BOO CHANCO: HERE WE GO AGAINMANILA, August 18, 2003 (STAR)  DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco  - No wonder this country is crippled. We keep shooting ourselves in the foot. That court decision to suspend BSP Governor Paeng Buenaventura definitely reinforces our already tattered image not just to investors but to the world. Once again the judiciary has caused serious further damage that sets us back some more.

But don’t blame Malacañang for this one. I heard that the foreign PR consultant they hired in connection with the recent state visit of Ate Glo to the United States precisely advised the President to make more use of Paeng in foreign business roadshow presentations precisely because he is credible. The consultants did their survey of the target markets for Philippine investment missions and Paeng came out strongly as the one public official they would listen to from the Philippines.

Locally, Paeng is also the most credible of government’s economic managers. Paeng and the Bangko Sentral have consistently topped surveys that measure confidence in various government agencies. When some politicians tried to make Paeng a scapegoat in the money laundering debates, Paeng came out more credible than them.

Other than the damage to our business climate, the other repercussion of that court ruling is the damage to the credibility of the Bangko Sentral as an effective regulator of the local financial sector. It is bad enough that the Banco Filipino case is hounding even the family of the late Central Bank Governor Jobo Fernandez, now this Urban Bank thing.

From what I know of the case, I still believe that Paeng did what he had to do in Urban Bank. It was a tough call but he had a duty to perform. It is also terrible that career BSP officials are being treated unfairly in this case. Now BSP officials will be afraid to do anything until a bank crisis is obvious and by that time, a lot of damage would have been done. It is not healthy to have a BSP that is largely a paper tiger.

I know Paeng would love to retire soonest. But this is no way to cap an illustrious career. What happened to Paeng will also discourage decent professionals from accepting such an assignment in the future. This would leave us to the tender mercies of people whose intentions would be less than noble.

Paeng does not deserve this. Neither does the country.

Cruel medium

Live television coverage of the Oakwood mutiny investigations has caused serious damage to the mutineers, the government and the investigators. Television is not a new medium, but it seems people in the limelight who should know better don’t know how to use it to advantage.

As I said in an earlier column, television is a warm medium. You can’t be abusive, you can’t lose your temper, you can’t grandstand. Those who appear on the screen are effectively guests in people’s living rooms or even bedrooms. You can be emotional to a point but you must always be polite.

This is why the mutineers, notably LTSG Antonio Trillanes, that heartthrob of a young Navy officer, are fast losing their appeal. They were too hot during the Senate inquiry. At one point ANC had to bleep some of Trillanes’s words when he angrily reacted to the line of questioning of Sen. Noli de Castro. He was too angry. I thought his head would explode.

Yet, I didn’t think Sen. Noli was out of line. There was nothing wrong for Sen. Noli to ask how come the vehicles were in the name of the navy officer when the vehicles were supposed to be the business of the officer’s mother. That’s a legitimate question and the senator did not insinuate he stole money from government or anything like that. The navy officer was too defensive.

In fact, I think Sen. Noli was one of the most prepared of the senators. His questions were short and based on documentary evidence he has gathered. He did not deliver lectures like some of the other senators. Sen. Noli also did his homework, as if he were preparing for an episode of his ‘Magandang Gabi, Bayan.’

It was just as well that the mutineers failed to attend the hearing the next day before the Feliciano Commission. They have to review their performance. They have to be less abrasive. Their performance at the Senate scared some people about the state of their mental health. How could they be trusted with guns and other weapons if they are as angry as they came across on the television screen?

Here is one e-mail I received from a concerned reader.

I spent part of the morning and this afternoon listening to the televised coup hearings. It has been a chilling experience. These officers showed themselves to be gullible, egoistic, illogical, incoherent, wildly out of touch with reality, histrionic almost to the point of hysteria. In short, LUNATICS!

If I had a subordinate displaying these characteristics, I would be extremely alarmed, and send him off for professional therapy. Until this hearing I didn’t fully realize why some people have been proposing that entrants to the PMA undergo neuro-psychiatric examination. One officer said that he was in Mindanao for eight years – way too long; there is such as thing as combat fatigue.

There must be something wrong also with the way PMA molds the thought processes of its students. If they had succeeded in their coup, I shudder to think what might have happened; maybe we would be another Liberia.

Blackout

That massive blackout in the Northeast United States is not surprising. Remember I wrote in this column about the danger of such a thing happening when I was vacationing at Washington DC last June. Even then, power industry officials raised the warning that the power transmission system feeding into New York and the Northeast region have long needed not just expansion but more important, upgrades to meet reliability standards.

"We are a major superpower with a third-world electrical grid," Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico told The New York Times. He served as energy secretary in the Clinton administration. "Our grid is antiquated. It needs serious modernization." At least in our case, we have a good excuse for the inadequacy of our grid. We are third world.

We should take a lesson from what happened to the American Northeast. We are dependent on a transmission system that needs to be expanded and modernized. Government does not have the financial resources to do that, which is why they are trying to privatize Transco. They, notably Congress, should move quickly on that if we want to avoid serious problems down the line.

Remember that most of the major power plants are now out of Metro Manila. We may have excess generation capacity now but unless we have the right facilities to transmit, sayang lang lahat yan.

http://members.aol.com/guevaramla/boochanco/index.html

Boo Chanco Column for Friday 17 JAN 97

Thai economic crisis should worry us

There was a headline story on NBC Asia the other evening that should worry us. The economic crisis in Bangkok is giving us a preview of what things could be here, unless we are careful. Thailand had long been held as the model for the Philippines of an Asean economic tiger. We have the same population size, the same basically agricultural economy before the recent boom and even the same investment incentives. Not to forget, the same endemic corruption. Now it seems traffic gridlock isn’t the only other thing we could have in common with the Thais. According to NBC’s report, they have a banking crisis brought about by a real estate boom that has gone bust. The glut in office and residential condo units in Bangkok has become a nightmare.

The stock market was reported to have further declined as investors minimized a government bail out plan for the troubled real estate sector. It is one crisis on top of one crisis on top of another crisis. Hearing of Bangkok’s woes on the nightly cable newscast reminded me of a comment made earlier in the day by Walter Brown in a breakfast group I attended that morning at the University of Asia and the Pacific. Walter commented that the local condo business has become similar to the hot pandesal phenomenon. Everybody’s uncle thinks he can make a killing by building all those units. I asked Walter if he agreed with the conclusions of a study made by JP Morgan about a glut of condo units in the Ortigas area. Walter said it is worse than that. The glut isn’t just in Ortigas but everywhere. Many of those people jumping into the business do not understand the dynamics of it all, Walter complains. Unless they watch out, they are liable to get burned. If they get burned, I wonder how many of our banks will be burned as well?

Many of those speculating on condo units are refugees from the stock market. This market easily dries up once there is difficulty in quickly turning investments around. As it is, the high end segment of the market is oversold. Coming from someone who has developed a number of successful high end developments, Walter must know what he speaks of. But Walter thinks there might be a market for mid-range condos for yuppies priced in the vicinity of P5-6 million maximum. The key is the affordability of the monthly amortization. And these units will have to be near places of work in Makati or Ortigas. There is a market for those who are sick and tired of commuting 4 to 6 hours a day from their homes in Alabang, Antipolo and even the Commonwealth area of Quezon City. They will live in these bird cages during the week and go to their more spacious homes for the weekend. But even here, it is essential that the economy continues its upward momentum. If the economy falters for any reason, then all bets are off. The clouds I can see in the horizon are the President’s health, Erap’s possible succession, our inadequate preparation for free trade and the continuing infrastructure bottlenecks.

Uncompetitive

There is something Walter said that is particularly worrisome. He said manufacturing will decline drastically in the next five years. We will be largely uncompetitive to imports of practically everything. The money, he said, will be made by traders. Walter confessed he is himself increasing the share of imports in his business. More money can be made by importing rather than locally producing, even as in his case, he pays the right duties. He cited poultry and livestock for example. Government, he said, must make a decision on which one to save, poultry and livestock producers or the corn (feed) farmers. There is no way government can save both.

Right now, because of election economics, government’s bias favors the corn farmers. It is easier to penalize a smaller number of poultry and livestock producers. But local meat producers are being clobbered by processed meat products being freely imported by duty free shops. Once trade is liberalized further, local meat producers and processors are literally, dead meat. If this happens, who will buy all those expensive corn government is now protecting? I remembered my long suffering stocks in Swift. I was hoping they will bounce back simply because Swift is a food processor and everyone must eat. Now any bounce will be nothing more than a dead cat’s bounce. I am being told to dash all hope because the Concepcion company, like the Ayala’s Purefoods and San Miguel’s Campofrio among others will be unable to compete with Maling of China or Libby’s and all those other imported brands. And if these guys

can’t compete locally, they can forget the world market. Walter said he is going out of the poultry and livestock business. If that is the reaction of everyone else, what does this mean for our food security? Before we know it, those foreign food importers will hold us by the balls. So I asked Walter and Henry Esteban of UAP where will we get the foreign exchange to buy all these imported goods once local manufacturing bites the dust of trade liberalization? They agreed that was a good question but they didn’t have an answer. Walter remarked that he leaves questions like that for economists and government planners to answer. He is only a businessman. He looks at his business and tries to figure out how he can manage given the realities.

