Manila airport upgrade up against tough regional competition!

May 28, 2014

by benign0

Everybody is excited over a proposal coming from San Miguel Corporation to build a new $10 billion airport to replace the hopelessly decrepit and congested Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). NAIA is the main international gateway for travelers to the Philippines and is the hub for all Philippine airlines. The airport is named after the late Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr., who was assassinated at the airport in 1983. In 2012, all terminals at NAIA handled a record breaking annual passenger traffic of 31,558,002, making it one of the busiest airports in Asia.

According to Manila Standard Today columnist Florencio Fianza, the San Miguel proposal is a game changer…

The proposal is for the reclamation of part of the Manila Bay to put up a modern international airport complex with four runways. If this plan pushes through, it will truly be a game changer for the country. We would have a first-class airport that could rival the best in the world. This is exactly what we need at this stage of our development. If we want to join the big time, what we need is a WOW airport that we Filipinos could all be proud of and foreigners,upon landing on our shores, could not help but be impressed by their first sight of the country. This, instead of a squatter colony that one sees upon leaving Naia. First impressions are important when you go to a foreign country and it is important that we showcase our best in our international airport.

The future looks bright then, if all this comes to fruition. Here is a rundown of the competition:

Singapore Changi Airport (SIN), Singapore

In 2013, the airport handled 53.1 million passengers, a 5% increase over the previous year. This made it the fifth busiest airport by international passenger traffic in the world and the second busiest in Asia by international passenger traffic in 2012. The airport registered 4.92 million passengermovements in December 2012, a growth of 8.6% year-on-year. Changi’s daily record was broken on 21 December 2013, the Saturday before Christmas Day, with 191,800 passengers passing through the 24 hours. In addition to being an important passenger hub, the airport is one of the busiest cargo airports in the world, handling 1.85 million tonnes of cargo in 2013. The total number of commercial aircraft movements was 343,800 in 2012.

The airport has won over 430 awards since 1981, including 30 ‘Best’ awards in 2012. Changi Airport’s efforts to counter the onset of age include periodic physical upgrades to its existing terminals and building new facilities.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL), Malaysia

As of 2013, the airport handled 47,498,157 passengers and was Asia’s fastest growing airport recording a 19.1% growth year-on-year. It was ranked the 9th busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic, and is the 4th busiest international airport in Asia. It was ranked the 19th busiest airport by cargo traffic in 2010.

Its international terminal (Satellite Terminal A) has prayer rooms, showers and massage services. Various lounge areas are provided, some including children’s play areas and movie lounge, broadcasting movie and sport channels. The terminal also features a natural rainforest in the middle of the terminal, exhibiting the Malaysian forests.

Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK), Thailand

The airport has the world’s tallest free-standing control tower (132.2 metres or 434 feet), and the world’s fourth largest single-building airport terminal (563,000 square metres or 6,060,000 square feet).

Suvarnabhumi is the sixteenth busiest airport in the world, sixth busiest airport in Asia, and the busiest in the country, having handled 53 million passengers in 2012, and is also a major air cargo hub, with a total of 96 airlines. On social networks, Suvarnabhumi is the world’s most popular place where Instagram photographs were taken in 2012.

Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK), Indonesia

Soekarno–Hatta International Airport has 180 check-in counters, 36 baggage carousels and 45 gates. The sub-terminals (1A, 1B, 1C, 2D, 2E, and 2F) have 25 check-in counters, 5 baggage carousels and 7 gates each. Terminal 3 has 30 check-in counters, 6 baggage carousels and 3 gates.

Although the airport is running over capacity, on May 4, 2012, after verification from April 23 to May 3, the Airport Council International (ACI) stated that Soekarno–Hatta International Airport is clearly being operated safely. To overcome the overcapacity, on August 2, 2012, ground was broken at terminal 3 to make it into an Aerotropolis airport which can serve 62 million passengers per year.

Ho Chi Minh City Tan Son Nhat International Airport (SGN), Vietnam

Tan Son Nhat International Airport is the largest airport of Vietnam in terms of passengers handled (with a number of 17,538,000 passengers per year in 2012, accounting for 46.6% of Vietnam’s air passenger traffic),[7] serving Ho Chi Minh City as well as the rest of southeastern Vietnam. Its IATA code, SGN, is derived from the city’s former name of Saigon.

[NB: Parts of and photos used in this article were lifted from various Wikipedia.org airport articles in a manner compliant to the terms stipulated in the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that governs usage of content made available in this site.]

