President Marcos needs to give us more confidence
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
President Marcos entered office roaring. Traveling, hatching new initiatives, doing a lot of good works.
Half the nation, though, was in no mood to appreciate his good works because they knew what his father did, and didn’t trust the son.
That’s why the President struggles to get his trust ratings up. Now he seems to be doing less. Odd, that.
Has he given up? Is he plotting some way other than showing good results as his way to reclaim the family reputation. He has recently denied that his father was a dictator.
But I wish he would figure out how to lift the nation up, not his family.
So many people have gotten caught up in complaints about the Marcoses and problems in the Philippines (corruption, the Dutertes) that they fail to see that the Philippines is a culturally rich, resource rich, dynamic, stable, democratic, free nation of immense complexity and wonders. Sterile and drab, it is not.
Where’s the pride?
In discussions here last week, Karl Garcia documented some of the early initiatives of President Marcos: financial assistance to young innovative businesses, building a coffee industry, developing ports to move agricultural products better. He also mentioned one that we both raised eyebrows over: the Admin’s refusal to use US resources to escort Philippines through high risk Philippine seas.
It struck me that the government has confidence that the Philippines could manage its seas on its own, and we do not.
President Marcos has confidence he is moving things well and we do not.
His senatorial slate for 2025 is the same o same old retreads who have not exorcised Philippine devils in the past and are unlikely to do so in the future. Indeed, the Senate is the problem, not the solution. Impunity, favoritism, and corruption remain the method.
So it is obvious the President could do a much better job managing what people are thinking. He seems to want to do it through propaganda, using PNA to puff him up, and using showmanship trips to present himself as generous and concerned about citizens.. I’d argue he’d do a lot better by being transparent on his work, and making sure his Cabinet agencies are following through on his good ideas.
He’s been giving away a lot of land titles. How does the overall scorecard read on that? How does it read on the innovative businesses? How many successes and failures? How’s the coffee project going? The ports?
He needs a simple master scorecard that will show progress on key initiatives and that give us CONFIDENCE that the Philippines is a nation on the move. And he, as the Captain, is steering it through storm and calm. I checked the NEDA web site. It is a list of promises and plans but only two projects under the projects tab. It’s administrative folderol.
The scorecard should show facts, not propaganda. Real results, not oral or written bragging.
Right now, I don’t know the nation’s destination, unless it is to fill the bank accounts of the entitled and haul the people around as if on a barge to nowhere.
Where are we going, Mr. President?
_________________________
Cover photograph from Bilyonaryo article: “You’ve gone too far this time: Malacañang sent official invites to top bilyonaryos, politikos to Marcos’s Duran Duran birthday bash at Manila Marriott“
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Thanks, Joe America! Yes, President Marcos needs to give us more confidence!
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
Thank you, Sir Gemino. I suspect he senses direction in his oratory as it applies to this or that, like prices of agriculture or pogos, but he has no master vision of the Philippines as an adult, competent state. Like he’s putting arms and legs here or there without an idea of what a body should look like. Haha, sort of a surrealist artist.
Again, I am glad that somehow contributed some four cents to the article. I will wait for other inputs like Joey’s bottom up approach and JP’s baby steps plus one one comment addressed to me JP called BBM Duterte lite.
Having Napoles and Enrile aquitted during his watch is no confidence booster.
Yes, exactly.
they are not out of the woods and should not celebrate yet as enrile, reyes and napoles were acquitted only in the plunder cases connected with the pork barrel scam.
the trio still have pending graft cases before sandigan.
Good catch as always KB!
Let’s butt in, as they say in Voltes V. Heneral Lunacy blog makes it seem as if the same stuff may happen that happened to Marcos Sr., that the country lived beyond its means and the crash might come sooner or later.
A very good reading of the mess that is fiscal discipline, or, more correctly, lack thereof. The funding of people not projects. The debt pounding relentlessly up, putting Recto in a box. So up with taxes, down with foreign investment, and the story is the same. A nation that exists to make the entitled happy.
I think Marcos Jr is indeed Duterte light. He lacks the stone cold killer demeanor, and we are better off for it. That leads to my underlying hope that he would knuckle down and work at being a productive president. In terms of civil discourse, he is way better than Duterte, and international relations have improved as a result. We should note this and give him credit. Still, the number of plunderers and scoundrels having jobs in governments is astounding.
Yes he way better on many aspects
aspects! you got that right, karlG. I see another aspect as the president may soon get a helluva boost as newly acquitted plunderers enrile, his one time assistant reyes, and the queen of scam napoles are out of kalabos. all are seemingly potential advisers with their 1st hand experience of plunder and how to get out of plunder cases, their 1st rate knowledge would be invaluable to plunders alike!
already, enrile reports to the president as integral part of the president’s gabinete.
Very perceptive
It is this regime of his that we should be vigilant, keep an eye on the persons of interest surrounding him, namely his family and influential friends, as opportunists of all sorts have thrown their hats into the election ring, hungry and anxious to grab the piece of the pie and to enslave the people they call their constituents.
I think both the Duterte and Marcos regimes are trouble. The Marcos regime is unlikely to root out crime and corruption. It is bothering me greatly for putting on a shine as nothing really changes much. Impunity and entitlement reign supreme. Corruption is mainstream. I don’t see what he is doing, frankly.
Well it’s quite simple to see what Marcos doing, because it’s basically nothing. SSDD. It’s just the status quo. Maintaining the consumer engine fed by BPO salaries and OFW remittance, squeezing the lower economic classes out of their money rather than growing the economy. There’s a huge opportunity in the next half decade to attract FDI to Philippines but I guess Filipinos will miss that boat once again due to bad leadership.
We can stipulate that as fact and go from there. That’s why my focus is on 2028, not on the woes and ways of dynastic democracy.
Yes, agree fully. Hopefully if a better administration gets elected in 2028 with an aligned Congress, some changes may take place. In terms of bringing benefits to the Philippine economy, I fear by the late 2020s there will be only scraps left as globalization shifts from China to elsewhere. Vietnam and Mexico are reaping the lion’s share of the benefits, followed by India, Indonesia, Malaysia.
Yes, the Philippines is missing out, and there is a whole of government obliviousness to it.
There’s a certain frustration that every 6 years, needing to wait another 6 years for new chance to arise. That’s why sometimes I rather just focus on encouraging people I meet among the poor.
That’s a good approach. I am more discouraged by the fact that few read anymore, and see this as a huge social weakness producing a shallowness of thought, rigid defense of conspiracies, lack of engagement and influence, and emotionalized basis for decisions. But both the political and social trending are fascinating to watch, analyze, and engage with. More fulfilling than taking up golf, for me.
What we observed there is the result of a concentrated attack on education that has lasted 2 generations in the Philippines that pilfered funds necessary to develop young minds. A similar thing happened in the US starting in the 1980s. In the absence of a developed mind humans fall back to our base instincts of instant gratification, like how we gorge on food and crave sugar for the dopamine hit. It will take another 1-2 generations of steady and firm leadership to fix. I’ll be an old man by then.
No worries. I’ll be dead. Always look at the bright side of life.
Of course. Otherwise I would’ve given up on the Philippines long ago 😅
I am here. Although as I was composing notes for my initial reply, I became angry as I reviewed data.
