How a High School Economics Class Changed My View of Value in the World
(Reflections on Evergrande, Filipino Oligarchs, and Real Estate)
I will forever be grateful for the education funded by the Filipino people, from high school to university. It was a gift that altered the trajectory of my life.
One class that stands out as truly transformative was Economics, a subject we studied in senior year.
Economics 101
I took an introductory Economics course in college (Econ 101 at UP) and managed a 1.75 without studying—thanks to the solid foundation provided by that high school class.
The first lecture in our textbook, *Economics* by Paul Samuelson, introduced me to a completely new way to understand value. That class also introduced me to the concept of the **Production Possibility Frontier (PPF)**.
> The **Production Possibility Frontier (PPF)** is an economic model illustrating trade-offs between producing two different goods or services. It highlights the maximum achievable output combinations with available resources and technology.
> – **Points on the curve**: Efficient use of resources
> – **Points inside the curve**: Inefficient use of resources
> – **Points outside the curve**: Unattainable with current resources
> – **Opportunity cost**: Increasing production of one good reduces the ability to produce another
> – **Curve shifts**: Changes in resources or technology shift the curve, impacting productivity
In short, the PPF visualizes choices and trade-offs in allocating resources efficiently.
How the PPF Shaped My View on Careers and Professions
More than two decades ago, I wrote in my notebook:
1. **Doctors** prevent us from falling below the frontier by keeping people healthy and productive. When people are sick, we operate below our potential.
2. **Lawyers** are not as essential to moving the frontier. At best, they help us maintain the optimal path; at worst, they can hinder progress.
3. **Inventors, innovators, engineers, and scientists** push the frontier outward. They develop solutions that allow us to accomplish more with less.
4. **Politicians**—similar to lawyers—aren’t significant contributors to frontier expansion.
This perspective was instrumental in my decision to become an engineer. I acknowledge that my views on lawyers and politicians have softened over time, but this bias was significant early on.
Thoughts on the Real Estate Industry
Consider a piece of land, say 1,000 sqm, with a 20-floor building. If the usable space is 50%, then:
– **Land Cost (LC)**: 1,000 sqm x 20,000 PHP/sqm = 20M PHP
– **Sellable space**: 1,000 sqm x 20 floors x 0.5 = 10,000 sqm
Construction costs for high-end residential housing are approximately 40,000–50,000 PHP/sqm (based on estimates from *Easy Property Match*).
– **Construction Cost (CC)**: 50,000 PHP/sqm x 10,000 sqm = 1B PHP
– **Marketing Cost (MC)**: 180M PHP
– **Total Cost (TC)**: MC + LC + CC = 1.2B PHP
Using presale prices of 190,000 PHP/sqm (based on similar DMCI projects in QC):
– **Revenue**: 190,000 PHP/sqm x 10,000 sqm = 1.9B PHP
By starting with an initial 20M for land and using presale revenues to fund construction, real estate developers can effectively multiply their initial capital, yielding high returns on equity and capital.
How This Model Connects to China
China has followed a similar model but is attempting a shift, as explored in [this article](https://english.ckgsb.edu.cn/knowledge/article/the-transition-of-chinas-economic-model-from-real-estate-to-consumption-and-manufacturing/).
Why Real Estate Dominance is Less Desirable than Manufacturing
The optimal number of housing units should correlate with population growth. However, manufacturing allows for output that far exceeds domestic demand, positioning it as an economic growth engine. Excess housing production becomes speculative and doesn’t expand the PPF, diverting capital from productive industries like EVs, solar panels, and batteries.
The Chinese government’s crackdown on real estate speculation, evidenced by Evergrande’s recent insolvency, is a strategic rebalancing of capital flows toward productive industries. While I oscillate between viewing this as correct and risky, it’s a nuanced decision given the unpredictability of complex systems.
Relevance to the Philippines
Examining the [Forbes list of Filipino billionaires](https://www.forbes.com/lists/philippines-billionaires/) reveals that major players (e.g., Sy Blings at #1, Manuel Villar at #3) have significant real estate portfolios.
Is real estate inherently negative? No—it’s all about maintaining balance. Even economies as small as Singapore prioritize this balance. (Lee Hsien Loong on Integrated Resorts Proposal)
(video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo7njZRtDFo&t=2s).
By examining how value creation through real estate compares to manufacturing, we can better understand the trade-offs facing our economy and perhaps glimpse the future of our growth strategies.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Thank you again GC! By the way, you’ve now tortured my poor head with maths and brought back childhood trauma of growing up under a military man turned double engineer 🤣
Some thoughts to connect things since I’ve worked and traveled in China, relating to skilled vs unskilled labor.
Despite common conception that China’s economic rise was due to manufacturing, this is not the case. While the Cultural Revolution’s aftermath created a “reset” of Chinese culture towards nihilistic materialism, accelerated by the state-directed liberalization into a state overseen market economy (“Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics”), there is still a saver culture among the new Chinese middle class. This is reinforced by the hukou system of work permits, where those who had transferred their hukou certificate to the city or bribed their way to a transfer cannot reinvest money back to their ancestral villages. Coupled with Chinese distrust in banks, local CCP governors pushed for investment into the burgeoning real estate industry as a form of “investment.”
This real estate boom created jobs for unskilled labor, which even now vastly outnumber skilled labor in the factories. Often the building projects used bad construction methods, sand mixed into cement, incorrect usage of rebar steel for high rises, and other malpractice. That was seen as “fine” as the purpose of rapid construction was to provide jobs for the unskilled. This resulted in numerous “ghost cities” of modern looking skylines that under closer inspection started crumbling after half a decade. Sometimes to hide the behavior, local CCP officials dynamited the developments and ordered new construction often on the very spot. There are many videos of this online and I have seen it in person.
The CCP has tried for years to push Chinese towards domestic consumption of produced goods rather than export, but due to the saver culture most people continued to invest in real estate, often for shady companies like Evergrande. There are many real estate holding firms like this all throughout China. The entire real estate scheme is basically a ponzi scam run by local CCP affiliates of the gangster regime. The real estate pressures are one of the reasons for domestic anger in the PRC, which the CCP has reacted by stoking belligerent nationalism overseas, which the Philippines is bearing the brunt of since Taiwan is a lot harder to bully.
How does this connect with the Philippines? I see a similar scheme among many new Philippine real estate developments, catering mostly to the new middle class who have BPO incomes. These new middle class have upwards aspirations and once they get through their “one day millionaire” phase they want to invest in real estate. Smaller versions of American style subdivisions are being built, even in previously undesirable areas like the infamously dangerous Bankal of Metro Cebu. I’ve heard that Tondo is nearly gentrified by now by new developments. The rice baskets of the Philippines in Nueva Ecija and the sugar fields of Tarlac are paved over, breaking up former emerald green flatlands of swaying palay flatlands. Precious little lowland farmland gone to real estate speculation.
