Filipino Future

My friend Elmer posted a link over at the Yahoo CDO Expats Group (link) to an interesting article about problems The Philippines currently faces (article), and speculates that based on the current situation, The Philippines may not last 100 more years.

It basically lists the following negative factors:

1. Falling rice production.
2. Very poor ranking in World Competitiveness Yearbook.
3. Very poor ranking in science and technology.
4. Very high ranking in corruption.
5. Very poor military forces.
6. Rapidly growing population.

The author claims that The Philippines "has a lot more going against it than for it. It is headed down a path of self-destruction that will inevitably transform it into something radically different".

I disagree. The author is looking at The Philippines in a vacuum. Aside from corruption, The Philippines has much better footing than most countries on earth to step up the ladder of progress that the new "wired" economy has presented, and it sits on the doorstep of China, the world's up-and-coming economic powerhouse.

The Philippines has indeed stagnated comparitively since the end of World War 2. (Prior to World War 2, The Philippines by every measure had the highest standard of living in all of Asia.) But these negatives that the author mentions all can be addressed. The positives that The Philippines possesses, however, cannot be addressed — they are inherent.

Compare The Philippines' human capital to Pakistan or to Kenya. Compare The Philippines' natural resource reserves to Thailand or Mexico. Compare The Philippines' social stability to Nigeria or Iran.

Progress is the natural order of things. I think that The Philippines has all the requisite factors... more than most countries, even... to progress quite well (i.e.: improve agriculture, competitiveness, science, corruption, military, population growth, et cetera) in the coming century.

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In part two of the article (link, sure to be broken soon), the author proposes three solutions to The Philippines problems. While he admits that "our three suggestions barely scratch the surface of what needs to be done, they are part of the fundamental changes that must happen," why he chose these three particular suggestions leaves me a bit bewildered.

The first suggestion is population control. This is idiotic. Self-imposed population controls come about naturally from economic success, not the other way around. Poor families have lots of children to provide lots of small incomes... and increase the likelihood that one or two of those children will go on to bigger and better things. That may not be the truth (having fewer children indeed may lead to more successful children) but convincing people of that fact... or enforcing it by law... is hardly going to yield any benefits.

The second suggestion is better education. Pablum. In fact, the public education system in The Philippines is much better than many other countries one could think of. Thailand comes immediately to mind. If you want to improve education in The Philippines, get more kids to attend school on a regular basis. Get more kids to learn what is being taught. The Philippines doesn't need better education, it needs better learning.

The third suggestion is to get rid of maids. Which particular orifice of his body the author pulled this low-brow populist claptrap out of is obvious. Why he thinks that depriving a million or so Filipinos of this particular job (versus others) is not so obvious. He says that The Philippines must not allow "the poor to be relegated to a life of servitude and in effect 'waste-away' as a marginally productive member of society." Yes, yaya: Please go sit at home and wait for a different job because you are wasting away here by earning a living taking care of our children. Go pick rice under the hot sun instead, so that you can be more than "marginally" productive.

Anyway, I'm guessing that the second part of this article was a poorly-thought-out addendum to the first part. It's obviously worthless, but I figured it would be fun picking it apart anyway.