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.

Can the Philippines Chronic Electric Power Supply Shortage Ever Be Fixed?

Posted by Warlito Vicente on May 21, 2014 in Economy, Featured | 1 comment

Can the Philippines Power Outages Be Eliminated Permanently?

The answer to this is a definite YES.

However, the question of the technical and economic capacity to eliminate the outages is a distinct and separate question to whether the Philippine power market (suppliers, consumers, and regulators) has the underlying policy framework to enable the elimination of power outages.

To the latter question, the answer is NO.

Note that when discussing about the Philippine power outages, we are referring to the market segment which is tied to a system called the power distribution grid. The off-grid solutions are alternatives which will not be covered in this blog post.

To better understand what policies are preventing the elimination of outages, we need to know the following: a) what comprises the electric power supply chain; and b) what are the policies which affect the power supply chain.

Electric Power Supply Chain

First off, we need to understand how electricity ends up in our houses.

Here’s a very concise explanation from a North Carolina electric utility.

Below is a basic overview of how power reaches the typical residential customer.

Power Stations — The process begins at power stations, where electricity is initially produced. Each station is connected to others so if one shuts down, power can readily be obtained from another. Together, these facilities form the “power grid,” or transmission grid.

Transformers — Once created, electric current is sent through transformers to increase the voltage, allowing it to be pushed over long distances. The current is transported using high-voltage transmission lines.

Substations — Electricity then reaches a substation, where the voltage is lowered. This allows it to safely pass through smaller power lines.

Distribution Lines — From these smaller power lines, electricity reaches various levels of customers, as shown in the illustration below. Residential customers (also known as “secondary” customers since they are essentially at the end of the distribution network, behind industries and businesses) are served by distribution lines in neighborhoods, where smaller pole-top transformers again reduce the voltage.

Service Drop — Distribution lines connect to your house through a “service drop” which then transfers the electricity to your meter. (Depending on where you live, distribution lines and service drops may be underground.) The meter measures how much electricity you use.

Service Panel — Wires bring the electricity from the meter to your service panel, where breakers protect your wiring from power overloads. From the panel, electricity travels through wires to various outlets and switches in your home.

Performance Indicators

Now, imagine electricity as if it were a stream of water flowing from a well to your house. As the electricity moves towards you, the end consumer, the flow is going downstream. As we trace the flow to its source, we are said to be going upstream.

This metaphor will come in handy as we follow the trail from the consumer “downstream” to the power generation firms “upstream”.

Potential Pitfalls 

It is also important to understand the definition of the numbers that are being compared lest we fall into equivocation.

For example, one might say that the Philippine power industry is already competitive because there now exist private firms competing to provide power generation services. Moreover, this competition has also led to better prices compared to the time when power generation was a monopoly of NAPOCOR. From a domestic perspective, both statements are true.

The question however is, are we competing against ourselves – or are we competing against different countries from all over the world?

So, yes – the EPIRA introduced competition.  BUT, was the competition between the local 75% Filipino majority owned utilities enough?

In the former instance -the  competition referred to is domestic competition between the power generation firms.

In the latter instance, the competition referred to is the international competition between the power rates of different countries.

Or is WESM a perversion of the notion of competition. Is WESM a corporatist/crony capitalist/statist tool ? Having this pig of a restrictive market put on a lipstick called EPIRA does not make the pig any less of a pig.

Having said that, let’s take a deep dive and listen to what the data is telling us – or prodding us to inquire some more.

 Capacity/Production

How has the Philippines power production panned out compared  to its neighbors, given the bigger private sector investments?

 

For the same period 2005-2011, when private sector investments in energy in  the Philippines was higher than its neighbors – electricity production has minimally improved.

Sources of Power

Thailand and Vietnam have a higher proportion of power generated from natural gas resources.

Philippines and Indonesia have a higher proportion of power generated from coal sources.

Investments in Energy with Private Sector Participation

YES – there were private sector investments in energy. But, were the investments enough to drive the costs of power down to affordable levels?

From 2005-2012, the Philippines had more private sector participation in investments in energy ($13B) compared to Thailand ($8B), Vietnam ($4B), Indonesia ($7B), Malaysia ($6.4B), and Cambodia ($2.5B).

Could these be due to the higher capital requirements of coal-based power plants which are more prevalent in the Philippines? Compare that to the power sources of Thailand and Vietnam.