I get you, Joey. I’ve been lurking and reading comments but I can’t compose a civil one because my anger gets in the the way. I have two comments on Notes but they are too negative. Both of them are about him continuing Du30’s policies on EJK, NTF-ELCAC, forced disapperance and the state sponsored repression and oppression of various segments of the society (NGOs, press, activists, labor unions, farmers’ organizations…). Both Malaya and BBM already said that they will not abolish NTF-ELCAC because it weakened the insurgency to just 1,500 armed guerillas. BBM is also telling world leaders that there are no more EJKs under his administration because he completely changed the “war on drugs” by DU30 into a rehabilitative and preventive program. According to people in the know, there is one EJK victim every other day if not everyday (0.8 to 0.9 deaths per day) in the incumbent administration.
https://www.dw.com/en/philippines-drug-war-what-changed-under-president-marcos/a-68635719
In the Philippines red-tagging has always been a convenient way to destroy opponents or remove undesirables. I see the drug war as a modern evolution: drug-tagging. The other problem is the PNP and “vigilantes” have had 8 years now of free rein. The sad truth is that life is cheap in the Philippines if someone is in DE. The EJK I personally witnessed or knew of were basically neighborhood feuds where the perpetrator used the drug war as an excuse to kill his rival. Sometimes the perpetrators are protected by the local PNP. Even if the PNP wanted to investigate, let’s be honest the police in the Philippines are often incompetent (as we can see with the Mayora Guo debacle). In cases where the police actually did something it was because the target became politically inconvenient (like Quiboloy). Actually it all reminds me of the 1980s that I grew up in the US, but much worse. But the solution to the violence of 1980s US inner cities was leadership by local elders, better jobs and opportunity, not the tougher laws.
quiboloy is going to inconvenient us more. he has filed certificate of candidacy by proxy and want to run as senator! alice guo is supposed going for reelection as bamban mayor, but comelec is going to disqualify her for not being true filipino citizen.
dr willie ong is running for senator despite having cancer and being treated for cancer and is apparently lethargic and losing weight. if he wins, willie ong may have to conduct office from his hospital bed!
saw nora aunor also filed certificate of candidacy. she did not appear on top form and her demeanor was not very impressive: short of breath like she has some heart and lung problems and needed to breathe deeply in between, heaving like a truck on full load going uphill, phrasing her words as though timing her breath. doubt if it was stage fright as la aunor is used to being in spotlight. if elected, she would probly have a number of sick leaves from work. off sick.
Perhaps these frail creatures are just running as placeholders until their son or daughter is old enough to take their place. It’s a bit sad that the voters will probably send them into the halls of power anyway. Where are the youthful candidates who can organize the masses on social media?
youthful candidates are apparently so green a sapling and being guided by politically experienced mommy and daddy dearest. fresh, but summat hesitant to put a foot wrong in shark infested waters. they look eager though and hopeful.
Just a fresh face but controlled behind the scenes by the dynasty they belong to.
The young niece of Senator Tolentino is now the Cavite Governor.
Leviste is planning to run for Congress.
The younger the less trapo, I guess.
Crazy that she was vice governor at such a young age. I don’t see any prior accomplishments and her resume is very thin.
There is always a hope that the younger dynasty members will be less trapo, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. Of course, the current trapos were young once.
Good point
Seems that not much has changed in Cavite in terms of leadership since the last time I was there, in the mid-2010s. In Cebu Queen Gwen has been governor since forever — I think she’s a vampire by now.
When you are angry you can decide emotionally or become the hulk.
Most days I am calm, but today my skin started having a greenish tinge hehe.
Oh no! Hehehe
Is the rift between his sister real or moro-moro, cuz she kinda has a point about being too subservient to USA. I think Imee’s point is the Philippines should be squeezing this relationship, not make it just a one way wham bam thank you , ma’am typa deal. same o same ole status quo relationship. which I feel that she feels her brother cannot deliver. too much a yes man he is. maybe to these folks, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Brothers_Harriman_%26_Co. , eg. deep, deeper , deepest state, Joe. in over his head, I think is what Imee would say. what say you?
The rift seems soft to me, structured by Imee to stand alone and apart from her brother. He included her in his senatorial slate, and will keep her there, even as she rejects the idea. She’s doing better than everyone else at gaining visibility and popularity. Well, she has the money to do so. The lefts and liberals are all broke.
On the relationship with the US, I think Teodoro is driving that, and he is nobody’s fool. It is trully mutually beneficial. The US does not push the Philippines around. I’m more suspicious as to why Imee would favor China. There must be personal gain to doing that. But then I favor the US alliance as a way for the Philippines to project power when it has none, on its own.
As for the US deep state shenanigans, all are titillating, for sure, but that’s a loooonnnngggg way from my interests, so I’ll not go down the rabbit hole with you on that unless you show how it is meaningful, which is different than fanciful, for the Philippines.
meaningful for the Philippines. that’s what’s giving trouble with this UFO blog, Joe. chipping away still at this thing. will probably be done by next Monday. Ireneo’s opportunities and genealogy was helpful. Joey’s spiritual too. at the very least titillating. for sure. “I’m more suspicious as to why Imee would favor China.” Balance I think is more her point. Operate in the middle is her theme here. Which makes a lot of sense to me.
Understandable.
“He’s been giving away a lot of land titles. How does the overall scorecard read on that? … “
This was s.o.p on the part of FM (pere) to create a structure of vassalage in exchange for fealty in his new order of monarchy as prequel to post-res publica Philippines,
PS: only my speculation, if I were in that situation.
Ah, that is great to know and certainly puts meaning to the process. And wariness. Thanks!
sony, nice to hear from you. here’s a bit of makoy’s ill gotten wealth, his heirs are disallowed to own the ill gotten land by order of the supreme court.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1980549/sc-junks-marcos-family-claim-on-paoay-land
president bong marcos has given land in the basuanga nature reserve for farmers to till. now, both farmers and wannabee farmers just need capital to kickstart the president’s food security program. if farmers borrow money from the banks, they have got to be very observant with interest rates the banks charge. that was how farmers during makoy’s time lost their land to repossession.
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/920983/marcos-tells-agrarian-reform-beneficiaries-in-coron-land-is-now-yours/story/
https://beta.pna.gov.ph/articles/1222234
what a scary prospect! methink because he signed the land titles distributed to farmers in negros occidental, president bong marcos, so hauntingly like his father, is also the likely beneficiary of ‘lands that bounced’.
it’s mayhap misleading and summat simplistic, president bong marcos said aid of 69.17millions will be dispensed to assist negros occidental farmers in terms of fertilizers, farm machineries, farm to market roads, etc.
yeah, we have heard of similar offers sa panahon ng ally ni marcos na si gloria arroyo. the fertilizer to be given were instead sold at 3x the price farmers would have paid had they bought fertilizers privately. it was allegedly stipulated in the agrarian land reform program that farmers who avail of govt help must get their fertilizers from recommended govt agencies hence the overpricing as govt agencies have monopoly of the program and face no competition. same maybe with farm machineries, farmers have to rent, or lease them, not own them outright, but responsible for their upkeep and maintenance. and may have to share or let go of the machineries as stipulated by the powers that be.
farm to market roads may take years to implement and may go thru dept of public works and development, and may have to be bidded out. the longer the wait, the more likely the money vanishes into thin air, appropriated for other purposes is what I think.
Boy, that is crafty nasty business. The problem is that anti-people schemes are hatched so fast, and justice and the courts are so slow, that evil outpaces good. And then is forgiven later on.
Thank you for the warm welcome, ksmbahay! It’s good to see you have not skipped a beat: I’m enjoying the same lean, substantial, to-the-point, colorful comments I read before from you.
Welcome back, Kuya Sonny.
You are right. It was a ML modus operandi. Some of the bigger tracts were given to his loyal cronies.
Thank you, JP. I did miss you & everyone in TSOH during my absence. Among other things I somewhat felt I was taking more than I was giving. I will try to remedy that.
I am not a fan of BBM, but I was hopeful for his success nonetheless. BBM started his presidency touring the world for the first 2 years, greeted everywhere (including here in the US) as a rockstar and honored with state dinners with all the accompanying pomp and circumstance he seems to enjoy (echoes of his own father and mother here?). Joint messages of friendship and working groups for economic cooperation were set up across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australasia. He may as well pick up a basketball and join the Globetrotters.
Two years on and after much tax expense to the Filipino taxpayer for BBM’s travel itinerary, the economic working groups have yet to generate any results. As I noted to Joe on Twitter:
“Note large disparity (42x+) between ROK FDI and Developmental Assistance. BBM has taken a mendicant attitude towards foreign relations. He should be working to flip that and attract FDI to make jobs in the Philippines which will be worth more than any Developmental Assistance.”
https://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/ph-south-korea-ink-deal-on-maritime-cooperation-infra-development
FDI from South Korea in 2023 was $20.82 million while Official Developmental Aid (ODA) was $971.86 million. South Korea is only but one example. FDI from Japan stood at $800 million in 2022, while ODA stood at nearly $3 billion. The sad story repeats itself with the numbers from the US, Canada, Australia, and the EU.
