we expose American problems. Ruthlessly so. I bet you have noticed that. And no one is hurt and taking it personally.

Optimism is not enough. We need to see results. If in the coming years if it is an average Juan de la Cruz that benefits and not just banks and large corporations, then everyone will be happy. Including me.

As far as student loans in the US now, Obama has just recently passed a law whereas the repayment is capped at 10% of the income and loans are forgiven after 20 years. The interest on them is tax deductible. There are also all kinds of forbearances and deferments and consolidations and huge chunks of those loans can be forgiven if you volunteer in certain gov't programs.

Also, if you are very poor, you don't need student loans, you get grants to go to school in the USA. And high school is totally free. In RP, many people cannot finish HS because their parents have no money to pay this or that fee. This would not happen in the USA.

Finally, as far as the loans go, students in the USA are responsible for choosing majors that have a high demand for jobs and also, working part time not to pile on too much debt.

I was $27K in debt and went to Saudi Arabia and paid it all off in a very short time.

As far as brain drain and emigration, I don't think any immigrant anywhere is too happy to be living in a foreign land away from his family. Most would rather have a good gov't and economy where they were born and where memories are. Einstein, Marconi and all others would most probably have loved it if they did not have to emigrate. And Indonesian graduates also may be crying in some alien land where they have to be by necessity. It sucks being an emigrant.

Me thinks you are too sensitive and taking talk about the Philippines as a personal insult which is a Filipino trait. I say, get over it dude. We are all still very weak here and opinions is all we can pass at this point. I have been able to help many Pinoys up until now and they are way on their way to becoming professionals because of a few hundred dollars that I paid here and there. I think many people have been happy to help, too.
It would be nice if in the future, they can help themlseves, too.
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Post by publicduende »

ladislav wrote:Publicduende, this is a Filipino thread and of course the Philippines will be "singled out". And people who love it will be even more painfully aware of its problems and write about them. If this were an Italian, a Malaysian or an Indonesian thread, we would be writing about their good and bad points, too.

And in the threads dealing with America, we expose American problems. Ruthlessly so. I bet you have noticed that. And no one is hurt and taking it personally.

Optimism is not enough. We need to see results. If in the coming years if it is an average Juan de la Cruz that benefits and not just banks and large corporations, then everyone will be happy. Including me.

As far as student loans in the US now, Obama has just recently passed a law whereas the repayment is capped at 10% of the income and loans are forgiven after 20 years. The interest on them is tax deductible. There are also all kinds of forbearances and deferments and consolidations and huge chunks of those loans can be forgiven if you volunteer in certain gov't programs.

Also, if you are very poor, you don't need student loans, you get grants to go to school in the USA. And high school is totally free. In RP, many people cannot finish HS because their parents have no money to pay this or that fee. This would not happen in the USA.

Finally, as far as the loans go, students in the USA are responsible for choosing majors that have a high demand for jobs and also, working part time not to pile on too much debt.

I was $27K in debt and went to Saudi Arabia and paid it all off in a very short time.

As far as brain drain and emigration, I don't think any immigrant anywhere is too happy to be living in a foreign land away from his family. Most would rather have a good gov't and economy where they were born and where memories are. Einstein, Marconi and all others would most probably have loved it if they did not have to emigrate. And Indonesian graduates also may be crying in some alien land where they have to be by necessity. It sucks being an emigrant.

Me thinks you are too sensitive and taking talk about the Philippines as a personal insult which is a Filipino trait. I say, get over it dude. We are all still very weak here and opinions is all we can pass at this point. I have been able to help many Pinoys up until now and they are way on their way to becoming professionals because of a few hundred dollars that I paid here and there. I think many people have been happy to help, too.
It would be nice if in the future, they can help themlseves, too.
Lad, I agree with you that the thread is specific on the Philippines, but complaining about problems that are more or less endemic in most of emerging countries, even the non-Asian ones, is reductive. Declining quality and funding of the public education system is such a widespread problem in many countries, it's entirely unfair to say that the Philippines are a bad place because students can't get loans. It's the same in Italy, where student loans are virtually non-existent, even for exotic things like MBAs.

I am not being overoptimistic, just saying that Juan de la Cruz isn't that worse off than Mario Rossi or Michel Dubois, when his weight on the public system is considered. Results will come, but at a pace that's characteristic of each culture, society and economic system. Some countries are declining slower than others (eg. UK vs Italy or Spain), so by the same token some countries are emerging more slowly than others. Open the floodgates wide open for all sorts of speculative and short-sighted foreign investment to come in and syphon out resources and money isn't necessarily the best recipe. Chile and Indonesia experienced that form of extreme liberalism in the 70s and the 80s with disastrous consequences. That no foreign company can buy land or set up a business without a majority of Filipino ownership might not be the tragical mistake many think of. In fact the net result is a more stable, if static, economic system, almost pristine resource pools, fiscal frugality and very healthy (= low) levels of corporate and public debt.

