Singapore used to be much poorer and less developed than the Philippines back in the 1950s and 1960s, but as a result of policies designed to make Singapore much more open to foreign direct investors & multinational corporations, S’pore attracted more companies to come in. More jobs were created and unemployment & poverty were drastically reduced. As a result, S’pore became the richest in Asia. On the other hand, the Philippines with its highly restrictive anti-foreign investor restrictions in the 1987 Constitution, continues to turn investors off, making jobs scarce – keeping most Filipinos poor & desperate.
Singapore serves as a perfect example as the Philippines can easily learn to be open to foreign direct investors and multinational corporations in order to create more jobs. In the interest of political stability, the Philippines can also learn from how Singapore’s parliamentary system firstly allowed it to be able to end up with competent leaders like founding father Lee Kuan Yew and his People’s Action Party and see how it tends to be much more stable, efficient, and less prone to corruption. Lastly, because the Philippines is much bigger than Singapore, emulating Singapore requires that the Philippines autonomize its regions so that the regions all act each like Singapore and together attract investments and improve their own economies.
It’s also worth noting that Malaysia – whose majority Malays & Bumiputras are culturally similar to Filipinos – took many key learnings and insights from Singapore too. As a result, Malaysia is also one of the ASEAN region’s better economies. It’s time to quit being Asia’s Basketcase of Wasted Democrazy!
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