I recall reading in Philippine newspapers articles touting BBM’s great success in attracting aid money and “investment” after every trip. Where are the investments? While there is occasional talk of the still-absent “Build Better More” (which collapses to the acronym “BBM,” how cute), what we see is empty air. So were BBM’s foreign trips basically acting as the Philippine’s Chief Mendicant, and not the President? It seems so to me. Where BBM’s sense of shame? Has the country got any pride that there is a need to beg for alms? It is shameful to beg for sustenance today, perhaps tomorrow, rather than asking for assistance to develop the country so one no longer requires alms.
On the other hand, the region is heating up with constant harassment by PRC thugs in uniforms with most of the abuse being directed towards the Philippines. Companies who moved to China during the earlier age of globalization are fleeing due to both the PRC’s domestic shakiness and the collective West’s hardening stance against Xi’s gangster regime’s belligerence. Companies are wholesale abandoning the factories they build on their own dime in China (remember, it is unlawful for foreign companies to maintain controlling shares in any company operating in China and often companies would pay the Chinese “partner’s” 51% portion as well) and moving to friendlier shores. As of the end of 2023, the countries that captured most of the new FDI to set up factories are Vietnam, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and Bangladesh (ok maybe not so much Bangladesh anymore), with the lion’s share of new factories being planted in Vietnam and Mexico. Even the US with what many thought was a mortally wounded manufacturing sector is starting to have its first gasps of breath again after Biden led an government investment drive, like Lazarus rising from the dead. Amazingly, the US is bringing in FDI from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany to build out the bulk of the new factories.
There’s still time to act as not all companies have moved their factory operations out of China yet. The Philippines has room to maneuver into becoming a manufacturing mecca, with a large available workforce and being situated at a strategic trade crossroads. After all, there was a reason why Spain, the US, and Japan successively controlled the Philippines, and the various Bruneian and Javanese hegemons prior. It’s the location, location, location.
Average Filipinos want simple solutions (sometimes too simple in my opinion), while Filipino bureaucrats and leaders prefer overly complex solutions (that enable obscuring siphoning off money in my opinion). When something fails, there’s always an excuse made, this or that caused it, not me the one in the position responsible for it. But the solutions are in fact quite simple. Western corporations are salivating at building out factories to access cheaper labor. Labor that’s available in the Philippines. The roadblocks are corruption, lack of trust in the government’s ability to quickly address problems, poor electricity supply, poor infrastructure and transportation. This is why FDI prefers BPOs as pertains to the Philippines, because all that’s needed is to rent a highrise office from a local dynasts’ real estate empire like in Makati and Cebu’s SRP (both which were originally intended for factory placement before being converted to real estate). Factories are expensive and require supply chains to be set up, and those supply chains need to be facilitated by the government.
As I previously commented: “One must also consider the local economy that is supported as well by manufacturing activity. Small businesses like dentists, doctors offices, barbers, salons, family-owned restaurants, accountants, bakers, construction workers, child care services, laundry shops, etc. Medium enterprises like parts manufacturers supplying the factory. The recent estimate of the effects of the manufacturing-heavy Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act place a nearly 2.8x multiplier to the economy based on every dollar spent by the US government.” That would be 1x for the direct effect for wages earned by manufacturing workers, and 2.8x created by those workers spending their salaries at businesses in their communities. Despite the common understanding of lay people, money is both created by governments printing fiat and by people spending money in the economy.
On military, I understand the AFP is trying its best but it’s a hopeless situation when the brand new Japanese-built PCG ships are dwarfed by PRC CCG ships. The soldiers and sailors are doing their best to perform their duty with one arm tied behind their back. Biden in his foresight guided by decades of foreign policy experience has already gathered the Quad and Quad Plus nations together and those nations are standing by. It’s no coincidence that the Quad/Quad+ nations are ones all deeply impacted by PRC’s belligerent actions. Both Japan and Australia have already joined the Balikatan exercises. Ideally the Philippines would be able to enforce territorial sovereignty better on its own, but this isn’t that time to start being prideful. Ask for help from friends first, then figure things out later in terms of developing enhanced security domestically. If this is not a time to call on friends for help, then when?
joint patrol is okay, time and again we have joint patrols at sea with our allies namely japan, united state, australia, new zealand, etc. but never in resupply mission. we have always been alone in any resupply mission, never a joint resupply mission.
resupply missions makes us quite unique as no other country in the world does resupply mission to its own outpost separated by sea. we would be setting quite a precedent is we start joint resupply mission with our ally/s. never happened before and not likely to happen coz chinese trolls are hot on our heels yelling and amplifying to the world the weakness of philippines authorities that needed escort to resupply a junk ship just a few nautical miles away!
you are correct, it has something to do with pride and maybe more to do with setting something not done before. president marcos will likely go down in history as maybe the 1st bayot president too weak, too fearful, surely lacking in pair of kahones, and needed escort for his motley crew of resupplyers. and that is likely the legacy president marcos will be leaving behind, contrasting the golden years of his father.
methink, president marcos would rather sacrifice mariners dying of starvation at sea and riddled with scurvy and rickets that they have to be taken from the ship on stretchers, too weak to stand and walk down the gangplank on their own, their faces in deathly pallor, so long as the legacy president marcos left behind is intact, stellar and noteworthy.
mariners who died at sea while operating an impossible post at the shoal, should write on their epitaph, here lies a dedicated mariner, died at sea because of the president’s blind refusal, may god accord him safety in heaven, because the president cannot accord him safety on earth.
China blames us and we blame China.
https://politiko.com.ph/2024/10/08/philippines-china-trade-blame-in-latest-south-china-sea-spat/daily-feed/
But we need to accept the US offer.
https://politiko.com.ph/2024/09/19/ex-sc-justice-carpio-urges-govt-rethink-us-offer-to-aid-in-west-ph-sea-resupply-missions/politiko-lokal/
I agree Karl.
so totally in agreement: rethink offer of US aid. who dares, win! not president marcos though. he is mayhap afraid of winning, no experience of being at the top of rhetoric and be master of it. must be scary to be the first asean leader to break rank and really sticks his neck out. well, president noy aquino already broke rank, stuck his neck out, and won. took china to international court and won unclos ruling.
maybe sister imee told wee little brother once he commit to US resupply assistance, there’s no turning back. but of course, he can turn back. and he can write his own template too. ah, he does not know how and he never will unless he tries!
no steps taken, that’s him. in aspic.
On the other hand times are different now and the US won’t intervene unless formally requested, just like the US painstakingly sought to reaffirm and emphasize that the EDCA sites are 100% Philippine sovereignty.
But then what is a President’s purpose if one does not act with decisiveness and firmness? As time goes on, I feel like BBM likes the title of “President” more than actually being concerned with the work of the Presidency. Maybe the title of “lazy” some have bestowed upon him is fitting.
juan tamad is alive and well, and he likes to travel too. leave those endless problems at home. and once back home, same old problems greet him. hello, old friend! miss us?
uhm, of concern to me is when he looks up and inadvertently show his septum (the cartilage that separate his left and right nostrils). maybe it was just bad lighting, or maybe I was looking at it from the wrong angle, but his septum do looks corroded. lots of celebs have corroded septum, the end result of them being habitual cocaine users. same celebs have their septum surgically mended to resemble normal septum again.
ex pres noy aquino’s poison of choice is marlboro cigarettes! if juan tamad’s is cocaine, he is not unique. tamad just have to show a bit of tack and not be so tamad as to leave his tattered septum in public view.
Hoy! Haha! I didn’t notice Marcos’ nose like you did. I’m imagining you zooming 🤣
So maybe Marcos just wants to be a rockstar. He has his many followers who are waiting for the Tallano Gold and good times again. But in seriousness, the rich in the Philippines already live like rockstars. They don’t care if the country will attract FDI or not because their lives won’t be affected. Their hands will remain white since they don’t need to work in labor in the sun. Who needs to work hard anyway when there’s a captive customer base that have no other choices in a uncompetitive market?