Maybe that’s a question we can ask all those aspiring to become Malacanang’s tenant after FVR. Where will we get the foreign exchange five years from now? OCW earnings seem to have peaked or at least, won’t be able to cover the expected growth in imports. Even now the trade gap should worry us but government policy makers are telling us to relax. The service sector will come to our rescue, they say. But what are we doing to prepare our service sector to compete in the world arena? Can we clone SGV a thousand times very quickly? Is our educational system up to it? I doubt it. The bottom line is, trade liberalization which theoretically is a good thing, will come as a shock. And it is because government has not done much to prepare us in terms of the right policies, has not given us the right infrastructure and failed to put up the safety nets for those who can least afford its effects. If there is one reason why Eddie Ramos should tell Pirma to stop its drive, this is it. Let the Ramos era end on a high note, with the Newsweek and Time cover stories to mark his economic accomplishments. The negative impact of trade lib will be felt after 1998.

Given the problems, you don’t have to be an Erap to be a total failure in the economic front. It is almost guaranteed. Anybody who wants to inherit this looming crisis has got to be a loony. He or she should have his or her head examined.

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The Philippines Environment: A Warning

By Boo Chanco, Editorial writer, The Philippine Star

A recent issue of Time magazine contains a review of a book that pictures life in the 21st century. "It is scary stuff," Time's reviewer observed, "and a warning the world should heed." The Future in Plain Sight: Nine Clues to the Coming Instability, by Eugene Linden, looks at the Philippines in the year 2050. Linden wrote:

"In the first half of the new century, most of the remaining forests will be cut down, and as few as 30 percent of the animal and plant species once present in the country will survive. Mud slides flowing over denuded fields will wipe out countless homes, and the silt that washes into rivers and lagoons will destroy fisheries.

"A longer, more vigorous typhoon season will play havoc with rice crops, wounding the economy and forcing the nation to import large amounts of food. Guerrilla warfare, disease and hunger will eventually drive down the birthrate, and by 2050 the population will sink to 55 million, 25 percent lower than what it is now."

At that point, things may start to improve, as the rain forest begins to reclaim the hillsides and as the mangroves return to the ravaged coastline. But, Linden writes, much of the country will be damaged

beyond repair.

Most of what Linden predicts for 2050 is happening now, except for the population drop. We are in a deep ecological hole, and should be organizing to address the problems.

Conservation International (CI) conducted a massive study of the world's richest megadiversity nations. The Philippines is one of the top 17 megadiversity countries in the world.

Megadiversity refers to the wealth of species, ecosystems, and ecological processes that make up our planet. This diversity is our living natural resource base, our biological capital in the global bank. Its loss is irreversible.

Once a species of plant or animal becomes extinct, it is gone forever. Our mega-problem is not just the loss of individual species, but the loss of entire ecosystems upon which we as living creatures depend for our survival.

Russell A. Mittermeier, president of CI, told his audience at the Meralco Theater recently that the Philippines is a biodiversity superstar. Many of the world's species of plants and animals are endemic to the Philippines. (There is, for example, a rare species of reptile that thrives on pigs and is endemic to the Batasan area.) Because such organisms are found only here and nowhere else, we have a responsibility not just to ourselves but to the world to preserve these gifts from nature. There is, Mittermeier says, a high species diversity in a relatively small land area. The Philippines is ranked either first or second worldwide in biodiversity per unit area.

Mittermeier observes that most of our pristine rain forest and other natural habitats have been lost. The latest number indicates that only about eight percent of 24,000 square kilometers remains intact. Because of this, there is "an even greater packing of biodiversity in the last unspoiled areas that remain."

Conservation International has declared the Philippines the most urgent biodiversity conservation priority on the planet. Mittermeier calculates that "every single piece of natural forest remaining every little piece of biodiversity real estate that still exists is worth more than a comparable piece virtually anywhere else on earth."

Contrary to what some people say, protecting our environment pays for itself. Mittermeier sees our biodiversity as an economic advantage in the international arena. The biodiversity-rich real estate that survives will be increasingly seen as a top international priority for investment. There is also the potential for earning foreign exchange through ecotourism, bioprospecting, and scientific research. The next big medical breakthrough could come from our biodiversity reserves.

Mittermeier cited the example of Costa Rica. It earns $650 million in ecotourism alone. The Philippines has at least as much unique wildlife as Costa Rica does. To capitalize on our biodiversity, we have to make sure this ecological advantage is not eroded or ultimately lost. We have to learn how to use our living biological resources appropriately or face the tragic results of misusing natural resources.

Our forests protect major watersheds and guarantee clean water supplies. Intact ecosystems prevent erosion and serve as a buffer against natural disasters like the mud slides in Central America. Unique plant and animal species can be a global attraction to tourists and scientists and provide income to the countryside. Our rich biodiversity heritage is good for long-term economic development.

What will it be? Apocalypse or megadiversity? The choice is obvious. But we need strong political

support, not just from the government but from every citizen, regarding our social and religious obligation to protect our natural megadiversity. Many of us will be long gone by 2050, but our children will reap the consequences if we continue on our self-destructive path. We owe it to our children's children to stop the destruction of our environment and protect its various forms of life.

December 7, 1998

http://gbgm-umc.org/asia-pacific/philippines/ecophil.html

Is China replacing America?09/10/2004 | By Boo Chanco

Posted on 09/10/2004 5:52:23 PM PDT by Flavius

It is bound to happen... maybe in 10, 20 years or even less. Economists and political scientists have been saying that China may be the next superpower, eclipsing America. This is China’s century, they say. The sleeping dragon has awakened! All 1.2 billion of China’s teeming masses are on their way to establish the world’s largest market economy and newest political superpower.

Listening to President Arroyo from the back of Dolce Fontana restaurant during last Tuesday’s MOPC Forum, I got the impression that our economist President got the idea too. And she is working to adjust our national perspective to take in the vision of China as the regional and world superpower that will eventually have more impact on our country than America.

Of course President Arroyo was careful to say that we have strong historic ties with America. But in responding to a question posed by a reporter from the Office of the Press Secretary, she also acknowledged the fact that our historic ties with China are even deeper... predating the arrival of the white man on our shores.

President Arroyo spoke glowingly of the over $1 billion in aid, concessional loans and contracts she brought home from Beijing. It was not lost on the audience in that packed hall last Tuesday, what was left unsaid in contrast: the meager $30 million in anti-terrorism assistance that was supposed to come from America have suffered all sorts of bureaucratic snags.

It was also not lost on the audience the policy contortions the Arroyo administration had to go through for military aid and trade concessions from America which often don’t materialize. To emphasize how important China is to her mind, President Arroyo said her state visit there last week is the only state visit she will make this year.

What really jolted me during that forum was President Arroyo’s announcement that we are on the verge of military cooperation with China. She is sending no less than newly installed Defense Secretary Nonong Cruz to China to work on the finer details of how this cooperation will work. "We recognize that China plays a determining influence in the security and economy of our region and therefore of our country," the President said.

Will the Chinese sell sophisticated firearms to help modernize the AFP? Will we be sharing sensitive intelligence information with China? Will we undertake joint patrols in the South China Sea to keep it free of pirates? The possibilities are mind boggling. The President’s subliminal message seems to be, America’s no longer the only game in town even for something as sensitive as military cooperation.

Not only will China now have a new market for its armaments, America’s hold on our military could be seriously challenged. Will the Chinese military send experts in guerilla warfare here to train our soldiers? And even as the Americans took away our cadet allocations at West Point and Annapolis to express disgust following the termination of the bases agreement, will this new cooperation with China mean top PMA cadets will be invited to train in China’s military academy?

The more important thing is, China’s being friendly not just to us but to all of ASEAN. When asked why she thought China’s being so generous to us, President Arroyo said China’s just being a good citizen of the world. Really? Maybe, we can give China the benefit of the doubt. But let us not forget China’s also acting in its best interest, which will not always coincide with ours.

At the rate China is undertaking this charm offensive, ASEAN could end up being a solid pro China bloc that would change the balance of power in our region. And all this is happening while America is distracted with Iraq, as the Bush administration placed Asia in the back burner. But I am afraid we will just replace America with China. The dependency relationship with a superpower remains.

The other more important aspect of that relationship we must develop to make the economic basis of our nationhood more viable, has to do with trade. I was disappointed that President Arroyo hardly touched on trade with China in her discourse on our emerging foreign policy shift.

I was hoping to hear her unveil a specific program designed to take advantage of China’s voracious appetite for commodities from bananas to vegetable oil. She herself noted that "ever since Beijing joined the World Trade Organization, Manila’s bilateral trade with China has gone from almost nothing to $10 billion, with the balance of trade in our favor."

I got word late Tuesday that the Philippines is finally part of the so-called early harvest program under the ASEAN plus China. That means, we will no longer have the 10-percent tariff disadvantage against Malaysia and Indonesia when we sell such commodities as coconut oil to China.

I remember a conversation I had with former Agriculture Secretary Cito Lorenzo about his plans to put up palm oil plantations in Mindanao that in as little as five years, would be able to supply palm oil for export to China. Right now, palm oil is one of the major exports of Malaysia to China and I was told China could absorb more.

If there is anyone who knows China and the commodities trade, it is Cito. His family-owned Lapanday (he divested before he took the agri job) is selling fruits like bananas and pineapple to China for close to 10 years now. Lapanday’s sale to China had gone from zero to half of total. And it will go higher as China’s appetite increases. Even rice is a potential export commodity to China, if we can untangle our rice growing problems.

As I proposed some months ago, the China market is important enough for the President to appoint a special envoy to China with a mandate to develop Philippine exports of commodities and manufactured goods. We need someone who will work not just for the industrial sector but for the agri sector as well. I think this is a job tailor made for Cito.

All I am saying is, the President is right to recognize the importance of China this early. With China’s exploding economy that seems unstoppable, we simply must find a way to hitch our kareton to the Chinese star and share some of the bounty from our powerful neighbor up north, through trade and not aid.

