Over the Christmas holidays, I took my family to Singapore to see what all the Asian Tiger sensation hype was all about. I was amazed to see it was no hype but a geniune, fully developed 1st world country that was full of pride but without boastful Hubris or arrogance. It was a modern city/state that didn't have the ugliness and squalor of Hong Kong beyond its main streets and avenues. It's easily what the Philippines could have been with progressive vision, respect for the rule of law, a meritocracy, and without the all the pervasive corruption.
Singapore Expulsion
Most people have no idea that the miracle of Singapore arose from its expulsion from Malaysia. Lee Kwan Yew cried upon hearing of its expulsion by a unanimous vote of the Malaysian Parliament.
Thus, it was the first state in the modern area to have achieved independence against its will. The reason? Lee and the Singaporeans advocated in the Parliament the notion of "Malaysia for Malaysians" under the typical destructive Malay tendency for Xenophobia.
The Malaysians upon independence wished to extend economic and political benefits only to Malays under the policy of "Bumiputra" at the expense of ethnic Chinese and Indians, all of whom were equal Malaysian citizens. Lee's clarion call for Malaysia for Malaysians was deemed to undermine the national policy of Bumiputra despite Lee's strong nationalist instincts.
Malay Xenophobia? And the Philippine 60/40 Madness
This Malay xenophobia is by no means limited to Malaysia. Around the same time Indonesia under Sukarno led an anti-Chinese pogrom resulting in the death and ruin of many ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. In the Philippines at that time, we had the parallel of the "Filipino First" policy, our version of Bumiputra!
And in Cory's time, ignorance and Xenophobia caused our newly free leaders and politicians enshrined the Filipino First policy in the Constitution under the banner of 60/40, a monopolistic and oligopolistic mistake for the sole and exclusive benefit of our moneyed oligarchy, unwittingly also benefitting the Marcoses and their cronies as is obvious today!
Thus, while Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and China benefitted from massive FDIs that spurred their industrialization, development, acquisition of Western high technology, explosion of educational quality, and modern research and development (R&D always follows rapid industrialization, our nationalists succeeded only in enriching our oligarchy by giving them control of the most profitable and largest industries in the RP!
As the OFWs continued their search for non-existent opportunities here, they had to leave their families to seek income abroad for wretched is the fate of most people who stay in this rigged economy where 70% of the wealth created went to dollar billionaires representing 40 richest families in the country. The results are so obvious and desperate yet most politicians and "illuminatis" still cling to the disaster called Filipino First!
Meanwhile, despite all the growth in the last decade, poverty is worse, unemployment keeps rising, and only the oligarchs who get the overwhelming share of national income generated smugly smile at their "good fortune" thanks to our constitution. Stock prices will keep going up, real estate prices will continue to rise (for now), our billionaires will start challenging the Forbes list of the wealthiest men in Asia, but surprise, Juan de la Cruz will remain totally pathetic and poor until some enlightened legislators put 2 and 2 together and figure out there is a connection between our country's poverty, lack of industrialization, and the crippling poverty of our population.
When? Maybe in the next generation. This crop of oldies just don't get it! In the meantime, we will keep looking up to all those Asian Tigers shooting up the development firmament with only one thing in common - THEY ALL RECEIVED WITHOUT EXCEPTION, MASSIVE FDIs THAT CREATED THEIR INDUSTRIALIZATION.
WAKE UP PHILIPPINES!
Ricky
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