Lazy is a good description, but as I remarked elsewhere, ordering in US troops is not solely a Marcos prerogative. I think he is lazy at governance in general, but actions vs China are defined by Teodoro and the Marcos Security Council. The latter is suspect given the lingering Duterte staffing. Teodoro is not lazy I think.
I like Teodoro, but ultimately he can only work on the margins as Marcos is still Commander-in-Chief. I liken Teodoro to the “adult in the room.” I’m not too familiar with Gen. Brawner though I’ve heard and read good things. The US Pacific Forces seem to like the General and have a great working relationship with him, as does US SecDef with Teodoro.
Yes, which is why I tend to defer to their decisions. I once derided the US for “yapping” rather than acting, and was reminded by an engaged American chap (Talonski?) that it is not for the US to decide. And I do see some benefit to the Philippines not being the point in the opposition to China. Are Philippine ships back at Sabina Shoal? I think so. Did China get a beat down in the US on 60 minutes? Most definitely. So it is a slow moving game of chess. No need to put it on a clock.
I think after the collapse of the Soviet Union, American leaders were seduced by the Realist school of foreign policy. The Realist theory assumes every nation will work in good faith based on liberal thinking, which obviously has not played out. Obama started wising up to the new threats albeit late. Trump set the US back 4 years. I think Biden is approaching things in a much more realistic and wholistic way, as opposed to the theories of Realism. As Philippines is close to the heart, of course the Philippines will survive in a war, but a better prepared Philippines will suffer less and contribute more in the case of war. That’s my focus on the foreign policy side.
Makes sense. I’m totally impressed by Joe Biden. I was awestruck by Obama, but Joe’s raised the decisiveness a notch, toward specific achievements. Had MAGA not harassed him all the way, the US would be in its glory years. But thanks to the decline in social aptitude, it risks going totally dark.
Obama was influenced by his cadre of advisors who are mostly from the Realist school. He spent his formative years in Chicago after all then surrounded himself by educated elites. Biden has stayed true to his middle class roots and was always a contrarian on foreign policy in his 4 decades of service. It’s sad that he was knocked out due to age, and by his own party leaders. Most are Realists. The Irish are known to value loyalty and I’m sure that was painful for him. But I’m confident that if Harris wins she will carry on Biden’s policy with stronger force. By the time I was growing up the US was already deep in the White backlash of a changing America that started with Nixon. It would be great to have a new age of glory like during the New Deal to Great Society times. Every domestic economy policy Biden has done laid the groundwork for that to happen, unless the US falls to dictatorship led by billionaires first. I think Americans as a whole are better people than that, and it won’t happen. We will see.
Yes. I’m hoping for sanity and sense. That’s what’s best for the Philippines, too. A sane dependable US.
I’d never count America out. “Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else.”
The world runs on power and the Philippines can borrow some, but chooses not to. President Marcos prefers the notion of sovereign independence which is rather leftish. The right loves power. Well, it’s a reasonable position. Interestingly, for a while it looked like China was picking on the Philippines alone. But last week’s bashing of a Vietnamese fishing crew showed this is not the case. And Malaysia is getting frustrated. And Japan. And, of course, Taiwan. So not leading in a physical fight-back in fact makes China clearly a regional problem for the world to see.
The tragedy of Marcos is the continued corruption and shared privilege and money among the entitled. A sincere, honest, economics-minded Philippines would dominate Asia for its location, manpower, and resources. Now or anytime.
There is this classic book by Napoleon Hill titled Think and Grow Rich. By now, I suspect the Philippines stays poor because it insists on thinking poorly.
Yes,and the justice systems permit crime to thrive.
What is also called as learned helplessness.
learned helplessness is their coping mechanism. been dealt a nasty blow one to many times, that they learned to play the role of the helpless victim. and it works for them! they got noticed, given aids and relief goods too. even got pat on the back. see you around, alligator.
though there are politicians that aimed to cure people’s learned helplessness and tried to cut off 4Ps funding to the poor! that poor people must learn to stand on their own two feet, forego handouts, feed their own children and send them to school.
less fund for the poor, so politicians can have more fund to play around with.
the 2027 prediction is coming
soon.we must put ourselves together no time to be anti EDCA.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a62512551/is-the-us-navy-ready-for-war-with-china/
Totally agree.
Mizokami is an astute observer (he’s also a friend).
Glad to know.
But power is projected either of two ways — hard or soft power. The Philippines has none of both. If this bullying had happened to a NATO or ANZUS member the party being bullied would’ve already asked for assistance. The Philippines has MDF but to appease a small fringe on one side and pridefulness on the other side, the Philippines has not yet taken the next logical step to ask assistance.
Vietnam and China have a 2000+ adversarial relationship of constant Chinese invasions and Vietnamese pushback. The CPV is well aware Vietnamese people don’t care much about communism; it’s just something they live with. But the Vietnamese won’t accept further Chinese aggression, hence the CPV being forced to pivot towards the US in recent years. Malaysia would be on the “periphery” of the ancient East Asian world which may explain why the Malaysians have been a bit more slow to react. As time goes on I imagine SEA will wake up to the Chinese belligerency, minus Cambodia and Laos who are all but dependent on the PRC to maintain power in their countries.
Yes, the Philippines is in an ideal, economically and militarily strategic location in the First Island Chain. With the Philippine’s location and natural resources an ideal and strong country could be had, if the people want it. I think it would be a mistake for Filipino leaders to think that the Philippines can hold this position forever. In a way, the Philippines has already been partly bypassed by trade going to Malaysia and Indonesia. In terms of military, of course it would be better for logistics to have a strongly defended Philippines due to distance between various other possible military targets, but make no mistake the US military is developing assets to take care of a contingent situation where the Philippines is lost in a replay of the Japanese invasion of Luzon in WWII.
“If this bullying had happened to a NATO or ANZUS member the party being bullied would’ve already asked for assistance”
As there is hard and soft power, there is hard and soft assistance. Or several degrees. Marcos agreed to EDCA which is a structural and thinking forward brand of assistance. Ukraine and Israel get arms, and the Philippines, too, has received some assistance, though modest. But US ships sailing as escorts puts US troops at the front of the conflict and the US does not do that for Ukraine or Israel. I’m guessing the line is a tap dance between Marcos and the US, not just a unilateral Marcos decision. Neither of us know. But certainly the US is reluctant to send her troops into combat. Once started, it is hard to stop.
Previous US FONOPS have only been met with angry invective by the PRC, but they generally stayed at a watchful distance. There is a chance rogue Chinese captains and sailors can take matters into their own hands, as what happened with the Vietnamese fishermen recently and with PCG on nearly a daily basis. Xi might think he’s smart and calculating, but I doubt he’s insane enough to challenge the might of the American alliance network directly. All indications from war games suggest the PRC plan is to take Taiwan so suddenly then claim the war is over so the US won’t be able to respond.
Ukraine and Israel might get the official big ticket items, but an example of the US strategy in the Philippines is to bring big assets for exercises then conveniently “forget” them behind like the Typhon launchers still deployed in Luzon. Gen. Brawner has claimed that the AFP gets to “practice on a system the Philippines would like to buy.” To be real, I doubt the Philippines can afford such an expensive system, and the Typhon systems being left behind is the idea behind EDCA where the US will “share” materiel with the AFP.
My only worry is that if the Philippines does not start moving, Philippines will largely be left out of the strategy. Current in development American weapon systems like super long range hypersonics, drone fighter-bombers, the new B-21 stealth bomber, the Marines island hopping shift all assume not being able to count on having the Philippines for basing.
I was told in the pacific, americans have australia to fall back on, the royal australian air force station in darwin australia is host to american marines. 2,500 american marines are already on 6monthly rotation there complete with military arsenal and often have military exercise with australians. because of bad connotation, australians prefer not to use the word ‘military base’ but ‘american presence’ in their island continent. american presence is welcome in australia as australia is lagging behind in defense spending, their military armaments old and outdated and they dont have enough soldiers.
there is high possibility china will establish military bases in solomon islands, already fiji and papua new guinea are expected to follow and also have chinese military bases in their area. these pacific countries are said to be lured by massive injection of chinese yuan hence very welcoming. apparently they have turned away from america coz they have been apparently neglected. china is offering more aid, more loans and bigger funds to build their infrastructures.
turns out the chinese are also aggressive land grabbers and fast getting in control of both trade and commerce in solomon islands that solomon islanders are starting to feel of being squeezed out and pushed into the peripheries, in their own country!