Hey, in no way I am being oversensitive about the Philippines, other than my natural propension to always siding the minority, the underdog. It's just I am tired of all of this criticism about cultures that we choose to analyse and moan about without looking at the big picture. In times of globalised transformation, on either direction, it does indeed make sense.

I mean, this attitude is epitomised, banally, by Winston criticising the Philippines for the bad quality of their...Mexican food :) WTF, has he ever tried a nice plate of tuna kinilaw, or some uber-fresh grilled seafood, or a good serving of BBQ, or even a humble lechon manok? It's like walking into a candy store and complain about the lack of vintage French wines on the shelves :)
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Post by Winston »

publicduende wrote: I mean, this attitude is epitomised, banally, by Winston criticising the Philippines for the bad quality of their...Mexican food :) WTF, has he ever tried a nice plate of tuna kinilaw, or some uber-fresh grilled seafood, or a good serving of BBQ, or even a humble lechon manok? It's like walking into a candy store and complain about the lack of vintage French wines on the shelves :)
I did NOT say that. Why do some of you have such bad reading comprehension? Re-read my post. I said the Mexican food here is good and decent. But that prices have gone up by 25 percent in just one year in many hotels and eating places. And places have gotten stingier too. For instance, this great Mexican place in Angeles that me, Ladislav, Mr S and Rock eat at have stopped giving complimentary chips and salsa. What sucks is that quality has remained the same, while prices have gone up and businesses have gotten stingier. WTF? That sucks.

I don't understand why Mexican places in the US can give free chips and salsa but the ones in the Philippines can't anymore? That's stupid. How come US restaurants can be generous but ones in the Philippines have to keep getting stingier?

That is what I said. Please don't twist my words. Some of you have bad reading comprehension. Please read more carefully next time.
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Post by Winston »

eurobrat wrote:
Winston wrote:To make things worse, a lot of restaurants I know are giving smaller portions, and this good Mexican place I like in Angeles City called Tequila Reef even quit giving out free chips and salsa as appetizers. If Mexican places in the US can afford to give out free chips and salsa, then why not in the Philippines?
Is that all you think about is your shitty mexican food. You'll get a taste of real mexican food when you're back in Nevada.
Hey I been meaning to tell you: Rock and Ginger both went to that Crazy Burrito place that I recommended in Angeles City. They liked it and found the food good, wholesome and fresh-tasting. They also had a good chat with the owner, who is neighborly and knows us on a first name basis. Afterward, Rock and Ginger both wanted to tell you that you were wrong about the place, and that it is good after all. So in case they forget to let you know that you were wrong, I'll let you know for them. :)

Btw, here is the website of Crazy Burrito. You can see their menu and photos on it.

http://www.crazyburritoac.com
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Post by OutWest »

Winston wrote:
eurobrat wrote:
Winston wrote:To make things worse, a lot of restaurants I know are giving smaller portions, and this good Mexican place I like in Angeles City called Tequila Reef even quit giving out free chips and salsa as appetizers. If Mexican places in the US can afford to give out free chips and salsa, then why not in the Philippines?
Is that all you think about is your shitty mexican food. You'll get a taste of real mexican food when you're back in Nevada.
Hey I been meaning to tell you: Rock and Ginger both went to that Crazy Burrito place that I recommended in Angeles City. They liked it and found the food good, wholesome and fresh-tasting. They also had a good chat with the owner, who is neighborly and knows us on a first name basis. Afterward, Rock and Ginger both wanted to tell you that you were wrong about the place, and that it is good after all. So in case they forget to let you know that you were wrong, I'll let you know for them. :)

Btw, here is the website of Crazy Burrito. You can see their menu and photos on it.

http://www.crazyburritoac.com

Winston-

Their site and menu actually looks good for Mex food in the Philippines. The only hope I have of getting any down here is making it at home...which is ok. I don't know what Davao has in the way of Mex food...would be nice if some good stuff was there to be had...

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Post by ladislav »

I am not being overoptimistic, just saying that Juan de la Cruz isn't that worse off than Mario Rossi or Michel Dubois, when his weight on the public system is considered. Results will come, but at a pace that's characteristic of each culture, society and economic system. Some countries are declining slower than others (eg. UK vs Italy or Spain), so by the same token some countries are emerging more slowly than others.
You know, I wish it would come sooner. I have oodles of friends who did not finish highschool and are in their 20ies and they are all asking me to help them attend TESDA and all that. And they have to pay for TESDA.

TESDA should be free in my opinion, just like in Cebu where they have courses by city gov't. These are all free.

Here in the USA, all such courses are either free or you have student loans and you finish them and start working. The same should be there.

I was also with T bolis in Mindanao and only 20% finished HS. They have no money to pay fees. Is it the same in Italy and France? I don't think so.
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