Yet this has not fixed the fundamental problems facing the Filipino. Traffic congestion has gotten worse as the new middle class purchase micro cars and subcompacts to commute for the new periphery developments into the metro areas. Manila traffic has gotten worse. Cebu’s slim coastal strip has totally gotten deadlocked with traffic. Once I joked with a friend that she should just get out of the car in Pasig and walk to meet me in EDSA during traffic hours, and she might get there faster.
Instead of building mini versions of American McMansions, there should be a focus on two types of homes: Multidwelling Units (MDU) of multi-story condominiums for the middle class and affordable government funded tenement projects for those who can’t afford private MDU units. These multi-family accommodations should be built around ease of walkability to to nearby services (hospitals, clinics, dentist, etc), shops (markets, pharmacies, karenderya, etc), K-12 schools, and be situated a short jeep ride away from BPO business parks. Whenever possible green spaces should be included to reduce urban heat retention. Solar for local power generation should be useful to include as well, which can feed excess electricity supply into the local power grid. If the business interests want, they can even build developments around a megamall.
New developments provide a chance for using up to date infrastructure and roads, complete with proper flood control going to canals and local rivers. Build out better connectivity so some workers can work from home and young students may learn digitally. If one were to build out new developments and destroy some farmland and vacant lots, might as well maximize the density and services. Instead I often see low density developments that don’t make efficient usage of precious land. Filipinos often chase the American Dream as well, but subdivisions haven’t worked out well for the vast US so how one can conclude it can work out for the small, mountainous Philippines is beyond me.
And while we are at it, get FDI in to start building modern factories nearby government subsidized tenements to provide jobs to the jobless. Perhaps make a condition of living in a tenement to give priority to factory workers. Get Communist Chinese out of Philippines land investments. Foreign investment isn’t going to start rolling in until investors see a stable business climate with available workers. There’s still time in the global realignment for the Philippines to come on board. But time is ticking.
A balanced economy is important.
For the Philippines we manufacture the most caring flesh robots in the world and export it to places that can afford these flesh robots. we also have good evolutionary intelligence to handle calls and other business process outsourcing. that we parlayed these to condominiums is a big fumble for me.
We need houses per family or individual that wants one. We want to build a community with shared interest in the over all sense that the community will think long term for everyone’s welfare.
Making college education as super expensive. making these institutions spend on big athletics teams, basketball teams, volleyball teams and other UAAP sports is not a good place to spend the inflation beating tuition fee increases of these institutions.
All great points GC. One of the biggest concerns for me after seeing these new “mixed use developments” is that it seems more focused on luxury condos/apartments with a brand new megamall than actual houses middle class Filipinos can afford. Of course DE can’t afford a house anyway so the country should invest in subsidized tenements to get people off of dangerous informal settlements and closer to jobs. Then for universities, there’s a huge focus on importing foreign players in recent years for their school sports team. A bad use of tuition dollars if you asked me.
“and affordable government funded tenement projects for those who can’t afford private MDU units. “ I don’t know much about economics, that’s maybe why I’m so pro- de-growth economics. but this one is a design issue, so really interesting to me, Joey. remember Peach Trees from Judge Dredd, the canceled Munger Hall at UCSB which was cancelled, then all the housing projects prominent in rap videos, vertical in east coast NY and Chicago then horizontal in LA etc. if you get a bunch of poor people together how do you design to ensure community is kept in tact? also lodging houses for students, though Mango avenue girls mostly rented rooms in squatter areas, the escort scene that was populated by girls actually going to college so tended to live in lodging houses similar set up really just better neighborhoods more enclosed CR. you think those japanese capsule set-ups with shared restrooms will intake more lodgers and work in Philippines? I remember talking to chempo about this in Singapore how the gov’t pushed for MDUs instead of single families. we also talked about vertical farming, trying to find that or those blog/s now. but I’m picturing a vertical squatter area.
Theories made by elites that have never experienced what it’s like to be poor usually are unrealistic. That’s how I see Degrowth Theory. Degrowth advocates for *reducing* population (good luck Philippines), replacing jobs with near total automation, while most people live in government owned eco-apartments with no suburbs. Basically it’s eco-utopia, and as I’ve explained before utopian ideas misunderstand More’s point in his work “Utopia,” which is a satire mocking out of touch elites. All utopian minded ideals assume that everyone will perfectly follow along, which won’t happen in reality as people have free will. Degrowth also assumes that the society has “over grown,” which is their term for over industrialized/over developed, which the Philippines has even started the process of full industrialization yet so…
How to keep a community intact. I live on the US West Coast so we have less dense cities and more suburban subdivisions. People in the East Coast metros have no problem with density. For them it’s quite convenient to have all the necessary shops and services nearby. I’ve outlined a few ideas in my initial comment how a denser community can be built around shops and services rather than people needing to travel far to seek those services. Modern subdivisions in the Philippines already do this, often with all necessary shops and services being contained within the gated subdivision.
Not necessary to do capsule housing like Japan. During my time working in Japan was the height of the capsule movement, which has now largely seen as something that didn’t work out. The capsule housing was more of a function of Japanese work culture, where salarymen (サラリーマン, sararīman, white collar office worker) work in the metro cities away from their family home which is often outside of the city. Despite excellent public transportation (trains), their long working hours were not compatible with going home everyday. A lot of Japanese offices have rooms for workers to take a nap, go to the gym or take a shower.
Well it’s possible that badly run and maintained public tenements might turn into squalor, but that’s a function of government attention and upkeep. It’s possible to provide subsidized, high quality but affordable housing for the working families. Situate the tenement complexes near shops and services, as well as factories. Perhaps FDI factory owners may be interested in providing part of the housing subsidy as well.
The Philippines due to lack of arable farmland situated in the lowlands, areas that are also suitable for building housing, needs to take a holistic approach to land management. There should be a preference for density over urban sprawl. I’m very concerned about the conversion of historical farmland into suburban developments, and can’t see that lack of policy planning ending well when combined with the tendency of poor families to have many children.
“Situate the tenement complexes near shops and services, as well as factories. Perhaps FDI factory owners may be interested in providing part of the housing subsidy as well.” This makes sense. Joey did you come across this guy when you were at UC Berkeley. dept of architecture.
https://ced.berkeley.edu/people/christopher-alexander
No, I wasn’t in the Architecture Department so I’ve never met that professor.
Houses per family are barely possible for normal wage earners anymore in Metro Manila, which is by now one of the most densely populated places in the world. The North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR) will make it more viable to commute to Metro Manila from Bulacan and Pampanga, whereas the LRT1 extension soon to be finished will totally turn Cavite into an extension of Pasay City. The basic issue is that everything is so concentrated into one place.
I wonder how quickly some condo developments that look new now will become vertical slums. The QC projects, which were single housing, went very different ways: Project 6 gentrified, Project 4 went poor, and Project 7 was almost a slum, though for sure a lot has changed. The Embos were once Enlisted Men’s Barrios, housing next to Fort McKinley, renamed Bonifacio. By now, it should be clear that private entities developing the urban landscape result from failed urban planning and lack of foresight. Not to mention land titles and land use being a mess.