Game of Islands. Thanks for the briefing, k.
KB,
Here’s a link to support the battle if the islands. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/09/chinas-rising-power-and-influence-in-the-pacific-explained-in-30-seconds
thanks, good read, but scary thought that we could well be within firing range of chinese missiles from chinese military bases in the pacific region. edca sites once developed is our main deterrent.
we should not get rid of edca sites and be like ukraine. ukraine stupidly denuclearize sold on by the ideal of world peace, then russia invaded.
Well with the Aussies — they don’t mind US partners being there. The consternation is that a large number of Australians and Kiwis went anti-nuclear everything, even nuclear power plants during the Cold War as a result of the successful Soviet seeded global Green movement. The Kiwis more so. There is a vocal minority of the population that is even against nuclear “capable” aircraft, of which most US Air Force jets are.
The Pacific island microstates — it’s a complicated situation. On one hand the Allies or WWII granted “independence” since they no longer wanted to subsidize foreign territories, on the other hand those microstates don’t really have economies and are almost entirely dependent on foreign aid. Their foreign policy is to get more foreign aid, which is why some have now followed the PRC. PRC “aid” is in the form of predatory loans though and they may soon regret their actions when their sovereign territory is stolen to make Chinese military bases through debt trap diplomacy as happened in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and some African nations.
I was in Australia when Bush II had the US in Iraq. There was a strong “anti-American” undercurrent at the time. Rather uncomfortable. I think Aussies are a tad hard-headed and fickle, and insecure for having given so much (Vietnam) but been treated as an afterthought. Their circumstance rather parallels that of the Philippines. Resource rich and being driven to the US by China’s arrogance.
Well many countries disagreed with the second Iraq invasion since it was based on wishful thinking. Aussies are definitely hard headed. A good friend in San Diego is a Fil-Aussie so imagine how much more hard headed, haha. The Aussie conservatives have had a bad policy of PRC engagement for decades though to the point the CCP felt confident enough to infiltrate Australian society to the highest levels. I feel that was the trigger for making a beeline back to the US. Of course, the Aussies have always felt a stronger connection to Americans than to the Brits as well.
Yes, well Australia is the American wild west just settled a little later.
Even though Australians know this is a true, I think they may take offense haha!
Well, the plus is that they’ve developed some very cool cities, and kept the wilds rather wild. I’m high on Australia. I almost killed myself there hiking in Daintree National Park. I was hanging off a cliff holding onto a small tree as my guide first rescued my pack, then me. If he were not hard headed I would never completed the goal of climbing to Mount Pieter Botte and scaling the north spire.
Well it’s a very good thing that you didn’t die then! The closest I got to dying was when I was a reckless car and motorcycle racer long ago. In my teens and to early 30s I was an avid backpacker, which is partly how I traveled the world. The funny thing about us loving the Australian Outback, is that I’ve had Australians tell me they found American national parks very majestic. It seems we have a tendency to be amazed by things we haven’t experienced before.
American parks are majestic, but I’ve yet to almost kill myself there. Some are very crowded. Others, you can find solitude.
Much to my discomfort having read an article about a survey (I could not place what website, however) gauging the perception of SEA nations towards the Middle Kingdom, the peripheral SEA countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and Myanmar see themselves as less affected by WPS/EVS maritime issues and consider Mainland China as an amiable visitor than a potential aggressor… so could make it difficult to revive a SEATO-like coalition.
Yes — Thailand moved towards China until Thais protested the government, Myanmar’s junta is all but a PRC puppet so I hope the pro-democracy rebels win there, Singapore is all business and PRC financing has crept in though they are still a strong US ally, Malaysia tried to play “both sides” again this time with the PRC like they did with the US/USSR during the Cold War and are just starting to wake up to PRC belligerence with no Russia to fall back on. Cambodia and Laos are lost causes as they are PRC puppets who rule their people with an iron fist.
SEATO probably can’t be revived, but the Japanese are pushing for the US to lead a new “Asian NATO” anchored by US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and India. Vietnam’s CPV government is probably on its last legs and are moving towards the US to appease the Vietnamese population that is quite pro-US; the CPV is “communist in name only,” mainly for power. If Harris wins she can carry out the groundwork started by Biden in that regard. I’d much rather the Philippines be a critical player, a leader even, in such an alliance but I have my doubts. There’s much the Philippines can contribute industrially and economically to an alliance effort. Sad that Marcos and his allies in Congress can’t see the forest for the trees.
I am coming to the view that they see the forest and the trees as publicity shading for their self-dealings. So they see them, and use them, but without capitulation to them. Or without commitment to them. Which is fair I suppose because the US is hardly a reliable ally with MAGA in the picture.
I don’t quite see it that way. The way I see it follows what Irineo and I had discussed about the ancient tribal practice of the chief getting stuff from far away and distributing it to curry support among his followers. Why work hard when one can either steal it from neighbors or beg for it from a higher potentate? Generally all the US (EU also) asks for is to respect local laws and human rights to get developmental aid or grants, which is why Duterte went to China and Russia where the offered loans had no such conditions attached. Though, I think this and 2025 will be when MAGA is finally vanquished. The pro-Russian/pro-China networks in Europe are collapsing as well. Orban is being raked over coals by other EU countries who finally lost patience.
Well, I for sure hope you are right. I’d like to see the human garbage thrown into the dumpster for hauling to a landfill of great capacity.
Here’s to hoping in the innate goodness of humanity.
As long as the richer places in the Philippines look like boomtown and YT is full of videos of new roads and bridges featuring Marcos Jr.’s face in front, most Filipinos will NOT care about these warning signs or what Heneral Lunacy wrote about the lack of fiscal discipline, all the literal writings on the wall. Just as little as many a family living on the money an OFW relative sends cares about the future and might even divert the money for kids to study to the mall. It was a similar story with Marcos Sr., and until 1982, most of those who turned yellow later were still enjoying their high life. The outrage about Ninoy getting killed was IMO secondary. The sudden removal of the illusion of wealth was primary. It wasn’t all too different when the Asian Financial Crisis struck in 1997, ending a more short-lived yehey mayaman na tayo phase.
Sometimes things can be very frustrating in the Philippines. There is an entirely “different” culture that those inside walls don’t seem to understand. The Philippines is two countries in one; a modern first-class country for the upper crust, a barely modernized country for everyone else. In many ways the habits of the ancient times are still there today even though Filipinos may wear trendy clothes or have gadgets and drive modern scooters.
I’m sure “petsa de peligro” / “ting bitay” existed when you were still back home. I’ve heard stories of the pre-People Power habits of the lower socioeconomic classes, the habits of the roaring 90s, and have seen the habits from the aftermath of the Financial Crisis until now. Petsa de peligro has only gotten worse from what I gather as the megamalls get better at selling consumerism to Filipinos, who are further influenced by passive envy of pinoy influencers boasting on socmed. In lower classes, other than the OFW usually every other family member who has a salary will become a “one day millionaire” in a frenzy of spendthrift. When I try to explain basic financial literacy, the usual reply is “I can always earn more.” The OFW with their good heart usually is the one who suffers supporting the bad habits of their family.
So it’s no wonder that these dynastic elites may have some of the same bad habits, except there’s no “National OFW” with a kind heart to be a backstop. Utang is fine if it is to invest in something worthy or to stem hunger, but it seems that successive Philippine governments have relied on borrowing to slosh cash around, whereupon some of the money splashes on the people below as local projects to show that the politician is doing something. I think Aquino was the only President in recent history who attempted to pay down the sovereign debt and not just make the maintenance payments. I’m anti-austerity but on the other hand being a government spendthrift is even worse.
Among new Filipino migrants to NYC in the mid-1990s (on specialist visas), there was the saying “nagalit sa pera” when some of them went bonkers in New Jersey malls on weekends.
There are well-visited YT videos in Tagalog now on financial literacy, most probably targeting the new middle class who have seen enough one-day-millionaire cycles in their own families and want to find out how to stay not necessarily rich, but well-off.