How the world has changed. Even as America still nominally holds the title of sole world superpower, China holds America by its financial balls... I mean bonds. If China stops buying American bonds or dumps what it holds, America’s kaput. By 2020 or even earlier, China may no longer be happy playing second fiddle. By that time, the sheer power of its market will make China the dominant superpower. The earlier

we learn to live with it, the better for us. English English You would think the English know how to use English. This was forwarded by Norbert Goldie of Paranaque.

Spotted in a toilet of a London office: TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

In a Laundromat: AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

In an office: WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY, PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office: AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a secondhand shop: WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING – BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Seen during a conference: FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN’T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR

Notice in a field: THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES

Message on a leaflet: IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1212698/posts

By BOO CHANCO - It may be funny for Philippine Airlines to register as anything other than a Philippine airline. But what would stop Lucio Tan from creating a new airline called Air Guam and register it as an American flag carrier to enjoy the benefits here under the Open Skies agreement with the US? Makes business sense to me!

My inclination is to support the concept of free trade among nations. But it is a complex issue and it is best to formulate policies on the basis of what the circumstances present. In the case of the aviation industry, that would mean an intelligent view of open skies. While it is theoretically nice to have, there are realities that make open skies difficult, or unfair to implement unless some conditions are met.

In our case, the first problem has to do with congestion, specially in the case of Manila. We have one overused runway, often unavailable when local VIPs in their private planes want to take off or land. We also have a terminal building that has seen better years, and not enough gates to handle more than it presently does. The new terminal will be ready, heaven knows when.

And then, we have foreign governments who are not inclined to grant us the same rights we have already granted their carriers. Finally, in what amounts to an open skies situation, with the United States, it didn’t bring in more flights and tourists as we had hoped.

I have been following the issue for years now and it seems the local airlines have a point. In the past, we could accuse the local airlines of being shortsighted… of wanting to protect their turf but not ready to put in

the investments to grow our tourism trade. They have been called rent-seekers. Well, both Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific have been spending billions of dollars on new aircraft and related facilities including those for pilot training and aircraft maintenance. They are rent-seekers no more.

Unlike the other major airlines in the region, both PAL and Cebu Pacific are privately owned and do not enjoy any favors from government. In fact, both are significant taxpayers and employers. This makes their recent investments more meaningful.

And they cannot be accused of operating as a cartel that fixes prices. Competition in the domestic airline industry is very real… even cutthroat. In fact, the prices of domestic tickets have gone down so much, inter-island shipping companies are starting to feel the pressure. Our domestic airlines can no longer be accused of not knowing how to compete.

As such, I tend to take their word when they say they are eager to compete with the likes of Singapore’s Tiger Airways or Hong Kong’s Hongkong Airlines or other so-called no frills airlines from Malaysia, Macau and other countries in the region. However, it is the civil aeronautics authorities in Macau, Hong Kong and South Korea who are not inclined to treat us as well as we have been treating them.

For instance, Hong Kong’s civil aviation authorities did not allow Cebu Pacific to make charter flights from Clark to the former British colony. Carmelo Arcilla, executive director of our own Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) said “Hong Kong’s so-called liberal regime just recently rejected Cebu Pacific’s application for charter flights from Clark saying that there’s not enough space in the bilateral agreement.” However, HK Airlines continues to operate to HKG from Clark because they are covered by EO500-A,” Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing said.

Lance Gokongwei, Cebu Pacific president and chief executive officer, said the airline plans to use Clark to fly daily to Hong Kong, four times a week to Singapore and Macau, three times a week to Bangkok and Taipei. Cebu Pacific plans to make Clark a base for aircraft and a hub for flights to and from various regional destinations and could enhance Clark’s importance as a gateway to Central and Northern Luzon in a major way.

Hong Kong’s treatment of Cebu Pacific was also not the first time we have been treated unfairly. Macau last year denied the application of Asian Spirit to fly from Clark to Macau and back, whereas Tiger Air of Singapore has been allowed to fly freely from Singapore to Clark to Macau and back. I understand South Korea recently denied similar applications from Asian Spirit, a smaller Philippine carrier.

“We hope to get a favorable response from all other governments considering that our own government has given their carriers similar rights to Clark,” Gokongwei said. Cebu Pacific expects to carry as many as 300,000 passengers in and out of Clark per year.

Philippine Airlines has also announced major investments in Clark. “We do want to make Clark our second home, and eventually our first,” Ma. Socorro Gonzaga, SAVP of Philippine Airlines told a PCCI Forum last week.

What has happened at Clark, she observed, was that Clark has become open skies for every foreign airline that wants to fly there from their home countries and go on to other destinations but effectively closed to Filipino airlines because they can’t do likewise.

“If Clark is now envisioned to be the future of Philippine aviation, then it makes no economic, political, commercial or strategic sense to exclude the Filipino airlines from that future,” Ms. Gonzaga emphasized. I think this is a good point.

If I get the plea of the local airlines correctly, they are not exactly against open skies. They just want our government to use open skies as a carrot to get other governments to allow our airlines the same privilege. The problem with our own officials is that often, they tend to even speak on behalf of the foreign governments. It happened again recently when the head of the Philippine panel in air talks with South Korea won the day… for South Korea.

I guess some sectors have the notion that unconditional open skies would dramatically increase our tourist numbers. That’s not going to happen automatically. I have insisted in past columns that unless we have the necessary infrastructures to promote tourism, open skies won’t make a difference.

We now have an operational Open Skies Agreement with the United States since 2004. But the US carriers have not increased the number of flights to the country nor have they increased the number of passengers they bring here. On the contrary, United Airlines did not resume its flights here.

In fact, those who take the Northwest connecting flights from Japan often report that while their flights are fully packed from the United States, there are more than enough vacant seats on the flight to Manila from Japan. There are those who forget that open skies will not create demand for airline seats. People must first want to visit us to generate demand. And only after there is such a demand will the American airlines even consider taking full advantage of the operational Open Skies agreement we have.

A local pioneer in in-bound tourism told me she can bring in jumbo jet loads of tourists here anytime, but where will she book them? Cebu, Manila and Boracay are fully booked in terms of hotel rooms. In fact, one hotel professional told me, prime rooms are more expensive in Manila than in Beijing.

We have to resolve once and for all, how we want to treat our local aviation industry… if we should have a local aviation industry at all. Right now they feel they are being treated badly and that’s no way to encourage local entrepreneurs who are putting large amounts of money at risk, at least $4.5 billion between the two top airlines on new aircrafts alone. They don’t even get help from our government the way other countries help their flag carriers. But they expect this government not to treat them less favorably than foreign airlines.

That doesn’t sound too much to ask. Or what’s the benefit of being a Filipino-owned airline? As the CEO of Cebu Pacific was once quoted, “we might as well register as foreign air carriers.”

It may be funny for Philippine Airlines to register as anything other than a Philippine airline. But what would stop Lucio Tan from creating a new airline called Air Guam and register it as an American flag carrier to enjoy the benefits here under the Open Skies agreement with the US? Makes business sense to me!

Nuclear energy getting respectable againDEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo ChancoThe Philippine Star 12/02/2005

The speech the other day of British Prime Minister Tony Blair announcing plans to reconsider the use of new generation nuclear power underscores the growing respectability of nuclear energy among policy makers. High energy prices, the certainty of declining petroleum resources and global warming from all those hydrocarbon gasses have all combined to make national leaders give nuclear energy a second look.

But let us be clear about two things that would make the Philippines a mere spectator in the future of nuclear energy. First of all is the high front end cost of nuclear power. We simply cannot afford it, even if we can manage to convince our environmentalists that it is the way to go. Secondly, we can forget about the Bataan

nuclear plant. Whatever happens, that plant is strictly for museum purposes only. Its design is so outdated and the costs of reviving it so high that no one need worry that it would end up being activated.

Of course Tony Blair?s announcement that he would have an open mind about harnessing new generation nuclear energy is very controversial. But more and more of those who understand the alternatives available to meet the world?s increasing energy needs amidst the backdrop of expensive and increasingly dwindling oil supply, can?t help turning a longing gaze at what nuclear energy can contribute.

There is a lot of talk about renewables like solar and wind. But even if some progress have been made in the evolution of those technologies, not enough have happened or expected to happen that would make them viable alternatives to petroleum and dirty coal. Along this line, an interdisciplinary faculty group from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) decided to study the future of nuclear power out of a belief that this technology is an important option for the United States and the world to meet future energy needs without emitting carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants.

While the authors of the MIT study pointed out that nuclear power is not the only non-carbon option, they expressed belief it should be pursued as a long term option along with others such as the use of renewable energy sources, increased efficiency, and carbon sequestration. They maintain that "the nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power."

The report however concedes that the prospects for nuclear energy as an option are limited by four unresolved problems: high relative costs; perceived adverse safety, environmental, and health effects; potential security risks stemming from proliferation; and unresolved challenges in long-term management of nuclear wastes.

All these points, however, are being addressed by a high powered team of Chinese physicists and scientists working on a new approach to nuclear energy. China figures they will need 300 gigawatts of nuclear power in China - 50 times what they have today. With those numbers, they can?t afford a Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. They need a new kind of reactor.

Physicists and engineers at Beijing?s Tsinghua University are building a new nuclear power facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor. It is small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts. Its safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete.

They have built a prototype of this new reactor, HTR-10, according to Wired magazine (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html). "Instead of the white-hot fuel rods that fire the heart of a conventional reactor, HTR-10 is powered by 27,000 billiards-sized graphite balls packed with tiny flecks of uranium. Instead of superhot water ? intensely corrosive and highly radioactive ? the core is bathed in inert helium."