And if the capital investment is higher, guess how this will impact the price to the consumer.

  

Power Rates

Yes – the EPIRA reduced the high power rates. But were the rate reductions enough?

Were the reductions provided by the the local 75% Filipino majority owned utilities enough – when despite the reduction, the Philippines still has the highest rates in Asia?

Taxes

The other component of power rates is taxes. Every segment of the power supply chain which has a charge has a corresponding VAT.

Consumption / Demand

How has our power consumption fared when compared to our neighbors?

On a per capita consumption basis, consumption has remained stagnant compared to Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Access to Electricity

And on top of that, were all these enough to address the 8 hour power outages faced in Mindanao? A reduction in the percent of population with access to electricity, despite the increased private sector investments of 75% Filipino majority owned power generation firms, the Wholesale Spot Electricity Market , the increased privatization of government power generation assets (and liabilities).

Affordability

On the matter of affordability, the question is – after paying electric bills, do consumers still have enough to pay for other necessities and still have discretionary income left? Given that the Philippines has lower GDP per capita and yet has electric power rates that are equal to those with higher GDP per capita, then Filipinos have less disposable income after paying the power bills than the Thai, Indonesians, Malaysians, and Singaporeans.

Or to phrase the question in a more intimate context – what is the difference in the satisfaction between masturbation versus having a fully engaged partner(s)?  But I digress.

Policy Framework

In reviewing the policies, I use the framework below. There are four generic scenarios labeled A,B,C, and D. Each of the scenarios are made up three self-explanatory indicators – competition, primary drivers, and primary barriers.

Prior to the EPIRA, the highly regulated power industry had vertically integrated firms in distribution and supply.

After EPIRA,, the vertically integrated  distribution and supply segments were broken up to allow more companies to participate in distribution and supply.

The “reform “of the Philippine power industry can be described as a mixed pace of EPIRA implementation based on geographic location.

Luzon and Visayas now have more private firms involved in power generation. Mindanao on the other hand has a state-run monopoly that runs the hydro power generation facilities.

In the overall scheme of things. Despite being inefficiently crafted, compared to nationalized state-run utilities, the corporatist/statist EPIRA has led to continuous power supply to consumers in Luzon, albeit at very expensive rates compared to neighboring ASEAN countries, including developed countries.

The overriding question therefore is not whether EPIRA has worked or not – because it obviously has worked in terms of providing continuous power supply.

Rather the question is whether the outcomes of the EPIRA framework are sufficient or not?

In my opinion, the high cost of electricity in Luzon and Visayas and the continuing power outages in Mindanao INDICATES that the outcomes of the EPIRA framework are insufficient – and simplyunacceptable.

Solutions

The diagram below captures the current state of the Philippine power industry in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Also shown is “my” ideal future state of the Philippine power industry.

While the EPIRA is an improvement on the state-run model, the EPIRA is a poor and inefficient perversion of a free and open market in electric power. Based on actual data, the EPIRA has not led to increase in access to electricity, nor has it led to affordable power rates, nor has it led to a steady supply of power for a large segment of the population.

Obviously, my market-driven solution is diametrically opposite the demands of the leftists and nationalists to nationalize the industry – which in my view will only make things worse.

Why repeat the experience of Mindanao’s consumers under a state monopoly called NAPOCOR?

We ought to be learning from the experience of Luzon and Visayas under the EPIRA and take this a step further towards full liberalization and open competition.

Grassroots Participatory Budget Process (GPBP): Malacanang’s new Pork Barrel distribution machine?

May 28, 2014

by benign0

Now that Department of Budget Management Secretary Butch Abad is in hot water over allegations surrounding (among others) his being lead architect of the gazillion-peso presidential slush fund — the ‘Disbursement Acceleration Program’ (DAP) — purportedly used to fund efforts to motivate Philippine Senators to deliver a favourable verdict in the 2012 impeachment of former Chief Justice Renato Corona, a vacuum has been created for the new role as the President’s personal Santa Claus. Seems like Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary has stepped up to take on the job.

Pork Santa Claus: DILG Secretary Mar Roxas

As part of the Grassroots Participatory Budget Process (GPBP), hailed as Philippine President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III’s “new ‘bottom-up’ budgeting system”, Roxas “personally” handed out cheques amounting to more than Php 38.3 million to the happy mayors of northern Mindanao. He also supposedly “led the distribution of P4 billion in financial assistance to areas ravaged by Supertyphoon Yolanda in the Visayas region also under the GPBP.”