Looking at older cities in Europe and the US East Coast, even the original “Main Street” of US West Coast cities, we can see a pattern of ad-hoc building. People just built their homes and shops wherever there was empty space, which later turned into some European cities’ famous winding, tiny streets and the confusing mess of informal settlements in the Philippines. There’s a tipping point where there is no longer empty space to build and urban planning is needed.
With the limited available lowlands suitable for farming and housing, clear choices need to be made by government officials. Too often I see new projects preferring urban sprawl rather than density planning. Combine that with terrible public transportation and therein contains the problem. I’m quite sure that bribing local officials to look the other way on good practice also contributes.
An example is years ago Cavite was still considered “province,” with many open lands when I first visited the area, yet now is quite built up. Yet no one had the foresight to attract FDI to build factories in the area to consolidate work. If what I’m told is correct, Cavite used to be the site of factories in yesteryear that are now dilapidated or torn down. Instead many Cavite residents commute to the edge of NCR to work, causing more traffic, while their families live poorly.
Yes, London is the most infamous example of not having a lot of winding roads coming from the old villages around the originally very small core of the city. That German Cologne preserved the old New York style grid layout of the Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippina was just due to the convenience of people always building on old ruins over centuries. The New York style grid layout is only on Manhattan, while Queens is chaos pretending to be a grid. Paris probably was the first modern city to create a straight line avenue that now goes all the way from the Louvre to the skyscraper suburb of La Defense. Munich kind of built its own center to north main avenue in the 19th century, demolishing an entire old town quarter. Though it was the exiled Massachusetts loyalist (for England) Benjamin Thompson, made into Count Rumford (and known for his physics experiments under that name) by the Bavarian King who established what is now known as the English Garden to give soldiers peacetime opportunities to practice gardening. Subsequent architects expanded the park to give the people recreation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englischer_Garten#Creation
In the traditionally more working class south of Munich, it was a mayor of the city who created similar parks that included an island of the Isar river, the Flaucher. The other side of the river, called Au (river meadows), had houses built all the way to the river and in days before modern anti-flooding measures was often flooded, and even today its cellars tend to flood. The poorest of the poor who couldn’t afford to become citizens of the town in feudal times lived there, a pattern in many European cities similar to informal settlers along the Manggahan spillway. Even on the Munich side of the river, there were the areas outside the walls where, for instance, the old Jewish quarter was located. So before modern urban planning, there was division according to classes as well as insiders and outsiders. The Fuggers who among other things, lent money to Carlos V and Philipp II of Spain and co-financed the Magellan expedition, established the oldest still existing social housing settlement in nearby Augsburg So you had a European oligarch involved with the oldest European political family doing charitable works.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuggerei
As for the Philippines, there is the European style old division into people living intra muros, which simply means within city walls, and outside, with Binondo directly within the range of Spanish cannons as the Spanish didn’t trust the Chinese they directly traded with. Then there was the development of the Escolta in the 19th century, the genteel mestizo settlements in Ermita, the American Burnham plan and the land reclamation that created Dewey boulevard, now Roxas boulevard, the planned city that Quezon had built now called QC.. and then the war happened, and the heavily damaged Manila was rebuilt haphazardly and very ugly, somewhat like Cologne except the old town, wasn’t rebuilt well like rich Munich. You also had places like Cubao, Greenhills, and Makati growing around the road Quezon built, now called EDSA.
There was, of course, the program Metro Manila governor Imelda Marcos called “City of Man,” which was mostly window-dressing with uniformed street sweepers called Metro Manila Aides.. except for the buildings on reclaimed land that, according to MLQ3, was left behind due to the American scammer Harry Stonehill (even then, Filipino politicians often dealt with foreign grifters) – the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the PICC and the infamous Manila Film Center.. and the so-called BLISS housing projects for the poor, some of which still exist, an attempt to house people in the growing metropolis. LRT1 was built. Foreign traffic studies commissioned in the 1970s classified the main roads of Metro Manila as C (circumferential) and R (radial) road, with EDSA classified as C4 and what is now C5, even C6 conceptualized.
While Imelda had some good technocrats working for her (I was fascinated by their work in early high school and wanted to be a New Society technocrat for a while, weirdly) the time of FVR was very clearly oriented towards having stuff done by private concessionaires, echoing how the late Spanish colonial regime had outsourced building the rail line to Pangasinan to the British, with the unintended consequence that Rizal’s first love Leonor Rivera, the template for Maria Clara, married an English railway engineer. Another British railway engineer was (allegedly) among the ancestors of my ex from Pangasinan, a Shakespeare fan. And a Marcos loyalist who maintained that Marcos extending what is now SLEX and NLEX made sure that farm produce from Calabarzon and the Central Plain (Pampanga and Tarlac) got to Manila faster. Anyhow, back to FVR, in his time, the groundwork was laid for the Skyway, which is close to connecting SLEX to NLEX nowadays and for the botched MRT3. I think the LRT2 is from the time of Arroyo. One must credit it for being well done. But in the end, it is still all patchwork. And always barely catching up with the runaway growth of Metro Manila and environs. Maybe the only significant industrial park is in San Pedro Laguna, which seems to be an achievement of the late Arroyo and the PNoy period. Don’t know what is left of Marcos’ plans for Alabang..
Always an enjoyable history flyover with you Irineo.
Overall I think urban sprawl has slowed a bit in Manila. A lot of internal migration from the Visayas and Mindanao is now going to Cebu, which being much smaller than Luzon will quickly run out of room. New developments in Cebu are mostly luxury condominiums/apartments situated next to business parks catering to BPO. With rent being sometimes 10K a month or more, even BPO workers can’t really afford these units. Once I had an extended rental from a Chinese-Filipina tita friend for her apartment unit during a period I would be in Cebu weekly, in which she charged me 5.5K a month. I later found out similar units were going for about 15K a month in that building. I got a pretty good deal that probably covered her mortgage payment.
New settlements springing up in Cebu are mostly around rivers, which is quite dangerous. The recent typhoon Kristine was quite far from Cebu, but a half dozen informal settlers nearby the river got swept away in the floodwater after extended rains. Mactan used to be full of empty lots, but those empty lots are now full of informal settlements, which in turn are being slowly bulldozed to build subdivisions.
Honestly sometimes I feel exasperated by the lack of policy to attract FDI, and to spread that manufacturing out to other provinces. Most of the internal migrants seem to take up service jobs, but they bring their family along if they can. Come to think about it, this also adds stress to the local schools and contributes to the larger classroom sizes. Back in their home province, local agriculture and businesses become further overlooked with less workers available.
2 articles
https://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/no-steel-bars-found-in-collapsed-riprap
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2024/10/31/2396479/misappropriated
I remember the previous sec of dpwh was mark villar who is not an engineer and cannot probly oversee project as such, and I seriously doubt he can understand the blg reports of cebu city engineers as such, but if mark villar was not afraid to ask the stupidest of question at the risk of being called no savvy, he might have a good idea of where the project was headed. still, he might have transportable skills as his family is property developer and himself might have overseen numerous blg projects from start to finish.
kaso, when cheapest bidder got the contract to build the riprap, overseas engineers might have been contracted on fly in, fly out basis and they’re really not subject to local laws, and might have made changes to the structures contrary to what was initially approved by lgu.