Wired magazine continues to describe the experimental 10 megawatt model: "The gas can reach much higher temperatures without bursting pipes, which means a third more energy pushing the turbine. No water means no nasty steam, and no billion-dollar pressure dome to contain it in the event of a leak. And with the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and impermeable silicon carbide ? designed to last one million years ? there?s no steaming pool for spent fuel rods. Depleted balls can go straight into lead-lined steel bins in the basement."

In a conventional reactor?s control room, Wired magazine reports, there would be far more to look at - control panels for emergency core cooling, containment-area sprinklers, pressurized water tanks. "None of that is here. The usual layers of what the industry calls engineered safety are superfluous. Suppose a coolant pipe blows, a pressure valve sticks, terrorists knock the top off the reactor vessel, an operator goes postal and yanks the control rods that regulate the nuclear chain reaction ? no radioactive nightmare. This reactor is meltdown-proof."

Zhang Zuoyi, the project?s 42-year-old director, explains to Wired magazine why. "The key trick is a phenomenon known as Doppler broadening ? the hotter atoms get, the more they spread apart, making it harder for an incoming neutron to strike a nucleus. In the dense core of a conventional reactor, the effect is marginal. But HTR-10?s carefully designed geometry, low fuel density, and small size make for a very different story.

"In the event of a catastrophic cooling-system failure, instead of skyrocketing into a bad movie plot, the core

temperature climbs to only about 1,600 degrees Celsius ? comfortably below the balls? 2,000-plus-degree melting point ? and then falls. This temperature ceiling makes HTR-10 what engineers privately call walk-away safe. As in, you can walk away from any situation and go have a pizza."

Sounds too good to be true! I confess I don?t understand the technical explanation given but if half of that is true, we are on to a new age of nuclear energy. The story also demonstrates two things: One, new generation nuclear energy is apparently nothing like we used to know when we were working on the Bataan plant. Second, the Chinese are apparently setting the pace in nuclear energy development, unfettered by the irrational fears of nuclear technology in the West.

China doesn?t have a choice. China is even now, grasping at every energy alternative within reach, even flooding a million people out of their ancestral homes with the world?s biggest hydroelectric project. China?s monstrous appetite for energy has already upset world energy prices. As for air quality, the World Bank says the People?s Republic is home to 16 of the planet?s 20 worst cities. Technology is where its salvation lies.

China?s nuclear renaissance, Wired magazine observed, "could feed the hydrogen revolution, enabling the country to leapfrog the fossil-fueled West into a new age of clean energy. Why worry about foreign fuel supplies when you can have safe nukes rolling off your own assembly lines? Why invoke costly international antipollution protocols when you can have motor vehicles that spout only water vapor from their tail pipes?"

The challenge is enormous. But so are China?s ambitions. The West may yet end up playing catch up with an energized Middle Kingdom.

Rotary Club

One Rotarian, former Sol-Gen Frank Chavez, wrote me in reaction to my column on Joc2 and how he is tarnishing the Rotary?s image by avoiding investigators of the fertilizer funds mess. Essentially, Frank gave me a copy of a letter he wrote to Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar, president of Rotary International.

Chavez informed the Rotary official of "the failure of Mr. Bolante to account for the agricultural funds (about P3.9 billion or roughly US $71 million), his evasion of service of Senate processes and his refusal to testify thereat have the confluent effect of debasing and embarrassing Rotary International and the Rotary movement in the Philippines."

Chavez said he is writing Rotary?s highest official "because I do care about Rotary International and, above all, live by (in thoughts, in words and in deeds) Rotary?s Four-Way Test." Chavez also "respectfully move that RI Director Jocelyn "Joc Joc" Bolante be removed as Director of Rotary International."

Well? ok. I stand corrected. At least one Rotarian apparently cares.

Chinese

arilyn Robles sent this one.

Why?d the redneck couple stop after three children?

Coz they heard every fourth child born is Chinese.

http://www.klima.ph/news/nuclear2.htm

Botika ng Bayan needs more support

DEMAND AND SUPPLY

By Boo ChancoThe Philippine Star 06/03/2005

If there is one project of Ate Glo that’s really starting to help the poor and even the not

so poor citizens of this country, it is the Botika ng Bayan. It was initiated as an extremely modest project, and somehow, it still is. But in the hands of a capable and fired-up public official, Obet Pagdanganan, the project has started to go places.

I am normally against government getting into business but this is one exception to the rule. The unaffordable cost of medicines in this country, thanks to a multinational drug industry cartel, has made it necessary for government to step in and even up the market for the sake of the poor consumers. In fact, not even this government’s token entry may prove to be good enough, if it were not for Obet’s determination to make a difference.

The drug cartel is one powerful, aggressive and well funded group. It has in its grips, even the very regulators of the industry. I was shocked to find out that some months ago, it had the gumption to fool the BFAD into attempting to raid the Indian Embassy in search of so-called counterfeit drugs there.

That ill-advised raid could have caused a serious diplomatic incident were it not for the sense of humor of a very understanding Indian Ambassador. She was aghast at the temerity of those who would accuse the Embassy of harboring counterfeit drugs but she discounted the incident as one low level bureaucrat’s misguided obedience to a powerful foreign cartel.

The problem lies in defining what constitutes "counterfeit" drugs. The cartel labels as counterfeit any medicine that does not pass through their specific marketing channel, even if it was produced in the same manufacturing facility. Never mind if they are the same medicines manufactured by a sister company in another country, has the same brand, the same ingredients and strength – in other words, identical with those being protected.

Unfortunately, the WHO has defined all medicines sold in a country outside of the multinationals’ network as "counterfeit." Any off-patent generic drug produced by any facility other than a Western multinational is also called counterfeit. That has terrific propaganda value because unfortunately, as columnist Neal Cruz pointed out, "counterfeit" in the Philippines is confused with "fake" or "bogus" ("counterfeit" bills are also called "fake" and "bogus" bills).

It seems that like our local drug regulatory agency, the WHO has also been captured by the cartel! The WHO should instead, put pressure on these giant multinationals for more affordable Third World prices. That’s the way to achieve WHO’s mandate to save Third World lives, many of which are now lost because life saving drugs are unaffordable.

Fortunately, some Third World countries, like India , have developed their pharmaceutical industry well enough to manufacture some of these off patent drugs that could be sold as generics. By importing these drugs from India and making them available to our people, we are giving the gift of life to those who cannot afford the branded products.

This is why when Obet distributes his medicines to his network of Botika ng Bayan, he makes sure every tablet or bottle is certified by BFAD as the real thing, not fake or counterfeit. But because the pharmaceutical cartel has successfully managed to fool the public into believing that the PITC imports are ‘fake,’ even doctors, who should know better, have been fooled.

I am glad that Obet through the Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) has persisted with this valuable program despite the hindrances thrown their way by the cartel. Parallel importation is having an impact somehow. Botika ng Bayan has started to have an effect in the market, thanks to Obet’s marketing skills, learned from years of working with Unilever.

The budget of PITC’s parallel imports is still minuscule at only P500 million, against the whole Philippine pharmaceuticals sales of P92 billion, but the multinationals are already reacting. They have filed cases against PITC and Obet Pagdanganan,

alleging that their IPR has been violated by Ate Glo’s token program. Luckily, Obet is being defended by the very able Agnes Devanadera of the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel.

The cartel filed suit probably because Obet’s Botika ng Bayan is expanding fast, going beyond the few government hospitals when Mar Roxas launched it. They now have 245 drugstores nationwide and Obet said he is working to bring that number to 1,500 by yearend. Obet explained that he had to create the alternative network because Mercury Drug, with 600 branches, refused to carry his medicines. Mercury chose to cooperate with the cartel.

Obet is working with the small drugstores, a group that has a wider network coverage than even the giant Mercury. The small drugstore operators also welcome the partnership with PITC because Obet makes sure they get enough margins to enable them to grant the mandated senior citizen discounts. Because the cartel only gives them margins of five to 10 percent, the small independent drugstores lose money selling the cartel’s products once the customer presents a senior citizen card that calls for a 20-percent discount.

The best part of the deal is, the poor has an option now. Without the Botika ng Bayan, they can only watch their sick loved ones slowly die. But how can Obet manage with such a small budget? Good management, he said. They make sure the drugstores pay for stock quickly so that the money can be recycled fast to import some more or buy from local generic manufacturers.

The way I look at it, Ate Glo should consider the cases filed against PITC and Obet as a personal affront. Here is one program of hers that really works, despite the measly budget and the legal challenges. Obet should be getting a medal, not a court suit.

The one man Ate Glo had been throwing around but has remained loyal to her, is also the one who is delivering tangible results on an important social welfare initiative. It is true that you can’t put a good man down. Obet is proof of that.

http://www.pitc.gov.ph/opinions/botika_ng_bayan.htm

People are ill-informed on VAT

DEMAND AND SUPPLY

By Boo Chanco The Philippine Star 05/09/2005

The stalemate in Congress over the VAT measure reflects the national mood. The latest opinion poll numbers of Pulse Asia

reveal a lukewarm to cold attitude towards the proposal to add two percent to the VAT rate currently being charged. A

majority (54 percent) told Pulse Asia that they have little knowledge about the VAT issue. And 62 percent said they think the

additional two percent would have a big impact on their family’s expenses.

No wonder the political party in power and in control of the Senate is hard pressed to get five senators to support the

compromise proposals being tabled at the conference committee. Even administration senators are careful that their vote

would not be politically expensive. They must be aware that the public sentiment is one of cynicism, if not outright distrust of

government and people in power, in the matter of judiciously using their money.