The next thing they have to grasp is that bad politics isn’t exactly helping them with that goal. That is something that, for instance, Romanian migrants and workers abroad, one-fifth of their population, have mostly understood. They promote good government and don’t laugh at it.
There was the same behavior in Filipino middle class immigrants here in California back in the 1990s. My high school classmate’s father told me that he thought it might be due to the pent up feelings of lacking during the later Marcos Sr. years. That behavior didn’t seem to affect very educated Filipino immigrants though like my classmate’s father (he’s a MD).
The gastos gastos behavior is even worse nowadays among recent Filipino immigrants to the US. These immigrants tend to be from DE, some C and the result of chain migration facilitated by marriages to an American. They treat credit cards like “free money” and then are overwhelmed by interest payments. As minimum payments barely cover the interest, effectively the bank is farming money from these financially illiterate people.
The Pinoy Finance YT communities mostly cater to the new middle class from what it seems. Although they look well visited, I don’t see much of an effect on the ground. Still, quite encouraging. It seems that the only real solution to building wealth is to cut off financially the entire family except parents. To do that one needs to have the strength to weather the harsh words and cold shoulders for a while though from relatives who formerly had adulating words to say, which not all Filipinos can do.
The next step is my hope too. Once people build up some savings, they will start noticing that certain politicians don’t do anything to help on kitchen table issues. I think it’s gonna take a long time, but the Philippines will get there.
Well, people who have passed the desert will pour water into themselves like crazy once they get hold of some. Like in a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Family solidarity isn’t a bad thing, but people need to be on the same page in terms of financial literacy, then it works. Otherwise, the more financially literate just get drained. Helping and coaching ones folks, for instance, in running a business, is not for the faint of heart, I am sure.
I have observed Eastern Europeans’ learning curve from post-Communist desperation and financial illiteracy due to Communism to being able to gradually build things up. The learning curve is still there, but things are improving, in some places more, in some places less.
I’m sure you go to see the interaction with former communist countries up close being in West Germany before. My observation is that in “old” communist countries, there exists a robust underground market to buy things that the have limited allocation in the ration book. So people learned how to save ration cards or barter goods. Lack also drives innovation. In the Philippines things are different where most people are used to the politician, bossing, or family cash cow providing. Even if a Filipino is poor, there’s no much incentive to find work usually. Some may argue that the salary is not dignified and I agree, but when someone is at the edge of starvation why not work rather than tambay? Work then demand more. When I observe former communist countries like the Baltics leap so far forward, so fast, yes they elected decent leaders but the people were already primed and hungry for change.
Family solidarity is good but often family can become hangers on. I’ve seen so many sad situations where a few become the carabao. The interesting part is once the family is cut off financially, suddenly they figure out how to earn and save. Funny how that goes.
My conjecture from observations with Eastern Europe is that the places that had more of a middle class, more independent farmers, more SMEs before Communism were able to recover better than those with more feudal structures before. As the title of one famous financial literacy book (Rich Dad, Poor Dad) implies, independence or dependence is a skill passed through families, even though those who didn’t acquire it at home can catch up, it is harder.
What I have heard from rural Germany, especially Bavaria and Swabia is that help within peasant or formerly peasant families is given only for real emergencies, not habitually, meaning the premise is that MOST want to work hard and not live on freebies.
That’s a good point. In that case Marxist-Leninism was more like a “foreign” idea that was imposed by Soviet-aligned local parties, not something the local population fully bought into. So market oriented habits, however small lived on even during communist times though the informal market that operated below the state directed command economy. I guess it was always like that across cultures that developed to the level of agrarianism that allowed for large settlements to form. The larger the settlement, the more farm surplus there was which also allowed for trade to get stuff the settlement didn’t have. In my own understanding of the history of various Philippine polities, settlements remained mostly small scale and even a bit mobile depending on resource availability. There were larger settlements like Maynila, Sugbu, Sulu, Siargao but those seemed to be more like outposts of the regional hegemon at the time.
Well that’s the problem that I keep encountering in DE — the expectation of freebies, which drives their voting habits as well. In some ways as I said before, the base habits for most Filipinos (DE) seem to not have changed that much since the ancient times. They are just clad in better clothes and have more stuff (gadgets and appliances). Every payday one becomes a one day millionaire and spends it all on going out, libre all their friends, buying wants. It’s a web of habits and something I think is very hard for the educated class of Filipinos to understand since the educated mostly have a Western way of thinking. Heck, I’ve been among the DE for more than 3/4 of my time in the Philippines and I still can hardly understand. We must convince people to see the benefits of changing. Only then will DE start to vote strategically for their long term interests instead of addressing immediate wants (getting freebies).
Manila was a crucial stop for the Malacca – Brunei – Japan trade route, while Sulu was a crucial stop for Mollucas to China spice trade. Cebu was simply in the middle of the Visayan sea, though based on what I read at MLQ3, for instance, Lapu-Lapu on Mactan was trying to contest that. Manila, of course, has the classic advantage of a natural harbor, and as the Laguna Copperplate indicates, that area already flourished centuries earlier. And possibly, there was a bit of a surplus due to Laguna, even as I read somewhere that the rulers upstream of Manila played robber barons (not American style, more like the extortionist robber barons of the Rhine river in the middle ages) with rice supplies destined for Manila. And of course, Laura Lee Junker mentioned more advanced polities had datus “protecting” artisans, trading their wares.
But of course, the colonial period stopped any incipient developments and pushed the entire archipelago back to subsistence mode. Moros whose trade route the Spanish had blocked kept raiding the Visayas, which only became safe in 1849 due to steam-powered gunships.
In any case, there is a culture of learned helplessness as one other commenter has written. Actually, Angat Buhay of Leni Robredo was and is exactly the program to break such cycles. Possibly, she is focusing more on that as she might have seen the main work is long-term.
Since there are so many gaps in the record, I wonder how much the volume and extent of trade there really was in ancient times and how much of what we currently understand was subtly embellished. The pre-colonial barangic period has often been described as “feudal,” though I personally think that is a problematic label as it seems to my limited understanding that the barangic period was not “feudal” in the classical sense — that would require a prior organized large kingdom/empire that had collapsed leaving a power vacuum for local lords who were previously sworn to a centralized state. William Henry Scott had described the larger polities as “larger barangays” whereas from what I’ve seen taught in K-12 the polities are described as “kingdoms,” and I’m curious how much the feudal label was a post-revolutionary retcon by Filipino historians and anthropologists as an attempt to create a Romantic model of lost greatness as those with revolutionary tendencies had a penchant to do. Personally I don’t think that pre-colonial Philippines polities not advancing beyond loose control by local chieftains to be a bad thing; all countries were in that state prior to the awakening of a national consciousness. Non-Filipino anthropologists who specialize in the Philippines like Laura Lee Junker and William Henry Scott seem to have a more honest interpretation of what really was.
We won’t know what would’ve happened if Magellan had never arrived, but I have a feeling that the Philippines archipelago would’ve developed into at least 3 independent nations (Luzon, Visayas, Sulu/Mindanao).
Certainly I think learned helplessness can be a descriptor of the vast DE classes and the nation as a whole, but this would also imply that there was a previous state of self-reliance which doesn’t seem to really describe the barangic stage. I tend to think that the learned helplessness is a part of the actual proto-Philippine culture, which I observed among Austronesian tribes in Taiwan as well though the Taiwanese aborigines have largely started modernization by now after the ROC government started a program of education and helping rather than assimilating Taiwanese aborigines. What Leni is trying to do with Angay Buhay in my view is an attempt to mass educate and create a spark of “we can take a step to the future” and leave behind the “learned helplessness” that probably existed even back in the barangic stage. People can choose to modernize both physically and mentally while still honoring their cultural heritage; the two are not mutually exclusive.
Yep, I have written elsewhere that Sultanates were the first real kingdoms of any kind in the Philippines. Tadhana (not really) by Marcos Sr. calls the likes of Soliman of Manila and Humabon of Cebu “paramount datus,” which is not inaccurate even as it still sounds glorious. As we know, Lapu-Lapu contested Humabon’s tenous hegemony. Sikatuna contested Soliman. Even in the Sultanate of Sulu, there were constant conflicts as to who was the right heir, since unlike in European fiefdoms, there was no accurate definition of who was to succeed the ruler.