“In 2018, Evergrande became the most valuable real estate company in the world, but by 2021 it had collapsed financially and started the Chinese property sector crisis. The company eventually filed for bankruptcy in the United States in 2023, which was followed by a court-ordered liquidation in Hong Kong in January 2024.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergrande_Group?wprov=sfla1
Tip of the iceberg for China
They have ghost cities aplenty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under-occupied_developments_in_China?wprov=sfla1
We are in trouble if we allow Chinese developments in reclamation area and the next admin to make Pogo return.
Yes, it’s a big problem in the US too because we have more open FDI laws. So the PRC is buying farm land and residential houses to invest but they didn’t use it to farm or rent out. It’s making the US housing shortage become bigger and I expect Harris to crack down if she wins with a Congress majority. If China is so strong then why do they need to invest their money outside their country?
Unfortunately , I haven’t read any Dem legislators on this issue.
https://www.newsweek.com/china-owns-us-land-twice-size-new-york-city-national-security-concerns-1780124#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20U.S.%20Department,that%20comprise%20New%20York%20City.
A lot of the land purchases fall under state jurisdiction, not federal. Federal oversight mostly concerns federal lands, but these purchases mostly concern private American companies selling to Chinese counterparts. If I recall, multiple states have advanced legislation to disallow land purchases by PRC-origin investors. These include both “red” and “blue” states.
But I guess the US could simply seize PRC owned entities in case of a war. For years the PRC has threatened to mass sell off US Treasury Bonds to crash the US economy over the Taiwan issue, yet they keep buying more bonds. I’m sure they are terrified after the US in coordination with the Europeans seized the Russian sovereign wealth fund. Yet joke’s on them because the Chinese keep investing more, because the US Dollar is the safest investment in the world.
there was a talk of dedollarisation and replacing the dollar with renmimbi but nothing much came out of it, and the dollar is string going strong.
That would take a bit longer. BRICS has a membership wait-list with about 20 or so nations waiting. Stuff like this is like a zero to one change. not much but then boom.
BRICS is more like a club where the members talk about random stuff, but have no concrete or concerted actions.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/23/putin-world-economy-bloc-brics-summit
At the recent BRICS summit, Putin’s plea to de-dollarize was pretty much ignored by the other members. In a way the demonization of the US dollar is just another form of information warfare by Russia, as the global community decided voluntarily ad-hoc over time to adopt the US Dollar as the reserve currency due to the stability and strength of the US. Whichever nation is the global economic power tends to become the reserve currency. Before the US Dollar, there was the British Pound and so on going back into history. These global antagonists can say all they want, but they keep investing excess capital into US Treasury Bonds rather than their own domestic markets, so I’ll look at their actions instead of trusting their OA words.
the key problem of BRICS is that China is probably never going to let its exchange rate float, it would never cease capital controls.
This prevents it to act like the US where a lot of the liquidity gravitates to. Most developed capital markets, most consumption demand, etc etc.
Right, because allowing looser, more liberalized monetary control would probably break the facade of the strong Chinese economy. Still there are strong signs that even very strict monetary controls isn’t working, since that isn’t possible in an interconnected global market. The PRC has been trying for years to increase domestic consumption, but it hasn’t really worked. Chinese still prefer to buy Western brands whenever possible, except for those who can’t afford it or are nationalistic. The USSR was able to exist for quite some time due to being a closed off market that traded almost exclusively within the Soviet/Eastern Bloc.
they have ghost cities because wealth can be accumulated by buying real estate and flipping
Flip that is what they call Pinoys.
You have brought me back to my college days in USTe…I majored in Economics. I was fascinated by the law of supply and demands, insatiable wants, charts, Statistics,Labor Economics International Economics etc. This is a good and fascinating read. Thanks Giancarlo.
Been caught up with so many things, but i dropped by to see what’s going on here, and I am impressed, I wish more Filipinos will have the bandwidth to appreciate what is being done in this blog. Mabuhay kayo.
More on Ghost Towns
https://www.ucem.ac.uk/whats-happening/articles/ghost-cities/
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/the-story-behind-the-many-ghost-towns-of-abandoned-mansions-across-china
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_sector_crisis_(2020–present)#Background
“The 2007–2008 global financial crisis was addressed largely through local government investment in infrastructure, which further contributed to a reliance on increasing land value, despite accumulating larger and larger debts.”
https://amti.csis.org/island-tracker/china/
“China has 20 outposts in the Paracel Islands and 7 in the Spratlys. It also controls Scarborough Shoal, which it seized in 2012, via a constant coast guard presence, though it has not built any facilities on the feature. Since 2013, China has engaged in unprecedented dredging and artificial island-building in the Spratlys, creating 3,200 acres of new land, along with a substantial expansion of its presence in the Paracels.”
The PRC’s increased belligerence can be directly correlated with rising domestic anger at the real estate crisis and lowering of living standards in the late 2000s. By the early 2010s, PRC started trying to convert domestic anger into outwards nationalism. School curricula were also modified to have an even more nationalist element regarding the claims, blaming the US as the puppet master of SEA claimants. Many people thinks that CCP plans everything carefully, but most of its actions are in reaction to domestic issues. If they happen to make a gain they keep it though. At least that’s what I saw when I was in China occasionally during those years for work trips.
Plus domestic debts or lgu debts. Build A fleet pa more.
Seems like a dumb plan if it makes all the SEA claimants and Taiwan to run to the US-led alliance.
For years it was thought that trade ties would prevent great power war, but this did not take into account what if a great power was an irrational actor. Thus the pulling out of factories and the re-alignment of global supply chains.
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/CHINA-DEBT-HOUSEHOLD/010030H712Q/
LGU debts are not substantial if I remember correctly. This is because the DOF is not easily fooled and there is an understanding that LGU debts are sovereign debts. There is a high bar before it is approved and barely any loans are approved.
You have to understand this with how it does notjive well with the 3 year election cycle. This lack of continuity is not enticing to financial institutions
Chinese local gov debts Gian. Good that it is not yetca prob here
Link.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927538X24002075
The authors state that in the paper. what we learned from the US is less applicable in China. I really feel that more than the US the state capacity of China is greater. Like Singapore some of the smartest people are in government.
the way that debt is setup in China, with all the capital controls etc this shouldn’t be a problem the backstop is still strong or easy to manipulate.
The normal analysis is not directly applicable when economic data is controlled, when capital controls still work, when they are winning in anchor industries like EVs, PVs, Robotics, etc
Debt and capital control is opaque when it comes to China. The PRC doesn’t really release any transparency reports, and every report has an air of propaganda to it. The PRC also manipulates the exchange value of their currency — it doesn’t float like normal currencies do.