One wonders though why cheques need to be personally handed out. One would think that in this day and age that there’d be better, more efficient ways to transfer funds from one government unit to another. It’s a no-brainer of course. Politics will always play a part whenever large sums of money are moved about, and just from seeing the media mileage Roxas gains from this quaint exercise, it is obvious what this stunt is really all about.

There are many ways to skin a cat, and many ways to cook pork.

As the rest of the Philippines’ criminal investigation machine, its “civil society” talking heads, its clownish ‘activists’, and its billion-dollar media industry players focus their troops, cameras, and tweets on the Napoles Lists and the Senate inquiries “investigating” these, there may be new pork disbursement tentacles stretching out to the countryside from Malacanang. Perhaps one of these is Mar Roxas’s GPBP — another acronym to add to the growing list of pork acronyms and euphemisms.

This time the target is not legislators but local government executives. That’s a lot closer to home as far as President BS Aquino is concerned. Why bother with a separate, supposedly “independent” branch of government when there are lots of bozos to be “motivated” within the Executive branch?

Makes good business sense, indeed.

The GPBP is packaged as an innovation to the traditional ‘top-down’ budgetting process and supposedly gives the onus for identifying “poverty alleviation initiatives” to local government officials.

Pardon my naivety, though, but I always thought that mayors and other local government unit (LGU) officials have always been responsible for that.

Where is the innovation here?

The ominous aspect of this is that the “19,553 anti-poverty projects” covered by the GPBP were “identified with the help of nongovernmental organizations [also known as 'NGOs'].”

[Boldface in above quoted text added for emphasis by this article's author.]

Yikes!

Not all NGOs are bad of course. But this community of organisations ain’t exactly enjoying a public relations golden age nowadays, what with that acronym now squarely associated with alleged Pork Barrel Scam ringleader Janet Lim Napoles. Napoles, if we recall, is accused of using a network of bogus NGOs to siphon government cash off to Los Angeles to fund her daughter’s LA-LA lifestyle there. Alleged pork scam chump Senator Jinggoy Estrada, for his part, famously insisted that “It is not up to the senators to determine whether an NGO is bogus or not”.

No wonder all these NGOs clamber over one another to ensure they are part of this budgetting process and cling onto government officials like barnacles. That whole scene is a money launderer’s wet dream!

Furthermore, it seems that we are all being led to believe that the launch of the GPBP heralds a new age of LGU focus on “poverty alleviation” — worse, that this “new” focus is an outcome of the efforts of President BS Aquino’s administration and the crocodile kindness of his henchman, Mar Roxas.

Step back from that BS and consider this simple principle;

That “poverty alleviation” at local levels should always have been understood to be part and parcel of the whole point of local governance.

There is no fanfare required for something that is part of the job to begin with. Seems like the nation’s honourable mayors should re-visit their job descriptions. And perhaps DILG Secretary should find better, more efficient ways to distribute government funds than having to fly all the way to Mindanao to personally hand out cheques like some kind of perverse tropical Santa Claus.

Sayaw Pinoy, sayaw…

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.

Aquino at WEF: A lying credit grabber

by RIGOBERTO D. TIGLAO

What a lying, credit grabber we have for a President. I was stunned when in his speech at the recent World Economic Form on East Asia, he said:

“Dismantling the culture of corruption was a promise we made to the people . . . Our efforts were not limited to those in the highest positions; we want to institute integrity throughout the bureaucracy. This is why, through programs called Revenue Integrity Protection Services (RIPS), Run After The Smugglers (RATS), and Run After Tax Evaders (RATE), we have filed a total of 487 cases against those who allegedly committed offenses as of April 15, 2014.”

If I were there when he made the speech, I’m not sure I could stop myself from throwing a shoe at him, and shouting “Liar”! Read on to understand why I’m angry.

All of these programs, which Aquino claimed for himself, were in fact all set up and institutionalized (through executive and administrative orders) by his predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. He has contributed nothing to their effectiveness since he assumed power:

• The RIPS program under the department of finance was set up under Executive Order No. 259, issued Dec. 17, 2003 by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo;
• The RATS program under the Customs Bureau was  set up through Customs Special Order No. 24 2005 issued in May 2005; and
• The RATE Program was set up under the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s Revenue Memorandum Order NO. 24-2008,  in order to bring to the bureau level the RIPS and its focus on smugglers.