As for the volume of trade, Scott did mention katanas in Manila, but his description of those in Tondo who used them remind me of present-day Glock 9 owners there. Junker, describing which Visayan polities were richer based on what jewelry from Mainland Asia they had made me think of present-day Indays, comparing their imported shoes and clothes. So, in many ways, the Philippines of then was like the Philippines now, but not FEELING as helpless as they were not yet overrun by those who had developed more advanced societies, just like those in Taiwan.
Unlike the polities of the Western Med before the Greeks came, or tribal Western Europe before Caesar, the Philippines was conquered by societies several “levels higher”, leading to a degree of demoralization which bred escapist mythomania. A century or half later might have had the large barangays turning into Sultanates, and yes, possibly three Kingdoms or more. But that would never have become the Philippines. Koxinga might have conquered Luzon and Taiwan instead of just Taiwan. Palawan might have been part of Greater Brunei. So why look back?
Of course, the likes of Indonesia and Malaysia were some “levels higher” than “Luzviminda” when Europeans came and were harder to conquer. Mainland Asia was only conquered when Europe started coming with a more industrialized war machine. Many forget that.
But I have also written that the Philippines and its ethnic groups fared far better than Native Americans or Pacific peoples in a world where history was mostly a gang fight. So, the place to start reshaping things is now, maybe a bit of mythos to motivate, but otherwise avoid delulu.
This was my source for the trade routes BTW, she had a nice map of them in the intro of this recent book:
Though I assume that of the two Malacca to Japan routes, the one passing the mainland was the much larger one, the Brunei-Luzon connection was minor. Spice trade stopover between Mollucas and China does explain Sulu’s wealth.
Re exaggeration by Filipino historians, Dr. Xiao Chua did once (can’t find where) say it was insulting how some early 20th century American authors called the Philippines “Lesser Asia” for lacking the monuments of Java or the mainland.
He proceeded to explain what the Philippines did have in the 1500s, without exaggeration. There one can see what the reason for some exaggerations are.
Xiao in fact mentioned in a recent video that the reason for Filipinos claiming even people with just a little Filipino blood on the international scene for themselves was the inferiority complex inculcated by colonialists.
Maybe at some point, Filipinos will be confident enough not to need videos like the one below:
I put some more thought on the “helplessness” argument and I’ve come to agree — but from a different angle. It could be that ancient Filipinos did not feel helpless because due to the wide open land and sea, the lack of centralization into mega-metros like NCR (and soon, Cebu), ancient Filipinos could just literally pack up their belongings and even their bahay kubo to move to another barangay. Some may have even started their own settlements that grew into new barangays. Today probinsyano are forced to essentially move to a city if they want a better life and become unanchored in a way. Just like colonial Filipinos who dreamed of an America whose streets were paved with gold, I’ve spoken to plenty of probinsyano who had moved to cities and felt disappointed that their life became worse. At least in the province one can build a bahay kubo. In the city they are reduced to squatting land, living in a house built with salvaged materials, working in a menial job.
Mediterranean cultures had the benefit of proximity so they regularly traded and interacted. The Philippines was relatively isolated in the ancient times aside from some adventurers raiding and trading beyond the horizon. I was thinking about why ancient Indonesia and Malaysia were several “levels higher” than the Philippines, and I think the answer would be the same — their peoples had more chances for trade with outsiders, with the insular areas of the Sunda Shelf having easy access to the Malay peninsula and onward to the rest of mainland Southeast Asia. Even the larger polities of the ancient Philippines started off as “foreign” trading posts of other regional powers. Ancient China invented gunpowder, yet used gunpowder mostly for amusement in fireworks. By closing off Ancient China, the “lower level” Europeans who constantly warred were able to level up and develop advanced military applications for gunpowder. One must remember that the Europeans actually had initially been desperate to trade with the “advanced” China, taking an even somewhat subservient stance at the sight of the grandeur they saw, until the Europeans realized they were in fact more powerful.
With Native Americans, it really depends on which groups. The Aztecs, Mayans, Ormocs, Incas built extremely organized and advanced civilizations with megalithic monuments on the scale of the Egyptian pharaohs. The Native Americans further north in today’s US and Canada were at a much more tribal level. Of course we now know the migration path of Native Americans as they made their way to Cape Horn in South America. Native American civilizations generally became more and more advanced the further along the migration route, before going back to a more tribal level around today’s southern Chile and southern Argentina. It’s not a perfect comparison, but to me at least this loosely applies to the Austronesian-Polynesian migrations. If we consider that those who migrate are probably the smartest, strongest, and most motivated members of a civilization it would be natural to see how successive settlements were founded by more organized peoples. In this case, the ancient Philippines would be on the more lower end and ancient Indonesia/Malaysia would be more advanced since those settlements were founded by the aforementioned smarter, stronger, motivated migrants of each successive migration wave.
That’s not to say that those “remaining” are dumb or more lazy. In any given population each generation would have the top talented or motivated people. That’s how I see the brain drain affecting the Philippines with each successive OFW or educated generational migration wave. I’ve heard more than once “all the smart and hard working people left the Philippines” in reference to each generational wave, of which I’ve observed 3 by now. Usually it has a defeatist connotation by the diaspora Filipino. Yet every new upcoming generation there are more smart and hard working people. I think the trick is to figure out a way to entice those smartest and hardest working people to stay in the country so the country grows domestically rather than sending its best out.
I do keep up with the Filipino Story YT, but the problem they have is they still tell a story from a very Tagalog POV with only passing mention of other major Filipino groups. Kapwa for example, is a very Tagalog concept that doesn’t have a similar concept in Cebuano that fits the Tagalog meaning. If Dr. Xiao is running the YT channel I’d encourage him to explore other Filipino groups equally, since a few non-Tagalog Fil-Ams I’ve shared the channel with were immediately turned off by the “Tagalog propaganda.”
Unsure about Dr. Xiao’s take on claiming people on the international scene with little Filipino blood as an inferiority complex inculcated by colonialism. Rather I see it as a thirst for recognition of Filipinos, and the stark lack of Filipino role models of similar stature in the Philippines. I mean, look at the Philippine national basketball team Gilas… most of the players are imports who are Filipino through naturalization. Though, recently I shared with Filipino friends that CA Attorney General Rob Bonta might be the next governor of California as he’s Gov. Gavin Newsom’s designated protégé in all but title; they rejected him as a “communist,” hehe.
ACK re urban migration. I recall that UP Balara in the early 1970s was still a bit of a replica of village life. The urban poor there had pigs and chickens. Our labandera sold our food rests as kaning baboy to the gardener. We heard the squeals of pigs being slaughtered at times.
In ancient Bikol, being a remontado usually worked. It got more difficult when abaca planters – my folks – encroached on their settlements in the hills.
So the old way of life worked until it no longer worked from the 1970s onwards.
Re the distances in the Mediterranean and in Insular SEA, I went to lengths to find out sailing days in the above article. Hanoi to Manila – or Brunei to Manila – was seven sailing days, as much as from Beirut to Cadiz. That is a respectable distance.
That is the reason why the people of the archipelago had little need to adapt except for some artifacts bought and some borrowed terms like rajah and skills like writing.
I wrote in another article about how Sri-Vijaya had to become more organized after the Chola Tamil invasions, and how Majapahit acquired artillery – the lantaka that would later spread up to Manila – after the 1291 Mongol invasion.
I found out later that the Gauls of France were about 300 years ahead of the Celts of Britain, their cousins, in terms of arms and organization as they had already battled Greek phalanxes.
So yes, contact forces people to level up – if they can. Sad but true that the most isolated people ever, the Australian Aborigines, were totally helpless when the English came. I also think it isn’t by chance that the first major civilizations started where three continents converge.
Re kapwa, didn’t know that. I did find out that bayan and banwa already have a very different connotation. Bayan came to mean country more and more in the 19th century, but just for Tagalogs.
I don’t know who runs The Filipino Story. Possibly, the full story of the Filipino is yet to be written. The teleserye Amaya, which shows pre-Hispanic Philippines, did make some concessions to Bisayans by setting the story there and using a few Visayan terms.