Well regarding “winning,” it seems to me that the PRC is doing an elaborate shell game and fooling most observers so far. But if they’re truly winning they wouldn’t have increasing domestic pressures (which they release valve by external nationalism). The CCP has tried for years to increase domestic consumption of its own manufactured goods, but Chinese tend to keep things for longer and not buy new stuff. In terms of the industries you mentioned, the recent shift to exporting those products amounts to practically dumping products on the market. The sectors are heavily subsidized by the local governments in China, which is the major factor of why it can be sold for so cheap. I suspect that with the top level guidance from the party leadership coming down hard on local government real estate building/speculation, unskilled labor has been redirected to building those things. Seeing as the US, Canada and most EU countries have placed heavy tariffs on at least EVs and may ban robotics for national security reasons, they’re not having much luck in the West. I just can’t see how the huge subsidies that are used to maximize employment are sustainable in the long run. Chinese labor isn’t as cheap nowadays as it used to be.
didnt china still consider itself a developing country despite it being already a highly industrialized country and the 2nd greatest economy in the world? likewise china enjoys the differential treatment accorded to nations like zimbabwe and papua new guinea, and may even put its hands up for handouts!
if you look at per Capita measures it is a developing country. if you remove the countryside and concentrate in cities you get middle class country, if you concentrate on tier 1 to tier 2 cities I suspect that Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong at Upper middle to developed nation status.
thanks, just reading individual comments in the jetpack app
Further going down memory lane but not OT, two old articles by Chemrock:
This is about how the MRT3 was botched, especially from a contract POV. That it was botched and hurried technically is probably clear to most anyway.
This is about, among others, how Philippine bank secrecy laws and a weird loophole to IATF rules made it possible that part of the money hacked from the Bangladesh central bank disappeared via casinos in Manila. The connection to all the stuff here is that at some point, the way of easy money via casinos (Marcos had started with the Floating Casino in Manila Bay IIRC) was preferred over the harder work of building industry. And that it is a conduit for dirty money, just like the POGOs that followed it. One could say pecuniam non olet, money does not stink, like the Roman emperor who introduced a tax on public toilets, but sometimes it does. Spanish conservatives refused Euro Vegas in Madrid even during the 2012 economic crisis as they feared corruption of society. Post-WW2 Cuba had the Mafia gambling all over Havana. Sure, Alice Guo is still loved as she gave jobs to people in her town. But might as well also have a mayor who establishes his or her town as a hub for AFAM scamming, which also brings in $. Tolerating Ermita as a red-light district also brought Manila money but was eventually stopped..
My issue with how we do policy is that we have not gone beyond the make bombastic announcements to gauge public opinion and adjust accordingly. The way would be review when there is data. but this just happens for policy that is easily understood by most people.
An example is the change of ownership policy of LTO that was suspended due to public clamor.
There was so much debate on Singapore giving gaming licenses and that is why I linked to the post of PM LHL. I distinctly remember being in college and seeing an interview of LKY saying they need the casinos for Singapore to survive.
And in some ways the Casinos probably allowed all the big SG funds to be so much healthier
The difference is that LKY’s Singapore certainly did not let bosses of casinos influence it’s decision making processes. The Philippines, being a weak polity, easily succumbs to the influence of bribe money, a bit like Batista’s Cuba, and Stonehill shows it isn’t new.
Balancing the need for public morality and good governance with earning money from vices is not that easy, and the Philippines has always sucked at properly calibrating matters.
some things I cannot write here but yes. policy making for an informed polity is not 10 percent but 100x better than an uninformed one
Or at least the leaders have to be informed and responsible if the populace isn’t there yet, much like Bavaria in the postwar period was more reliant on its leaders than nowadays. Though in some parts of Bavaria, there still are peasants who tell their kids why study I didn’t have to..
There were many ALLEGED shenanigans over here as the economy grew, especially during the postwar period, some based on stories that I heard related to prostitution which flourished with US Forces giving a major kick, the street lore being that major politicians earned their cut, BUT had a deal with local P.I.M.P.s to keep foreign competitors out, now if they had been Filipinos they might have sold out to the highest bidder. The clean-up of Munich from open prostitution happened before the 1972 Olympic Games when the economy was moving up already..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals involved the West German defense minister and former Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss and nothing was proven.
Well, that man brought the aerospace industry into Bavaria. Whatever he allegedly did might make him comparable to the Sokor leaders who industrialized Korea. Not that the end justifies the means, but there are shades of grey that purists don’t understand, so one more example.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relationship_with_Russian_companies by contrast, former Chancellor Schröder brought Germany into trouble by favoring Nordstream and unfortunately the entire country was on the drug of cheap Russian gas.
In life and for societies, the too comfortable way out is often a trap. For individuals, the consequences can be getting overweight and unfit. Societies can also get “unfit.”
In fact, most of the Filipino elite IS way too comfortable, little physical and mental discipline.
the worry about overweight and the uberly obese individuals is getting to be a thing in the past. we now have medication (cheats!) that can people lose weight like the meds wegovy and ozempic. people with high blood pressure also take cheats to bring their blood pressure down and take blood pressure medication. life should be easier not harder and 10 minutes of exercise a day ought to be enough. too much impact exercise may destroys joints and cause muscle pain. then people would have to be medicated to lessen the pain. catch 22.
Funny funny. Cheats indeed. I cheat on blood pressure and asthma. I was into sports my whole life. You are right about the joints, they grind away. But good exercise for the heart, lungs, and brain is bicycling or swimming. Lungs are important. So is a muscular heart, I think. The brain loves the oxygen cleansing, rather like an oil change I think.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-investment-philippines-more-meets-eye
U.S. Investment in the Philippines: More Than Meets the Eye
nice resource. 60 percent of our exports are semiconductor related. wow
What an upbeat article. Thanks, Karl. I was reading that the Philippines in September had a huge uptick in foreign investment in treasury bonds and the stock market, and the total inflows this year are positive. Last year they were negative. Most of the money came from the UK, US, Singapore, and Malaysia.
this online presence stuff makes so much sense like PAO/PSYOPS. spread the word. toot horns. like gospel. share the good news. karl, are you familiar with this Japhet Quitzon fella? Recommendation #5 also makes sense.
First time to read about fake news peddlers as malign actors.
US investments are indeed More than meets the eye.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/economic-indicators/article/3243527/chinas-economic-data-again-under-microscope-local-authorities-warned-over-falsifying-statistics
China’s economic data again under the microscope, local authorities warned over falsifying statistics
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/chinas-fake-economic-growth/
China’s Fake Economic Growth
Tama si kb
https://www.voanews.com/a/is-china-still-a-developing-country/7244652.html
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/china-still-gets-developing-nation-preferential-treatment
The difference between China and the Philippines is that China does not have to move through democratic nonsense and can move huge sums of money here and there to build islands or paste over economic weaknesses. But my guess is her one child policy will soon come home to roost requiring that she hire workers from outside or conquer countries with lots of laborers.
Thus make friends with India, the most populous nation.
Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country who would love to join BRICS but is very tough on SCS.
Ah, India. Yes indeed, thanks.
Pleasure
We must watch Vietnam closely their growth was very manufacturing driven.