In fact, when Pulse Asia also asked their respondents to list down conditions that would make them support the

administration’s proposed tax measures, this cynicism is revealed. On top of the list is: 1. if government reduces corruption

and waste in spending, or in other words, leadership by example; 2. if its negative impact on the poor is not too large; 3. if

government first removes tax exemptions for favored corporations and sectors of the economy; 4. if the BIR and Customs

improve their revenue collection; 5. if it is needed in order to fix the government’s fiscal situation and avoiding further

borrowing.

Note that the first item on reducing corruption and waste generated a 68 percent response. The one on the need to fix the

government’s fiscal problem only generated 35 percent. To me this means people are willing to sacrifice but would rather see

their leaders use their hard earned money more responsibly. And yes, please collect from Richard Gomez and all those

showbiz millionaires. It is scandalous that they paid nothing on the years they had recorded incomes in the millions.

On other matters of current interest, Pulse Asia also found out that a near majority of 44 percent think that the Arroyo

administration will fall without military support. But only 22 percent think we need martial law to solve the many crises of the

nation.

And despite everything we see and experience, a large 60 percent disagree with the statement that our country is hopeless.

Only 26 percent want to migrate, a surprisingly low number given anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

If I were Ate Glo, I would take these figures very positively and use these as a basis of an honest to goodness program to

reform and get moving. Pulse Asia uncovered empirical data to show that the Filipino is a patient and forgiving people and

there is always the opportunity for a leader to turn a difficult situation around and get support.

That is about as positive as I could get on the Pulse Asia numbers. Top Colleges

There is a material circulating among various e-groups that supposedly ranks the country’s top 20 colleges and universities

based on a study conducted by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) and the Commission on Higher

Education(CHED). The ranking supposedly used the average passing rate of graduates of colleges and universities in the board

examinations of all courses that require it for the practice of a profession.

This study is now supposed to be done every 10 years. This particular ranking is supposedly the result of the first study from

1992 to 2001. Eleven schools come from Luzon, two from the Visayas and seven from Mindanao.

My problem with this material is that I am unable to confirm it independently. I checked the website of CHED and didn’t find

it there. I tried sending an e-mail to CHED, to the address published in their website, but it bounced. Still, for whatever it may

be worth, I want to share this list with a wider audience if only to provoke some discussion on where one could get quality

college education in this country, given problems with education pre-need companies and family finances in general.

If the basis of this listing is authentic, it tells us that one need not spend a fortune in tuition and other fees of the so called

exclusive schools in Metro Manila because there are a lot of good schools out there in the countryside. This is an important

consideration for parents who live in the provinces and who are probably agonizing on whether to mortgage the family home

to raise the funds needed to send a child to college in Manila.

The most expensive university in Metro Manila is not even in this list. So maybe, given the difficult financial situation today,

sending the kids to study in Manila is not necessarily a good idea any more. There are good schools out in the regions. I also

believe good students would do well anywhere provided they have a serious desire to get a good education. There is even one

college on the list from Butuan that I have not heard of, and it did better than La Salle. The better Ateneo is in Davao, not at

Loyola Heights.

Of course the top university in the list is UP Diliman, which makes me feel good. I am happy to note that contrary to what I

hear in many circles, the quality of a UP education is still tops. Then again, the overall standards might have gone down too,

but that’s another story.

So, here it is, but with the caveat that I decided to use it even without independent verification because of the urgency of

helping parents who are making up their minds now, a few weeks before school opening time. The list sounds plausible

enough.

1. University of the Philippines (Diliman Campus/Luzon);

2. University of the Philippines (Los Banos Campus/Luzon);

3. University of the Philippines (Manila Campus/Luzon);

4. Silliman University (Dumaguete City/Visayas);

5. Ateneo de Davao University (Davao/Mindanao);

6. Ateneo de Manila University (Manila/Luzon);

7. University of Sto. Tomas (Manila/Luzon);

8. Mindanao State University (Iligan Institute of Tech/Mindanao);

9. Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (Manila/Luzon);

10. Saint Louis University (Baguio City/Luzon);

11. University of San Carlos (Cebu City/Visayas);

12. Xavier University (Cagayan de Oro/Mindanao);

13. Mindanao State University (Main/Mindanao);

14. Urios College (Butuan City/Mindanao);

15. Polytechnic University of the Philippines(Manila/Luzon);

16. De La Salle University (Manila/Luzon);

17. Mapua Institute of Technology (Manila/Luzon);

18. Adamson University (Manila/Luzon);

19. Central Mindanao University ( Bukidnon/Mindanao);

20. University of Southern Philippines (Davao/Mindanao). Malampaya

Ed Manalac, Chairman of PNOC, sent me a SMS text message in response to my text message seeking a reaction to the

Malampaya developments. Manalac, who was in Houston last week, responded that he actually supports the decision of the

Privatization Council not to sell anymore the 49 percent interest of PNOC-EC in the Malampaya consortium.

But, Manalac adds, he is nevertheless frustrated by the turn of events. He points out that the Privatization Council actually

approved the sale two weeks before the meeting that NEDA Secretary Romy Neri attended and resulted in the withdrawal.

Yet, Manalac laments, Neri was represented in the meeting which gave the approval.

It is on the basis of the prior approval that PNOC went ahead and informed Shell and Chevron. The two oil giants in turn,

decided to exercise their right to match the offer of the Korean group. If they did not get the prior approval, Manalac said they

would not have gone ahead with the deal. The withdrawal subjects PNOC to potential law suits and worse, loss of face.

This is the problem with cabinet members having more things on their plate than they can handle. They end up sending juniors

to meetings that require their presence. In this case, it is obvious that whoever represented Neri was not qualified to represent

his boss. How can anyone miss the fact that they are seeking approval to sell an asset valued at $21 a barrel at a time when the

prevailing market price was in the vicinity of $55 a barrel?

Luckily Neri caught what could have been a full blown scandal. I hope he knows what to do with whoever represented him

and failed to catch that one. Change Of Heart

Speaking of change of heart, here’s Dr. Ernie E’s take on it.

A young guy was complaining to his boss about the problems he was having with his stubborn girlfriend.

"She gets me so angry sometimes I could hit her," the young man exclaimed.

"Well, I’ll tell you what I used to do with my wife" replied the boss. "Whenever she got out of hand I’d take her pants down

and spank her."

Shaking his head the young guy replied, "That doesn’t work. Once I get her pants down I’m not mad anymore."

http://www.rbap.org/article/articleview/2537/1/20

Is the quality of medical education declining?03/10/2004 9:39:00 am | 492 reads | Category: 2nd Opinion

DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo ChancoThe Philippine Star (February 23, 2004)

Like almost everything else in this country today, it seems the quality of medical education has declined significantly through the years. This is the conclusion I reached after an exchange of e-mails with Filipino doctors here and in the United States. An article in The Los Angeles Times about Pinoy doctors who migrated there to become nurses, sparked the e-mail exchange.

The article tells the tale of a Dr. Jose Pineda, who spent nine years training to be an obstetrician in the Philippines. But at age 41, he went back to school to be a nurse. According to the Times article, Dr. Pineda shut down his medical practice February last year and moved to the United States. Now he works as a nurse at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, trading his spot atop the medical hierarchy for money and the promise of a better future for his family.

"I am not planning for myself anymore," Pineda told the LA Times. He makes $50,000 a year, four times what his physician’s salary was in the Philippines. He said he is making the sacrifice for his kids. The Times reported that thousands of Philippine doctors are making the same career switch with the intention of making a country switch too. They are willing to take orders instead of give them and to provide care instead of cures, all to live in the United States.

But why didn’t Dr. Pineda go to the States as a doctor? Thousands of Pinoy doctors have done that years ago and made the successful transition. According to the LA Times article, it is because going as a nurse is the fastest way out of the Philippines. Also, the road towards a medical license is so arduous and working as a nurse is so lucrative, many just take the path of least resistance.

But based on my e-mail exchange with Pinoy doctors who should know, there is a deeper and more troubling reason why Pinoy docs would rather be nurses in the States. Pinoy doctors today are inadequately trained. That’s easy to believe. A doctor employed by our HMO once prescribed an antibiotic to my wife and when we crosschecked with my brother-in-law (a top US-trained pediatrician) it turned out it was the wrong one. In so many words, they don’t graduate as many quality doctors like they used to, thirty or so years ago.

If that’s the case, the next question is, who is responsible for assuring quality training of doctors here? The question is important given that in recent years, medical schools started to mushroom in the country. Given the obvious lack of facilities for good training, it is easy to suspect that we have lost the high standards of the past when UP, UST, UERMMC and FEU produced world class doctors. We can tolerate diploma mills producing sub standard lawyers, accountants and mass comm graduates but not doctors, who must always be able to make split second life and death decisions.

Said one doctor in his e-mail: "In NYC, at the community hospital level, where Foreign Medical Graduates gravitate, not only do the Indians outnumber the Pinoys, they also outrank them in positions. For sure, there are still prominent Pinoy docs but they would be in their fifties. This means, they were educated and trained in a system that was compatible with international standards AT THAT TIME."

Another doctor tried to explain the situation in a less painful way for the Pinoy ego. "There are simply more Indian doctors than Filipino doctors immigrating to the United States as a percentage of population." But doctor number one does not buy the explanation. While he concedes that the population explanation may be a valid point, he insists sheer numbers do not tell the whole story. "The population differential vis a vis numbers has always been there since the 50’s and 60’s."

He does not have the data on the passing rate of Pinoy doctors in the past with regard the qualifying exam known then as the ECFMG for comparison with the current exam known as the VQE – visa qualifying exam. But he recalls that the passing rate for his class, UST ’65 was over 70 percent 1st time around and those who took it a second time – this shot up to over 80 percent. "Believe the stats for UP were about the same or maybe better – their grads were less than 1/3 of those from UST."