The occasional sprinkling in of words like gahum into the school of thought Dr. Xiao represents will not cut it either. At least showbiz is doing better at giving Visayans representation.
I think Marcos Sr.’s policies and mismanagement broke down society by the 1970s, which is what my grandfather and father observed too during their trips. As I mentioned before, by the time my father was in Bataan in the early 1980s he was quite shocked at how much society had seemed to “collapse” (his description). Perhaps no one Marcos Sr. policy broke society, but rather the totality of the cracks created in cumulative effect. There are still wide open lands in the bukid even now, but people just can’t survive off the land anymore yet are still having large families as if they are still agrarian. The migration of millions of NCR was likely out of desperation to find jobs but ended up only finding menial labor that didn’t give dignity. My father remembers what he described as large slums in NCR in the 1980s. By the late 1990s when I was there the slums seemed vast, like the famous Tondo around Smokey Mountain. Even in formerly idyllic places like Laguna de Bay overflow slums had developed… Supposedly the first pushes from Marcos Sr. to formalize an OFW program was to alleviate pressure from a multitude of people crowding in, sort of like a pressure valve as society was about to boil over.
Fully agree on the relatively primitive nature of the various Philippine societies at the time of Spanish contact. There was no way the native datus could defeat the Spanish when the Aztec and Inca Empires were vastly larger and more organized yet fell to a relative handful of Spanish invaders. The gulf in technology was too vast. However I think it is important to note that Spanish Philippines was actually administered by Nueva España, with many of the “Spanish” soldiers manning the forts being criollos, or even mestizos such as Fuerte del Pilar de Zaragoza (Fort Pilar) in Zamboanga. So even by then the Amerindians that had been conquered had “leveled up” within a short time span, at least for the mestizos among them. A large reason I think the Philippines failed to level up after Spanish contact was that the Spanish used the Philippines as mostly a trading post in the galleon trade, with developing the territory as an afterthought, compared to the crown jewel of Nueva España where the Spanish put a lot of effort in development. By the way, in South America Nueva Granada, Spanish Perú, and Rio de la Plata had a similarly low level of development like the Philippines which continues to be reflected in the modern countries in those territories.
Comparatively the American period was very short (48 years if the Commonwealth period and the Japanese occupation is included), versus the Spanish period of 333 years. The period of direct American administration during the occupation and Insular Government period was an even shorter 37 years; just a single generation, barely. I think many would agree that the Philippines leveled up greatly during the period of direct American administration and in the post-WWII period where the US spent a lot of resources rebuilding the Philippines. Actually I hadn’t realized that US corporations had continued concessions until the 1970s until you shared it previously. I may be incorrect in this, but my sense is that the Philippines started having troubles when Marcos Sr. mismanaged the foundation that the US had built/given in the 1970s combined with the ending of corporate concessions starving the economy of FDI.
Still, I’m of the optimistic belief that despite all historical mistakes or shortcomings, a people can evolve if they want to. Some examples like Vietnam rising now or South Korea rising before, when viewed from a Filipino perspective doesn’t consider the fact that both Vietnam and South Korea in historical iterations had been centralized, organized kingdoms/empires many times over for thousands of years. The oft cited “example” of Singapore proves this, and I think Singapore is a better comparison to aspire to. Many of the early Singaporeans were not even educated; being simple fishermen, frontier traders, even pirates (something Singapore doesn’t like to admit to nowadays), yet Singapore evolved her national conscious and work ethic in a very short time. It seems that something just “clicked” for Singaporeans and they all bought into LKK’s vision and worked together to achieve it. Today, Filipinos often still fight each other. When something “clicks” in the collective consciousness of Filipinos and a majority of people want to work towards a better nation, things will start rapidly developing.
Re Kapwa and Tagalog-centrality:
Many other Filipino ethnic groups and subgroups still feel a quiet resentment of what they consider “Tagalog propaganda” or “Tagalog colonization,” even though few will say it openly. The feeling isn’t as strong and intense as 20 years ago I suppose. Even 10 years ago I attended a Bisrock concert in Cebu where Parokya ni Edgar were insulted by another act, simply because they asked politely to go first since they were tired from travel to Cebu. It won’t hurt for other Filipino languages to be elevated, with teleserye about a certain place having actors that can actually speak the language of that locality. Amaya for example had all-Tagalog leads, so it wasn’t considered that authentic by Visayans from what I gathered. It would’ve been better to have an all Cebuano cast, then subtitles in Tagalog, Waray, Ilonggo for example. Amaya was over 10 years ago though… there’s room to do better.
“Continued concessions until the 1970s” – yes, the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel%E2%80%93Langley_Agreement expired in 1974, so American entrepreneurs no longer had the same rights as local ones.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Stewart_(entrepreneur) aka Uncle Bob had to, for instance, give GMA to the Duavits, who own it to this day.
A lot of mining interests previously in American hands went to Marcos cronies.
I believe that one reason why the last Japanese stragglers were found in the jungles of Palawan was due to intense logging there.
It is a huge irony that the Bell Trade Act and its successor the Laurel-Langley agreement were seen as postcolonial, yet Filipinos did way more damage to the countryside (there are maps of how quickly forest cover went down in Marcos Sr. times) than “greedy Americans.”
Thanks for the info Irineo. I tend to think a lot of mistakes made by the Philippines to be the result of misguided nationalism rather than true patriotism. Even the current WPS issue has its origins in the American withdrawal from bases in 1991. The PRC quickly took over Panganiban in 1995 when petroleum deposits were postulated about half a decade earlier.
The ending of the Langley Agreement was probably the turning point for American investments that was modernizing and updating the Philippines. Over in South Korea and Japan, they took a more pragmatic approach that saw continued American investments so that even the historically “backwards” Korea that was frequently mocked in the East Asia sphere since ancient history were able to rise into a global economic power. In Bisaya there is a common phrase “gahig ulo” that describes extreme hard headedness and insistence in doing everything the opposite way.
There are just so many problems in the Philippines sometimes even an optimistic person like myself feels overwhelmed. The insistence of being contrarian simply out of pride has had the Philippines described as a “basket case” and prior to that the “sick man of Asia.” All the while, I believe that Filipino leaders largely just don’t care as long as they can siphon off some pesos here some pesos there, and the business leaders are happy collecting rent in a captured market. The solutions to at least start fixing the problems at a national level seem simple enough to me, if outside help were to be accepted. I still think the US and allies would be willing to pour investment in if there was more confidence in the reliability of the Philippines… therein lies the core problem I guess…
Another downer.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/2024/10/2/philippines-p15-55-trillion-debt-on-the-bad-side-says-former-finance-chief-1108
This reminds me of more recent Filipino immigrants in the US who are from DE class. They quickly open credit card accounts and treat credit lines as “free money,” then are overwhelmed by interest payments.
Of course, sovereign debt works differently than consumer debt. Sovereign debt should be used to stimulate the economy by investing in industry and encouraging local business development, not to be used for “pay fors” of the mundane variety (government services).
We are not getting any closer to that promised economic gain. So really sad to hear about these dynasties in politics. They are making it a family business.
Yes. It is getting worse, not better.
I had some hope when Marcos set up economic working groups during each trip. We are not privy to government-to-government discussions, but by now it seems clear that under Marcos the Philippines is doing more of the same, asking partners to “libre” a pittance rather than bargaining seriously with what the Philippines can offer. It’s already possible for factory OFW nowadays to earn 50-70k a month in South Korea and Japan. Why not bring that industry to the Philippines to take advantage of an available workforce? It seems other nations don’t yet trust the reliability of partnering with the Philippines. Before business leaders invest billions of dollars in a new factory, they want to know of the reliability of the rule of law, electric supply, transportation infrastructure, and access to a workforce. All things Marcos can work to streamline.
Offshore Wind needs ports
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/09/24/philippines-to-repurpose-three-ports-for-offshore-wind-projects/#:~:text=These%20are%20the%20Port%20of,Jose%20Panganiban%20in%20Camarines%20Norte.
The importance of baby steps in this Automation game.
https://restofworld.org/2024/chipmaking-philippines-automation-employment/