All we do is prophesy a comeback.
https://www.vietnam-briefing.com/news/why-manufacturing-is-driving-vietnams-growth.html/
And dream.
https://www.bworldonline.com/top-stories/2024/01/03/566473/becoming-a-manufacturing-powerhouse-remains-a-pipe-dream-for-philippines/
Excerpts.
“Philippine manufacturing has been on a retreat since the 1980s,” national scientist Raul V. Fabella, a professor emeritus at the University of the Philippines School of Economics said in an e-mail. “The share of manufacturing in Philippine gross domestic product has been losing out to services.”
He called the phenomenon “development progeria,” which happens in low-income economies when the share of industry sectors including manufacturing falls while services flourish. “The dynamics will continue into the near future because its roots are structural.”
Manufacturing activity in the Philippines continued to expand in December, albeit at a slower pace, S&P Global said on Tuesday. The S&P Global Philippines Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) slipped to 51.5 in December, from a nine-month high of 52.7 in November.
The Philippines had the second-highest PMI reading among Southeast Asian countries with available data, after Indonesia (52.2). Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar all contracted in December.
It was a significant development for a sector that has been lagging its regional peers for decades.
In 2022, the largest share of exported commodity goods from the Philippines were electronic products, particularly semiconductors and electronic data processing products such as hard drives, making it the biggest contributor to the country’s export sales, according to Statista.
Aside from electronics, the Philippines has a large food manufacturing industry, which generated a gross value added of about P1.8 trillion ($32.5 billion) in 2022. Among the country’s leading food exports were animal or vegetable fats and oils and processed foods such as bread, cereals and dairy products.
Another nice summary. The lack of primary goods manufacturing (as opposed to component parts), to me, is outright national stupidity. One, it does not make use of the Philippines’ low cost of labor, and two, manufacturing is a jobs multiplier, with up to 4 jobs created for each manufacturing job. Packaging, distribution, raw materials, marketing, finance, etc.
We should shape up soon. Otherwise we not for growth and not in the Degrowth sense.
post-Growth, karl. doesn’t mean you have to go thru the same path 1st world countries had to go thru to get to 1st world, theres gotta be a way to by pass all that.
and where gian’s
3. **Inventors, innovators, engineers, and scientists** push the frontier outward. They develop solutions that allow us to accomplish more with less.
factors in. take the short cut, karl. “more with less”. <<<<<<<
More with less is still far. To achieve RE you need to extract Rare Earth and in the case of EV that would be Lithium. Lithium is also used for Bipolar disorder. Extraction will still be aplenty
Unless the tree huggers accept that incineration should just be improved to reduce toxins to a minimum, the trash won’t go away.
just need the right crisis
The Philippines can mo longer sweep this under the rug. We have a landfill.problem and we know it.
we have seen how far we can take things. 8-12 hours of rotating brownouts before we made a 30 year solution. Now that 30 years is gone we need a re-up.
without the trolls making traffic top of mind we will probably need daily 5 hour gridlocks before any medium term solution.
Offshore wind needs port repurposing.Small nuclear plants might be a Pandora box. Tge 10 Lane edsa skyway plan of RSA is do car centric
Inter island bridges must not stop with the bridge but the whole traffic network, etc
it would be scary but trains connecting the major islands would be awesome
I would love that.
The main lines in HSR of China make the whole HSR Network profitable. Such a setup is the way a RORO setup, bus setup should be planned.
Probably, interisland bridges in the Philippines still have doubtful ROI, but RORO definitely will work and is already working in places AFAIK. Even the Bataan Cavite bridge, which would connect Clark and Subic directly to Calabarzon, is probably still of doubtful ROI. The history of the San Juanico bridge, barely used, of the moderately used Oresund link between Denmark and Sweden, or the crazy huge connection between mainland China, HK and Macau via bridge – they all show how quickly huge bridges can become prestige projects and white elephants.
HSR works best when you have long overland routes like in China – or in Spain, whose HSR is far more efficient than the German HSR. Switzerland is too small for HSRs and has none. Canada is getting HSR now, that might also work well as they have long distances.
the ROI makes sense because of how low the interest rate is and how long the repayment period is, and it allows Cavite to Bulacan Airport connectivity.
think of it as extending the super region Mega Manila Now includes Bataan and Subic and Clark.
Land valuations increasing.
Connecting PEZA in Cavite and Laguna with Subic and Clark will surely unlock stuff.
Hope we can find the ADB study so we can judge for ourselves. What I am pretty sure of is that ADB for big loans like this one is very conservative.
If the bridge has a dedicated slow lane for trucks and transporters, the ROI would be certain. If there was a train line on the bridge, possibly even with possible freight trains, it would be even better.
I doubt the latter, though, and as for the former, I hope the planners think not only of the convenience of motorists. If they are really dumb they will make it as low capacity as the San Juanico bridge, but seeing the Cebu-Cordova bridge as well done, I don’t assume that.
I would even envision something like the Dutch Delta works under the bridge to keep the entire Manila Bay safer from flooding, but given the Filipino penchant for playing catch up that might not happen in 50 years..
this is a nice read:
https://www.adb.org/projects/52310-002/main#project-pds
Check also the attachments found in the link
Thanks. I skipped to the Wikipedia entry, though, to get the gist for now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan%E2%80%93Cavite_Interlink_Bridge
OK, four lanes, at least not the two lanes of San Juanico, even as six lanes might be a lot more future-proof as the bridge is the “heart bypass” for Manila. And probably it isn’t that easy to have a wider bridge that is 32 km long.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_%C3%87anakkale_Bridge
The Turkish Cannakale bridge has 6 lanes, but it is “only” 4 km long, huge for a suspension bridge, but way shorter than BICB. The Oresund Bridge is just 8 km and has merely four lanes but a railway line underneath the road. So I guess BICB will indeed have a good ROI.
The longest bridge over sea is the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, which is 55 km (34 mi) long. The PRC also spent an exorbitant amount of money on it (the true amount of which was never disclosed). It seems to be more of a vanity project for the local CCP party and a white elephant for regular Chinese as it’s extremely difficult to obtain a permit to utilize the bridge.
Of course the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge bridge is built in coastal waters where it is “not that deep,” and with suitable sea floor to support artificial islands and the pylons. The Philippines islands are volcanic and the near shore is quite deep, quite suddenly. Not sure how a bridge network can be built to interconnect the major islands. It might be better to modernize and expand an express ferry network.
That mindset is why I have this picture of 22nd century Mega Manila as having flying cars like in some sci-fi movies but with kamote drivers causing spectacular crashes, and high rises like in such visions but the lower levels are flooded nearly all year round and trash lands there.
funny but true
“Extraction will still be aplenty” That’s true, karl. but it all boils down to mistakes made, remaking those mistakes again or figuring out a new way out. which could also be more mistakes. if not extraction then windmills screwing up birds and the ones they set in the middle of the sea, screwing up whales et al.
All of it reminds me of this clip:
I think gian’s onto something here, and we’ll just need to fine tune dial in the frequency to which these solutions will be revealed. will try to factor all this in, in my 5th Inday Sara blog.