Arroyo’s top priority

The former president made the organization of these bodies her top priority until they worked effectively and became the institutionalized programs that they are today.

What was also crucial was that she secured a $20.7 million grant from the United States Agency for International Aid for the government’s overall anti-corruption campaign, with $9.4 million allotted for the RATE program and $3.1 million for RATS.

That is the biggest special funding ever made for an anti-corruption drive in our post-war history—in peso terms, it amounted to P1 billion.

The grant’s title explains its purpose: “Strategic Objective Grant Agreement Between the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines to Strengthen and Enforce Anti-Corruption Measures.” The funds were also used to strengthen other government anti-corruption agencies, especially the Ombudsman and including the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission.

Has Aquino done anything to strengthen these entities? Did he give them additional funds, even from his illegal Disbursement Acceleration Fund, or through an increase in their budgets? None. Zero. Zilch.

Much of the successes of these agencies in fact were the result of their work during the past administration.

“We have filed a total of 487 cases against those who allegedly committed offenses as of April 15, 2014,” Aquino claimed in his speech.

The figures, I was told by my sources, show that 300 or two-thirds of these (which include the cases filed in or by the Ombudsman) were investigations started or filed, by the previous administration.

While I will be reporting more detailed information on these in succeeding columns, the credit grabbing is obvious in the case of the Department of Finance’s (DOF) RIPS.

In fact, to bolster Aquino’s tall tales, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima ordered his staff in the past weeks to go on a media blitz. They wanted to paint a rosy image of his boss’s anti-corruption campaign, but their campaign was so amateurish that the lies are too obvious.

In the finance department’s press releases on May 21 (timed just before the start of the WEF), it claimed that RIPS filed graft cases against 207 government staff.

But in the same press release (and in its website), it says that this number  is the total number of  cases filed since since 2003, or when RIPS was created by Arroyo. So how many officials were charged during Aquino’s term? A lot, the release boasted: 94.

The idiots at the DOF didn’t even bother to use their calculators. That means there were more officials—113—who were charged by RIPS during Arroyo’s watch.

Charges filed years ago

In the same press release, and to bolster its false boast, the DOF claimed:

“Zenaida Chang, BIR assistant commissioner of Financial and Administrative Services, was relieved of her post on orders of the Office of the Ombudsman. She was found guilty of Serious Dishonesty and Gross Neglect of Duty. The Ombudsman also ordered the filing of forfeiture proceedings to recover her ill-gotten assets.”

When was the case filed? Back in Dec. 4, 2009—yep, during Arroyo’s administration. It was the Ombudsman, which issued the decision. The present RIPS didn’t have to do anything with it.

Did they bother to mention that  this victory should be at least shared with the previous by the previous administration? Of course not, it would destroy the Yellow Cult’s “good versus evil” narrative.

In the same press release intended to fool gullible reporters to write puff-pieces for Aquino during the WEF meeting, the DOF claimed that among RIPS’ outstanding accomplishments were the dismissal of a BIR couple, a jail-term meted on a retired Customs examiner, and the three-month suspension of a BIR assistant regional director for not including her properties in her Statements of Assets and Liabilities.

Of course, it didn’t mention that the charges against them were filed at the Ombudsman in 2005 and 2006, with the difficult, rigorous investigations to compile evidence done in 2003 to 2005.

The list of such misleading press releases goes on and on.

Did I spend a lot of time to do research to uncover and expose Aquino’s lies regarding his anti-corruption reforms?

Not really, since I was participant in and eyewitness to Arroyo’s anti-corruption campaign then, and this leads to why I said I probably would have shouted “Sinungaling” at Aquino as he was giving his speech.

The Transparency Group

As Presidential Chief of Staff, upon Arroyo’s instructions to jump-start her anti-corruption campaign and overcome the inertia of the bureaucracy, I organized in 2002 in our office what we underplayed as the “Transparency Group.”

The group, which included veteran investigators from the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police, began the lifestyle checks on officials in agencies notorious for graft, which led to several convictions by the Ombudsman. Those lifestyle checks have become the template for those undertaken since then and being undertaken by the RIPS and by the Ombudsman.

A more permanent, and “embedded” unit a year after was set up in the DOF to take over the Transparency Group’s work in  checking  graft in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and in the Bureau of Customs.