He debunks the argument that the VQE is more difficult than the ECFMG because this is the same exam Indian grads take. "So the operative question would then be what is the passing RATE for Indian vs Pinoy grads in the past four-five decades. l suspect, there will be crossing lines in the chart." And to think, he says, given our American orientation that includes use of American textbooks, we should have an advantage over the Indians.

The other doctor concedes that the golden age was the time when Filipino doctor-immigrants were able to merge with the mainstream of US medical practitioners after fulfilling the basic requirements of passing the ECFMG, state licensure exams or FLEX exams, and specialty boards for most. Unfortunately, he observed, "it is my impression that more Indian M.Ds go for the Boards. Our M.Ds (usually not from U.P.) stop after training, and many don’t go for any Boards. That is a self-defeating rut."

At this point, my doctor e-mail writers agree. Doctor number one thinks "it would be silly not to go for the boards (state or FLEX) and for that matter, the specialty boards as these boards would jack up the income 5-10 fold! I would therefore ask again, WHY? Is it a simple – ‘babaw kaligayahan’? Don’t think so. This inability to pass the American boards cannot be dismissed by a sheer lack of facilities and money."

They conclude that Pinoy doctors are losing ground to the Indians in the States because our medical education here has deteriorated to a degree that makes it difficult for our medical graduates to pass qualifying exams in America. If that is the case, the implications for our health care here seem dire, even if we don’t talk about the massive number of doctors leaving our shores as nurses.

Again, I ask, who is responsible for quality control of medical schools? If the doctors we have here are not good enough for the Americans, how can they be good enough for us? Think about that.

Wouldn’t it be sheer karma if the bureaucrat sleeping on this important job ends up on the operating table or the emergency room with one of these diploma mill graduates attending him/her?

http://pinoy.md/modules/news/article.php?storyid=65

DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo ChancoThe Philippine Star 05/09/2005

Top Colleges

There is a material circulating among various e-groupsthat supposedlyranks the country?s top 20 colleges and universitiesbased on a studyconducted by the Professional Regulation Commission(PRC) and theCommission on Higher Education(CHED). The rankingsupposedly used theaverage passing rate of graduates of colleges anduniversities in theboardexaminations of all courses that require it for thepractice of aprofession.

This study is now supposed to be done every 10 years.This particularranking is supposedly the result of the first studyfrom 1992 to 2001.Eleven schools come from Luzon, two from the Visayasand seven fromMindanao.

My problem with this material is that I am unable to confirm it independently. I checked the website of CHED and didn?t find it there. I tried sending an e-mail to CHED, to the addresspublished in their website, but it bounced. Still, for whatever it may be worth, I want to share this list with a wider audience if only to provoke some discussion on where one could get quality college education in this country,given problems with education pre-need companies and family finances in general.

If the basis of this listing is authentic, it tells us that one need not spend a fortune in tuition and other fees of the so called exclusiveschools in Metro Manila because there are a lot of

good schools out there in the countryside. This is an important considerationfor parents who live in the provinces and who are probably agonizing on whether to mortgage thefamily home to raise the funds needed to send a child to college in Manila.

The most expensive university in Metro Manila is not even in this list. So maybe, given the difficult financial situation today,sending the kids to study in Manila is not necessarily a good idea any more. There are good schools out in the regions. I also believe good students would do well anywhere provided they have a serious desire to get a good education. There is even one college on the list from Butuan that Ihave not heard of, and it did better than La Salle. The better Ateneo is inDavao, not at Loyola Heights.

Of course the top university in the list is UPDiliman, which makes me feel good. I am happy to note that contrary to what I hearin many circles, the quality of a UP education is still tops. Then again, the overall standardsmight have gone down too, but that?s another story.

So, here it is, but with the caveat that I decided to use it even without independent verification because of the urgency of helping parents who are making up their minds now, a few weeks before school opening time. The listsounds plausible enough.

1. University of the Philippines (DilimanCampus/Luzon);2. University of the Philippines (Los BanosCampus/Luzon);3. University of the Philippines (ManilaCampus/Luzon);4. Silliman University (Dumaguete City/Visayas);5. Ateneo de Davao University (Davao/Mindanao);6. Ateneo de Manila University (Manila/Luzon);7. University of Sto. Tomas (Manila/Luzon);8. Mindanao State University (Iligan Institute ofTech/Mindanao);9. Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (Manila/Luzon);10. Saint Louis University (Baguio City/Luzon);11. University of San Carlos (Cebu City/Visayas);12. Xavier University (Cagayan de Oro/Mindanao);13. Mindanao State University (Main/Mindanao);14. Urios College (Butuan City/Mindanao);15. Polytechnic University of the Philippines (Manila/Luzon);16. De La Salle University (Manila/Luzon);17. Mapua Institute of Technology (Manila/Luzon);18. Adamson University (Manila/Luzon);19. Central Mindanao University (ukidnon/Mindanao);20. University of Southern Philippines(Davao/Mindanao).

http://www.gov.ph/forum/thread.asp?rootID=68541&catID=6

Demand And Supply

By Boo Chanco

The Philippine Star – Business

Monday, October 2, 2006

Human trafficking

After a long day of meetings, a British businessman found himself in

the hotel bar in one of China’s boom towns. It was one of those places

in China where hardly anyone speaks English. Even ordering a gin and

tonic at the bar can prove to be quite a challenge. But he got his drink

and as he started to relax in his bar stool, a beautiful woman

approached him and asked him in impeccable English if he would buy

her a drink.

Surprised, the businessman said, of course and proceeded to ask her

where she is from… how come she speaks English. Well, she said she

is from Manila and as they got to talking, she gave her tale of woe. She

was working as a secretary in Manila when she was offered the usual

unbelievable job opportunity to work in Hong Kong at a salary multiple

of what she was getting at that time.

The recruiter asked her if she has enough money for her plane ticket

and to tide her over while she waited for her papers to be processed in

Hong Kong. She said she didn’t have the cash but the recruiter

volunteered to advance the money provided she signed a contract.

Off she went to Hong Kong but the promised job didn’t materialize. She

was running out of money and there was the matter of the contract

she signed which obligated her to pay an interest rate in the thousand

percent. There was no way she could pay her debt ever. Going back to

Manila was not an option.

Her recruiter told her they can get her a job in China, initially as a

hostess… and thus started her steady decline into the oldest

profession. It is said that those who refused to have sex with clients

are beaten up and those who got sick are disposed off in the

anonymity of a watery grave.

No wonder, David Arkless, the British businessman who told me this

story, sounds like a man with a mission… a mission to stop human

trafficking. David is special envoy for the End Human Trafficking Now

Campaign headed by First Lady Suzanne Mubarak of Egypt. David is

also senior vice president and member of the executive board of

Manpower Inc. of the United States.

David has been talking with governments, NGOs and conferences such

as the Davos forum on the urgent need to stop human trafficking.

Though human trafficking is a serious problem, there are no

mechanisms in place to stop it. Only the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for

Migration are doing something about it. The Interpol has only two

people assigned to fight human trafficking.

On the corporate level, the campaign seeks to sign up 1,000

corporations to the Athens Declaration which calls on signatories to

commit to zero tolerance for human trafficking, contribute to

prevention of trafficking including awareness-raising campaigns and

education, and encourage business partners to apply ethical principles

against the practice of human trafficking. There is no doubt that this is

modern day slavery, every bit as bad as the medieval version.

The statistics are horrible. About a million men, women and children

are trafficked across international borders each year. About 80 percent

are women and girls. Up to half are minors. The majority are trafficked

into commercial sexual exploitation. Arkless says this human

trafficking is the dark side of this phenomenon of migrant labor

seeking employment outside their home countries.

In this country, those who eventually fall into this trap are those who

go abroad without going through the process provided by law through

the POEA. The criminal syndicates help them evade controls set up at

our international airports by working with corrupt police, immigration

and airport personnel. If only these people realize what happens to

these victims, their conscience will not let them sell these victims

down for any price in the world.

David’s encounter with that Filipina in a Chinese city is just one of the

sad stories out there. Indeed, we should do all we can to deal with

human trafficking. Right now, we are one of the hot spots in the world.

But it has got to stop for the sake of our women and children.

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Do our lawmakers know their job? DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco ThePhilippine Star 11/24/2004 Let’s go to the second defective law. TheDrugstores Association of the Philippines (DSAP) has asked its 2,027members to close shop for one day when the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of2003, which mandates a 20-percent discount on all kinds of drugs, isimplemented next month. I think they have a valid beef. "What kindof law would compel private businesses to lose their capital? The drugstoreindustry has not been growing because while many open, many are alsoclosing due to bankruptcy. You can check that out with BFAD (Bureau of Foodand Drugs)," Celia Carlos, DSAP president said. Carlos saidMercury Drug, which has the biggest chain of drugstores, is the only onethat can give discounts because it has enough market muscle to twist thearms of suppliers to lower their prices. She said that the small drugstoreshave already lost customers to Mercury Drug because they could not affordto give discounts. She warned the law might unintentionally kill off thesmall drugstores and create a powerful retail monopoly in Mercury, to thelong-term detriment of the consumer. She has a strong point. Smalldrugstores get at best a 10-percent discount from manufacturers. Most ofthem only get five percent. It is not uncommon for the smaller ones toactually be getting their supply from Mercury as well. How can a drugstorethat only gets a 10-percent discount be required by law to give a 20-percent discount? They are indeed, being legislated out of business.And don’t talk to them about being able to get back those discountsthrough tax breaks. A number of them told me that their local revenueofficers are not even aware of any law that allows them to do that. No