I like every part except the Sara blog part grrr
Vietnam is also doing its buildup in the Spratlys
https://thediplomat.com/2024/11/vietnam-spratly-island-construction-continuing-at-rapid-pace-report-says/#:~:text=In%20the%20six%20months%20after,in%20the%20whole%20of%202022.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/06/what-is-degrowth-economics-climate-change/
Degrowth – what’s behind the economic theory and why does it matter right now?
Degrowth is a radical economic theory born in the 1970s.
It broadly means shrinking rather than growing economies, to use less of the world’s dwindling resources.
Detractors of degrowth say economic growth has given the world everything from cancer treatments to indoor plumbing.
Supporters argue that degrowth doesn’t mean “living in caves with candles” – but just living a bit more simply.
Nice summary
Thanks.
And that De-Growth is the in between, going to steady state economy, wherein its not like Orcs burning everything down, more like living like Elves (those bougie rich fucks!). or better yet live like Dwarves underground sustainably.
https://joeam.com/2024/10/14/a-nation-beheaded/#comment-492482
Interestingly the biggest proponents of Degrowth are rich, comfortable people who won’t be affected one way or another. Eco-utopia for me, suffering for all of thee.
A region that has always fascinated me, and that I’ve had a few chances to briefly travel to, are the Baltic States. During the time of the USSR, Russians gave preferential treatment to Russians and the Baltics were quite poor. After the collapse of the USSR the Baltics were plunged into economic recession with high incidence of corruption. Yet today, the “Baltic Tigers” have become highly developed, defeated the feared “middle-income trap,” and have become vocal members within the EU and NATO whose concerns other much larger nations strongly consider. About a decade ago I did a deep dive into understanding how the Baltics “did it,” and the conclusions are highly enlightening.
Poland is richer than Japan per Capita. Happy for them depressing when thinking about the Philippines.
It’s “easier” for countries to bounce back I suppose if that nation already had a long history of being a unified state. Some were even powerful empires back in the day, like Poland was previously. While in the Philippines which did not have until recently a history of statehood and even now isn’t really “unified” in culture, Filipino national politicians used to for years talk down and mock Thailand and Vietnam. Just like South Korea rose before and the same for Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have been unified states for centuries. It was just a matter of time before the people of those countries “got their act back together.”
Not sure how to more closely unify the meaning of being a Filipino. It’s sad that the most I usually see is across ethnic/language line indignant pushback versus perceived “foreign” mocking or looking down upon, then after the excitement of drama is over people will go back to their own corners and advocate for their own.
the trick is to make filipinos think the idea comes from them, not imported, solicited and or of foreign origin. and let them take credit for it. kasi, filipinos are uber defensive and things rarely get to them, ever. their facade is summat impenetrable. kasi, if things go wrong, foreigners can always go home and dodge the issue unscathed. while we filipinos bear the brunt and are left ‘holding the baby’.
Great points KB. Nowadays in our modern times when the US helps for example, there is painstaking care made to share the credit with Filipinos even if it was the US that is doing the heavy lifting (like EDCA sites building for example). The US also insists on more equitable distribution of labor. IIRC the EDCA sites refurbishment and modernization was done via local labor and contractors which is a good thing. The new USAID programs for improving literacy among Filipino children that was rolled out by Ambassador MaryKay Carlson and SecEd Sonny Angara also made sure to include Filipinos fully. There’s no shame in accepting a helping hand from friends.
it’s on the back of our minds, what happened to the kurds in syria after donald trump become president for the 1st time. the kurds used to be allies of america until trump abruptly re-called american troops stationed in syria, leaving the kurds to fend for themselves and some were slaughtered by their enemies.
in afghanistan, the american were also recalled, leaving the afghanis to fend for themselves. if trump become president again, he may as well recall american troops stationed in philippines and – I’d rather not know anymore.
one thing, we dont have enemies right in our doorstep just waiting for americans to depart. as well, filipinos have been trained well enough we should be able to withstand any threats of takeover both in and out of our country.
Hi from battleground Arizona. I’m traveling in the Southwest US this weekend to help with canvassing and GOTV so my replies will be delayed.
Some thoughts since I was on the Baltic Tigers thing.
Until the Philippines cares about her children’s education, it will be so much harder to have a well-trained skilled labor force and educated services sector. The “Oslo breakfast” was created in the 1920s when Norway was still very poor, and was an early form of school-provided meal. Educational outcomes in Norway were greatly increased when children were no longer hungry, in addition to democratizing school lunches across poor vs resourced children reducing social stigma.
School meals were pioneered by an American British-loyalist who subsequently served as an advisor to the Prince-elector of Bavaria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Thompson#Bavarian_maturity
Sometimes we can look at a country’s culture and see how they think, and what the culture values. Until this day when Oslo breakfast is no longer necessary either because schools provide better meals or parents prepare their students’ packed lunch, children and even adults will prefer to eat some variation of Oslo breakfast for breakfast or lunch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_breakfast
“Hi from battleground Arizona. I’m traveling in the Southwest US this weekend to help with canvassing “ Who’s gonna take AZ, Harris or Trump?
Well considering Trump is raging publicly daily at his ever tinier rallies and demonstrating bulgar techniques, he may believe himself he’s losing. His surrogates have switched to undermining ballot integrity weeks ago to give them a pretext to induce possibly violent reaction.
Vulgar haha
thanks. you going to NV too, Joey? Heard Kamala’s strong there. doing better than in AZ.
AZ trivia time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Papago_Escape
“The Great Papago Escape was the largest Axis prisoner-of-war escape to occur from an American facility during World War II. On the night of December 23, 1944, twenty-five Germans tunneled out of Camp Papago Park, near Phoenix, Arizona, and fled into the surrounding desert.
Over the next few weeks, all of the escapees were eventually recaptured without bloodshed. Although most were apprehended within Maricopa County, a few nearly made it to the border of Mexico, which is about 210 km (130 miles) south of the camp.”
May go to Arizona Monday
Waiting for a rural city to implement a circular economy based on school meals/feeding program. As LCPLX mentioned, there should be a way to fund this
base is funding from NGA
help from LGUs
help from NGOs
help from private.
the setup of Elementary Schools means a community effort should be easier to implement since it is smaller in size and covers a much smaller area. Easier to help your neighborhood kids than stranger’s kids.
Honestly, such a program should not cost so much. Local farmers can be paid as well for their produce which may as well become spoiled. Norway implemented the Oslo Breakfast for quite cheap.
There’s also the “I got mine, don’t want to pay for yours, and by the way I want yours as well” mentality which isn’t necessarily unique to the Philippines… but the behavior is quite pronounced nonetheless. Until the community as a whole cares for the development of young minds, new generations will continue to be captured by dynasty politics.