That permanent unit that was created during Arroyo’s time is the RIPS, with RATE and RATS following that template. The Transparency Group was dissolved. We were actually happy of being relieved of that task, since we, especially its head who is now with Aquino’s government, were getting death threats.

Whether these were serious or just empty bluffs, having to look over your shoulders constantly and having armed bodyguards wherever you go isn’t a comfortable lifestyle.

You understand now why I’m so pissed off by Aquino’s lies? And the delusion persists that Aquino launched the campaign against corruption? On Wednesday, I will explain with facts and figures why corruption in fact has worsened.

tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com

FB: Rigoberto D. Tiglao

www.rigobertotiglao.com

Filipinos’ obssession with ‘happiness’ is what keeps them mired in chronic poverty

May 27, 2014

by benign0

Again, I’m seeing the Happy card being played a lot these days. Filipinos can’t get enough of that card. It’s a poor man’s Ace. You can’t make yourself rich overnight, but you can certainly make yourself “happy” in the next minute. And so that is why “Happy” is de facto the buzzword of the Loser community. It also explains why buying a Lotto ticket is the Filipinos’ favourite investment strategy — because the hard work, innovative thinking, foresight, and consistency that underpin real efforts to accumulate wealth are concepts alien to Filipinos.

It is easy to retreat to the “happiness” metric when all other success indicators suck. That’s the loser approach to rationalising one’s existence. There’s a a simple colloquial term that encapsulates that attitude: sour grapes.

I don’t have a Mercedes Benz and an airconditioner but, hey, I’m happy with my wretched existence and remain thankful to “God”.

[Cue in that idiotic "Happy" song...]

Easy and comfy nebulous retreats that give losers that warm fuzzy feeling. Lots of people have made millions of dollars selling bullshit that makes losers feel like winners — self-help books and sappy new-age BS (not to mention religious dogma that promises everything to the dead and nothing to the living) that get into idiots’ heads via their limbic systems rather than cerebral cortices.

You wonder why the Philippines continues to fail? It is because Filipinos have been led to believe that simply being “happy” makes them “winners”. That is a nice philosophy to live by — when you are happy being a loser for the rest of your existence, that is.

Without a doubt, Filipinos love to smile. But what does the Filipino smile actually mean? Apparently, not what it appears to mean. According to a United Nations “World Happiness Report”, the Philippines cannot be considered to be among the world’s happiest countries. The report, which was based on a ranking of 156 countries, put the Philippines at the 103rd spot ranking below basketcases like Namibia, Iraq, and Nigeria.

Interestingly Scandinavian countries disproportionately topped the “Happy” list and, in Asia, famously stoic countries like Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea made decent showings. It is interesting because Filipinos have always seen themselves as a charmed and “blessed” race leading a peachy existence in a rich land while deriding these affluent steely societies as ill-humoured suicidals.

One can’t be a success when one is as self-absorbed as Filipinos are. Too local and inward-looking. That’s what Pinoys are. No wonder Filipinos’ aspirations to be “world class” and “globally integrated” are never realised. Filipinos don’t see themselves as members of the global community. They see themselves as the global community’s employees.

Indeed;

Loser mentality = Pinoy culture

That’s the simple equation that beats all the economists’ fancy financial models that try to make sense of why the Philippines continues to fail.

When one’s mind has been taken over by the Loser Mentality virus, perimeter walls that block input to clear thinking begin rise around one’s intellectual faculties. And where there is no openness to input, the willingness and courage to face reality begins to atrophy. You can see those walls around the Filipino mind in action in most comment threads on online forums all over the Net. When realities about the Pinoy Condition are put on the table, the response is overwhelmingly emotional and, specifically, denial. The preferred approach is to attack the messenger rather than address the message using compelling ideas.

The late former American First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was said to have said:

Small minds discuss people;

Average minds discuss events;

Great minds discuss ideas.

Throw an idea at a Filipino and you get thrown back an inquiry on your personal circumstances. That’s Pinoy “Debate” 101. Re-direct the debate to personalities rather than ideas. It is a reflection of the dysfunctional National “Debate” that sees Napoles Lists as the centrepiece of criminal investigations rather than hard traceable evidence as the key focus.

To behold a society such as the Philippines’ is to understand the forces that keep millions of people deeply-mired in Third World standards of living.

There is nothing in the Philippines that could save it. Not its civilian government, not its military, not its “activists” and, most certainly, not its own people.

One, of course, can “choose” to be “happy”. Because being happy is easy.

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.