wonder there is sheer desperation on their part. Health Secretary Dayritinitially gave them hope because he understood their plight. But even theHealth Chief was told by no less than Senate President Drilon that he hasno choice but to implement the law. I feel for those small drugstoreowners because I grew up in one. My first exposure to business was in thatsmall drugstore my mother had in a lower middle class section of Paco,Manila. It didn’t bring in a big cash flow. On the contrary, the marginswere extremely small, given that it served a poor neighborhood that livedfrom hand to mouth. Because those who needed medicines but don’t havethe cash needed help badly, we ended up having to give them credit– utangna lista sa tubig. But it brought in enough money to see five of ussiblings through. The food on our table came from that small drugstore andthe income my father earned as a professor of medicine at UST paid for oureducation. My father dedicated his life to academic medicine and not themore lucrative private practice. Beyond this personal reason, however,is a sense of justice. I don’t think a law can require you to lose money.One went into business to make a profit, not to lose capital, which is whatwould happen if a law required you to sell your goods at below cost. IfCongress wanted to give discounts to senior citizens, they should make thebig manufacturers and not the small retail drugstores carry the burden. Butthe big manufacturers have big lobby money, so you understand why theypicked on the helpless retailer. I am not against the senior citizendiscount law if only because I will be a senior citizen in six years. Butshould it be done at the expense of grassroots entrepreneurs? Didn’tCongress hear the concerns of the small drugstore owners and provide fortheir protection? Now that they brought it up, the free marketeconomist in me shudders at the thought that the law may also firmlyestablish the monopoly of Mercury Drug’s extensive retail chain, as theDSAP drugstores close shop. Mercury’s virtual monopoly now is dangerousenough. I am sure our lawmakers didn‘t think of this before they voted onthat proposal on senior citizen discount. Senate President Drilon can’tjust say the law must be implemented regardless, as if he is the infalliblePope. If there is a good reason for public hearings in aid oflegislation, these two examples should be that. But these are not sexyissues and the hearings were probably held pro forma. Now, it would bedifficult to undo the damage, if there is even political will to do it.Makes one wonder, do our lawmakers know what they are doing?

BOO CHANCO: PINOYS WILL COVER THE WORLD!

MANILA, February 2, 2004 (STAR) DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco - Without an effective population program, it is difficult to see how our country can catch up with development in the next few decades. The national pie is hardly getting bigger, yet more and more are struggling to share the little available. On the other hand, it is perhaps time to take this population pressure as a given and work around it. One quick solution is to more systematically send our people away.

And they are going away, out of extreme need. According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), close to eight million Filipinos are now working in 162 countries. We are now deploying new

workers at a rate of 850,000-900,000 a year, or over a million a year, if we include the undocumented ones of about 25 percent more.

And we can only expect more Filipinos to leave in the next 20 years or so. The International Labor Organization found out that the outward pattern of migration only reverses when per capita incomes reach a threshold of $5,000. With our per capita income estimated at approximately $926, we are still a long way away.

This strategy of sending our workers abroad was resorted to during the Marcos years as a temporary measure to help relieve the unemployment pressure. But the inability of our economy to take off, thanks to lackluster national leadership, made this strategy permanent despite official denials.

But why deny? We should take control of reality! It is time for us to come up with a more organized effort to deploy our people in all corners of the world. People are our number one export product. Production of people is our number one cottage industry that requires no fiscal incentives. There should be active marketing coupled with an honest-to-goodness training effort to ensure highest quality.

I think it was the Filipina consul-general in Guangdong who told us that in China, they are not embarrassed to admit that they have to take this route of sending their people abroad to earn a living. As a result, the Chinese government has a more involved participation in the process.

The example I remember being cited is the deployment of Chinese nurses to Britain. Apparently, the Chinese government negotiates this on an official basis to cover everything from salaries to tenure to protect their nurses. The Chinese government also takes responsibility for training, including English language courses and homeward remittances of money.

In our case, the POEA steps in only in the final stage of deployment, after private recruiters have come to terms with the worker and the employer. Often, the worker is left to fend for himself or herself in a strange land. There is also no government program to train workers in skills that are of high demand abroad. There is no real effort to screen who gets to go abroad. That TESDA clearance is a money making joke. At the very least, we should stop the criminals and the criminally inclined from tarnishing the Pinoy image abroad.

There is no doubt that worker remittances from abroad have kept this country afloat through the years. Government estimates that in 2003,

remittance inflows will reach $7.5-8 billion, an amount equivalent to roughly 10 percent of the country’s GDP. This represents significant buying power in a consumption-led economy like the Philippines.

From the larger perspective of the world, the strategy makes sense. A report presented to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos last week, raised profound questions arising from demographic trends sweeping the globe and their economic consequences. As much as 95 percent of all children in the 21st century, Davos conferees were told, will come from the Third World.

On the other hand, Europe and Japan are faced with a sharply declining population that is also ageing fast. Italy’s retirees will outnumber its active workers by 2030. Over the long term, the study estimates that Japan would have to increase immigration 11 times over existing rates to make up for its low fertility rates. That’s simply unacceptable in xenophobic Japan.

Labor shortages are being forecasted in some countries, with dire consequences on their economies. Among others, the supply of goods and services may not meet demand and standards of living in many countries in Europe and Japan. Assuming current demographic and economic trends hold, the study estimates the EU’s share of total global output will shrink from 18 percent today to 10 percent in 2050. Japan’s share would decline from eight to four percent.

The United States stands out as an exception in this trend of declining populations among developed countries. This is because of immigration. Americans may complain about their somewhat more liberal immigration policies but immigrants have contributed greatly to sustaining their economy and keeping future prospects brighter than Europe.

In fact, the Davos study recommended remedies governments and business have at their disposal. The list includes increased immigration. They also need "to develop ways to tap surplus labor pools in developing countries through greater economic integration than ever before." They must be referring to the growing trend for outsourcing.

The moral lesson is simply, we can no longer think in terms of narrow nationalities and countries anymore. Nations must accept increasing interdependence and erosion of sovereignty. Borders must be opened not just to manufactured goods and services but also to migration. The developed countries need our teeming excess people as much as we need to send them away to balance demands on our resources in the third world. Globalization will force us to think in terms of humanity, not nationalities.

And yes, Pinoys will cover the world, whether the world wants us or not.

http://www.ofw-connect.com/ofw_news/OFW_News_02Feb5_04.htm

Thursday, October 03, 2002

DEMAND AND SUPPLY Boo Chanco The Philippine Star

If you have been following the championship round of the UAAP basketball tournament, you will get the feeling that the Ateneo team is pretty much like the country. Halfway through the season, you would have given it up as a hopeless basket case. How, you must have wondered, can this team hope to dislodge the champions La Salle, if it allows easy victories over weaker teams to slip past them? Even my UP beloved, not known to be of champion breed, won over them.

Then the Ateneo team sprung a surprise - a string of victories that landed them precariously, among the top four and eventually, a secure position to challenge the champion team. The Ateneo team surprises us further by beating the champion team twice.

While they were at their best, the Ateneans displayed what's great with this country when we Pinoys put our minds on something, like Edsa 1. There was teamwork, no superstars who must shine at the expense of the team, everyone knew their roles and played them and you can sense an almost systematic conquest of the foe. They knew they had to win or it is all over. Pinoys behave like this abroad because they know they must be at their best or else. We behaved that way during EDSA 1, because we knew Marcos and Ver would slaughter us, if we behaved like everyday Pinoys.

Of course the Ateneans lost last Sunday because like most Pinoys on a winning streak, they succumbed to the temptation to relax prematurely. Something like the week after Edsa 2. The Ateneans overestimated their abilities and underestimated the desire of the other team to redeem themselves. The Ateneans didn't seem to feel the same pressure they did the last two times they faced La Salle because last Sunday, they knew they could lose and live to play the last game. That attitude also explains why Edsa 3 happened.

How will it all end? It is entirely possible that Ateneo, the team that almost got eliminated, will end up the champions. We know they have what it takes to be champions. But they don't seem to have the discipline nor the obviously honed skills of La Salle to make it a sure thing. There is a little bit of the bahala na for Ateneo, which makes them interesting and maddening.

At some point in the season, you wanted to impeach Ateneo coach, Joel Banal for losing to the non-entities in the league. You yearn for coach Joe Lipa or Fernando Poe or anyone who can maximize the productivity of the team. It is the same feeling you have for Ate Glo, as measured by the latest polls. Like Joel Banal, she may be good and professional but unable to make the most of this talented but seemingly unmotivated, unorganized bunch. We need someone who knows how to make gems out of these raw diamonds.

In ASEAN terms, La Salle seems more like Singapore, methodical, well trained, successful and maybe a little boring. Given their precision, you wonder if La Salle's team is ISO-certified. Ateneo's more like the unpredictable Pinoys, surviving on sheer guts, native talent and a lot of hubris from the stands. You can't out shout them even when they are down and out.

But like Pinoys today, they need a Dick Gordon to cheer them on. You can almost imagine what the Ateneo team (or the Pinoy nation, for that matter) could be if it had a little more system, a little

more faith in themselves and not so faint of heart so as to falter when pressure builds up at the homestretch.