“the setup of Elementary Schools means a community effort should be easier to implement since it is smaller in size and covers a much smaller area.” gian, I was thinking also instead of pork, how about let loose a bunch of guinea pigs on school grounds ensure theres grass and weed, and clean water, build a shelter for them. then a school kitchen can encourage Filipino kids to start eating guinea pigs as staple, but encourage them maybe 3-4 days a week have meat, but focus on fruits & veggies and legumes and kamote etc. instead of rice. really up end Filipino diet too, start them when young in schools. how ’bout vertical farming on school property? have bakers and cooks in schools.
https://joeam.com/2015/09/15/salvation-by-austerity/#comment-136753
But Guinea pigs are cute 🫤 jokes aside Guinea pigs are not even really eaten anymore in the Andes, as it’s been replaced with chicken for example.
Also have a problem with lost families having a very rice heavy diet, with almost no vegetables. If I were to propose something it’d be 1 scoop rice, 1 scoop fresh vegetables (ginisa or adobo veggies taste good), with some kind of protein. Perhaps tofu is cheaper than chicken and pork.
I was thinking since its school, and chickens tend to become violent whereas guinea pigs are 100% just cute, probably safer for kids (and guinea pigs lotsa pettings). but which is more nutritious pound for pound i dunno. i’m trying to google how to field dress guinea pigs, and I’m getting guinea pigs in costumes instead. but dressing guinea pigs might be less cumbersome too than chicken, cuz again school setting, don’t go for butcher shop look. also rabbits. both good for school setting.
Possible, but Guinea pigs require a specific diet (dried hay) that isn’t cheap to sustain in the Philippines. Everyone I know in the Philippines who keep Guinea pigs are middle class or wealthy.
when I was a kid we used to eat dagang bukid. Nice idea but you have to go slowly with these things. Fresh eggs would be a great start. Carabao Milk. someone just needs to do the financial and nutritional model and try to implement it in one school and iron out the kinks.
Had to google dagang bukid, but yeah if its already there thats perfect, i thought Filipinos would not be open to this, thus the cuteness factor. I also heard in Tarlac area, they love eating bugs there. that’s another good source of protein thats very scalable. like crickets here are already going that route. just need to convince more people of it. pass the taboo stage.
Kapampangan cuisine is really good. Crown jewels of Filipino cuisine in my opinion. Not so many people eat bugs there anymore. In Visayan places some farmers in the province eat “kamaru” (mole crickets/rice field crickets). There’s also “batod/uok sa lubi” (coconut beetle worms/larva) and “tamilok” (shipworm, supposedly gives men extra powers in bed). These foods are not taboo for people in the province, but they do not prefer to eat it if chicken and pork is available.
Chicken is relatively cheap and can be raised intensively. The fundamental problem is farming in the Philippines is a bit disorganized, random, and depends on smallholder farmers who may not be up to date on modern methods of if they have learned some new methods can’t afford the implementation. For example, chickens can provide eggs or meat, both are proteins. They can also eat pest insects and bugs, which they require to obtain protein for egglaying. Chickens eat mostly grains, so farming chickens goes well with rice and corn farming.
For vegetables, kangkong is considered a poverty food, yet it also contains an almost complete set of daily vitamins needed for childhood development, especially iron to prevent the common childhood anemia.
Click to access PDACO117.pdf
DepAg and USAID had a collaborated project to research the benefits of kangkong, yet usually I’ll still hear many Filipinos dislike kangkong due to the poverty associations… even if they are living in poverty themselves. While I’m in the US yet I grow my own kangkong… heh…
Restaurants have deep fried kangkong in tempura batter. yum yum
I haven’t tried this yet, but will need to note that you said it’s good.
For kangkong, I really like ginisang kangkong. It’s easy to make in a kawali/kalaha. A bit of pork belly or any fatty pork adds flavor, or alternatively hibi/kalkag brings out an intense umami. Every time I make that Filipino kids who hate eating “grass” gobble it up.
people also eat palaka, rice paddies frogs and cook like dilis, deep fried.
but I think deped will go with what is easy and convenience, its feeding program subcontracted, sourced out and done in bulk. hence the nutribuns with unbleached flour fortified with vitamins and minerals. filipino kids may have problem with drinking cow’s milk. most are intolerant to the lactose in cow’s milk and end up having diarrhea. the milk has to be pre-digested as in cheese. they’ probly dont like the way cheese smells, euwhh!
I actually like palaka fried in butter, similar to French cuisine.
Nutribun as originally developed by USAID was a miracle solution and very effective fighting against childhood malnutrition. Though being a type of pandesal, it gets digested quickly and the child is soon hungry again.
fats, palm oil, butter are sometimes added to slow down the digestion of carbo. makes the bun softer too and palatable.
Good points KB. I believe the original nutribun recipes also incorporated fats like palm oil or soybean oil. It can also be bulked up with protein powder like in later nutribun recipes.
I think, filipinos have taken over the manufacture of nutribuns used in deped’s feeding program. though we receive donated portions from overseas now and then.
in the 80’s, nutribuns used to be bulky and good for two feeds, i.e, there is left over for after school nibble. though some kids save a portion for the people back home. nowadays, the size of nutribuns have shrunk.
Yes, the USAID Food for Peace program started winding down during the later Martial Law period and completely ended in 1997. Nutribun was always a stop gap solution though and I feel concern that it’s being brought back in recent times.
There doesn’t seem to be much coordination in the Philippines agriculture policy. With some coordination and facilitating farmers production to increase efficiency and transportation, methinks that could solve a lot of nutrition problems. The Philippines government could create a program similar to the USDA that buys back agriculture products at a baseline price to stabilize the markets from fluctuations, then use that food and produce to feed children in the school systems.
we have procurement process, deped invites suppliers to bid for the feeding program. govt entities are not allowed to bid for that would most likely constitute conflict of interest. most bidders are private entities and are required to submit paper work of the whys and the hows they’ll be able to procure. and they would need collateral/references, and have enough fund to meet their obligation. successful bidders are free to use any resources available to them in order for them to deliver on time the promised goods.
govt already have kadiwa stores supplied with local produce bought from local farmers, prices are affordable and the stores are open to the public during business hours.
Thanks KB! I haven’t encountered the kadiwa stores to be honest as they are a new initiative. I’ve heard from some friends that the selection was lacking so they felt discouraged, but maybe that has been fixed already. Any initiative that helps regular people must be praised though for the good intentions.
Kadiwa isn’t really new. There were also Kadiwa stores during Marcos Sr.’s time, though the implementation this time might be different.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/164204/maharlika-kadiwa-masagana
Ah I was not aware there was a ver1.0. I think the concept is a good one, though I would prefer something like a European-style farm plan, or the benchmark which are the American Farm Acts that deals with the problem comprehensively. It’s really a shame that farmers are paid very low prices while a lot of produce is lost during transportation due to spoilage.
Just chanced upon this new city quarter being built in Northern Munich:
It is on the grounds of former military barracks. It only looks a bit like barracks from above and is well-balanced otherwise.
A tram stop, shops, a park, a school and sports facilities. The grounds are public, but different parts of the project are done by private developers who sell condos, for instance. The size of the buildings is big enough to have capacity but not so large as to make people anonymous.