I guess that's what makes them (and us) interesting. You never know what they (or we) will deliver until they (or we) do. The Ateneo team thrives as an underdog. They are so Pinoy. And you know how being a Pinoy is an adventure in itself. And that's what makes Ateneo a team to cheer for, even if you aren't an Atenean. You feel like you are cheering for yourself, for your hopeless and pathetic country. You know.the only one you've got.

http://jovanpuyo.tripod.com/archive/2002_10_01_archive.htm

1. “…Why, for instance, must Pfizer in India sell Norvasc, a high blood pressure medicine that many other Filipinos must take daily, at P5.98 per 5 mg tablet and P8.96 per 10 mg tablet and sell the exact same drug here at P44.75 per 5 mg tablet and P74.57 per 10 mg tablet? And this is not fake either, since the Indian Norvasc is also manufactured by Pfizer. In other words, Norvasc is sold in the Philippines at prices 650 percent to 750 percent higher than those in India. Is it because the Indians wouldn’t stand for price gouging and we are such pushovers?” DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco The Philippine Star 04/05/2006

http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=958

Vietnam overtakes us in poverty alleviationDEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo ChancoThe Philippine Star 08/11/2006

According to the recent issue of The Economist, Vietnam has overtaken China, India and the Philippines in poverty alleviation and now has only slightly more poverty than Indonesia. "Though Vietnam is still, overall, one of Asia’s poorest countries, with income per head behind India’s, its recent growth has been impressively egalitarian." That means, Vietnam’s economic growth benefits more people unlike the kind of growth we have been experiencing here that hardly trickles down.

Just a few more winks and we are going to be eating Vietnam’s dust. "Vietnam has overtaken China, India and Indonesia. In 2001-05 it averaged over 7.5 percent, reaching a peak of 8.4 percent last year. This year the government is going all out to hit an eight percent target." That a level of GDP growth, sustained over a number of years, that allows a country to reduce poverty.

And where are we? Oh, our Economic Planning Chief is jumping up with unbridled glee with growth at the level of five percent a year. At least our Finance Secretary Gary Teves was candid enough to admit that growth at that level will have no impact on poverty alleviation.

The Economist reports that Vietnam’s new five-year plan, is laden with targets for increasing output and improving infrastructure, with the objective of making Vietnam a modern, industrial nation by 2020. Of course, The Economist noted, other Asian countries’ leaders, from Malaysia to the Philippines, declare similar objectives. The difference is that Vietnam’s rulers seem to mean it – and their recent record suggests they might pull it off.

And they do mean it too when they say they will fight corruption… The Economist

reports "the April congress was preceded by a purge of high officials suspected of corruption–most notably at a road-building agency where some staff stole millions of dollars to bet on football matches." Let us not even talk of similar publicized anti corruption drives here. Ate Glue isn’t even interested to clear the air on the Bolante case, the most scandalous of recent corruption stories in the country.

Vietnam’s prospects for continued growth are good, The Economist surmises. Since 1990, Vietnam’s exports have increased faster than China’s. "Their growth shows no signs of slackening. Between January and July they amounted to $22 billion, a year-on-year rise of over 25 percent. Having alarmed the Brazilians by becoming their main competitor in coffee growing, Vietnam is now ramping up its exports of everything from shrimps to ships to shoes (the last prompting the European Union to announce anti-dumping tariffs last month). It has just become the world’s largest exporter of pepper and aims soon to overtake Thailand in rice. It is even selling tea to India."

While agriculture remains strong, manufacturing is fast accounting for most of Vietnam ‘s export earnings. "Foreign-owned factories are chalking up the fastest gains. The government’s aim of increasing electronics exports by 27 percent annually should be boosted by Intel’s recent decision to build a $605 million microchip plant in Ho Chi Minh City."

Best of all, the quality of life has improved dramatically. "Life expectancy has jumped and infant mortality plunged since the 1990s. Vietnam does better on both these counts than Thailand, a far richer country. Almost three-quarters of Vietnamese children of secondary-school age are in class, up from about a third in 1990."

So, what’s our excuse again? Politics? Whatever!

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=9633953

The ethnic Chinese factor in economic growth DEMAND AND SUPPLY By Boo Chanco The Philippine Star 10/27/2003

Two weeks ago, I was invited by a group of young Filipino-Chinese business hot shots to speak before their group. They gave me the freedom to speak on any subject and I thought I would share with them something I picked up in a recent conference I attended. The speech is too long for this column but I have received requests to share its message with a wider audience. Here is a shorter version.

The other month, I was in a conference where I heard the eminent Washington SyCip make a very interesting observation. Mr. SyCip said that compared to other countries in the region, the percentage of overseas Chinese who settled in the Philippines is markedly smaller. He then proceeded to the conclusion that this is perhaps one reason why our country has trailed the others.

Mr. SyCip also observed that unlike our regional neighbors, the Chinoys have assimilated into the native culture very well – in other words, Chinoys are more Pinoys than Chinese. Mr. SyCip suggested that this is not such a good thing because Chinoys no longer have the best traits of Confucian China and have adopted the worse traits of Confused Pinoys – who know not if they are still in a Spanish convent or America’s Hollywood.

One wonders how different our country would have been if the Spaniards never came. We might have become as Muslim as Indonesia. Probably a country called the Philippines wouldn’t exist at all. Or the Chinese influence would have been more pronounced in our culture as in Thailand. Given our geographic location and natural resources, we could have been an economic powerhouse.

As it happened, thanks to three centuries of Spanish colonization, our attitudes and culture bore more similarities with Spanish Latin America and the economic penalties that go with it. Exasperated by our poor showing in the midst of healthy economic growth by our neighbors, one economist commented that the Philippines is the only Latin American country in Asia.

It certainly didn’t help that the small Chinese community here assimilated too well, taking on the deleterious aspects of colonial native culture. And like the native Pinoys, the Chinoys didn’t develop a strong sense of nationhood – not in terms of a Filipino nation, anyway. In fact, up until recent generations, Chinoys more than subliminally considered China the motherland.

Based on what we have seen among our neighbors, a strong sense of nationhood is vital to economic growth. I cannot forget a very dramatic television footage on CNN of Thais offering their gold and other jewelry to the Thai Central Bank to help the country weather the 1997 economic crisis. Such selfless sacrifice can only be possible because the Thais possessed not only a sense of nation but of the common good.

In contrast, what do we do here when all hell breaks loose in the economy and the exchange rate tumbles? We aggravate the problem by exhausting every legal loophole and banking industry connection to convert our pesos to dollars – even going to the black market, also known as the Binondo Central Bank, to dump our pesos for foreign exchange to be smuggled out of the country. Government authorities always found it necessary to read us the riot act to stop the speculators from sinking our peso in the currency market.

Young Chinoys have become too Pinoy for our own good. Chinese newspapers are dying because Chinoys no longer read or speak the language as well, if at all. Young Chinoys, like many educated upper class Pinoys who have lost hope in this country also dream of settling down in America, Canada or Australia. In other words, Chinoys have lost more than the facility to speak the tongue of a billion human beings. Chinoys have lost the important social attributes that have spelled the difference between development and poverty among the nations in our region over the last 50 years.

Mr. SyCip lamented that the young Chinoys are no longer as hungry as their forebears and therefore, no longer as ready to suspend present gratification for future rewards – an attitude necessary for economic growth. Instead, today’s Chinoys, like Pinoys of their social class, are engaged in a dog-eat-dog race to the top at all cost, a race that has little regard to social good, just personal gain. Young Chinoys have assimilated too well the ways of upper crust Pinoys and I guess in this context, that’s not something really good for them and for the country they now call home.

If it is the Chinese in Thailand, the Chinese in Malaysia, the Chinese in Singapore and Indonesia who were responsible for catapulting their adopted countries into tiger economy status, would it be right to blame the Chinoys for the failure of the Philippines to keep up with its neighbors?

I think that would be too harsh a conclusion to make but that’s a thought. Besides, Chinoys were subjected to discrimination and abuse since the Spanish era until recent times. But that didn’t stop the best of them from making good, creating economic value for the country.

In a sense, we need more Henry Sys, more Lucio Tans, more John Gokongweis to lead this country’s economic growth. Small as the Chinoy community might be compared to the Chinese ethnic communities in countries around us, the Chinoys still, by and large, power the country’s economic engine.

Chinoy entrepreneurs are needed to create jobs, as much jobs as our army of unemployed can fill. This is why your new generation of taipans should be as hungry and as adept in creating economic value as your parents and grandparents. The young Generations shouldn’t act like spoiled brats typical of the cono crowd or the illustrados or nouveau riche among the native Pinoys.

Indeed, the Chinoys are in the best position to link our economy with the fast moving tigers in the region. In an era where regional markets are important, these connections through family ties are a definite plus. It should be used by all good Chinoys to promote the economy of our country.

Then of course, we all know that the age of China as a world superpower is now upon us. Once again, Chinoys are in the best position to get the Philippines connected. For all the bravado we now hear from America, its days as the sole superpower are numbered. China, with its massive market of over a billion people, four times as large as America’s, is destined to be a major influence, not just in our region but in the world.

Just think about it. Once the buying power of the Chinese masses is unleashed, China can thrive on the sheer magnitude of its domestic market. Think of the economies of scale it would have. Export would only be the icing in its economic cake. China can give America a dose of its current policy of subsidizing exports. China will be an economic power to behold.

Let me end with a joke sent by a reader.

A husband and wife are getting ready for bed. The wife is standing in front of a full length mirror taking a hard look at herself. "You know love," she says, "I look in the mirror and I see an old woman. My face is all wrinkled, my boobs are barely above my waist, my butt is hanging out a mile. I’ve got fat legs and my arms are all flabby." She turns to her husband and says, "Tell me something positive to make me feel better about myself."

He thinks about it for a bit and then says, "Well... there’s nothing wrong with your eyesight."

I told that group of young Chinoy taipans that there is nothing wrong with our eyesight either. We are not having a nightmare. That ugly situation we see day in and day out is the reality – the depth to which our country has sunk. Let us go out there and give our motherland what she needs – the economic equivalent of liposuction, tummy tuck or a boob job. It does her no good to just tell her what she already knows only too well.

Chinoys. Pinoys. It makes no difference now. We are all one and share the same destiny – the same future.

http://www.tsinoy.info/forum/viewmessages.cfm?Forum=21&Topic=4716