The Cost of Blind Liberalization: How Low Tariffs and Weak Incentives Are Killing Philippine Industries
By Karl Garcia
I. Introduction
The Philippine economy today stands at a crossroads between open-market liberalization and national economic resilience. For decades, the country has pursued low or zero tariffs, minimal industrial protection, and inconsistent investment incentives — policies rooted in the promise that free trade and market competition would drive prosperity.
Instead, this experiment has yielded disquieting results. Local producers — especially in agriculture — now struggle against a deluge of cheap imports, while foreign investors look elsewhere for stability and strategic support. What we are witnessing — from rotting onions and unsold vegetables to the steady exit of manufacturing firms — is not simply a policy failure but the culmination of a deeper structural error: the uncritical embrace of neoliberalism without state-led nation-building.
II. Low-to-Zero Tariffs and the Collapse of Local Agriculture
1. Import Flooding and Price Crashes
Under successive liberalization regimes influenced by WTO obligations and free trade agreements such as RCEP, the Philippines slashed tariffs on key agricultural products. The intent was to lower consumer prices. Yet, paradoxically, imported onions, garlic, rice, and vegetables often arrive at prices below domestic production costs.
Local farmers cannot compete. Unsold produce piles up in warehouses or rots in the fields, even as retail prices remain artificially high — controlled by import cartels and middlemen. This is not overproduction; it is policy-induced displacement.
Case in Point: During the 2022–2023 Onion Crisis, import permits were issued despite ample local harvests. Farmers were forced to dump tons of onions while imported stock dominated markets — a collapse driven not by inefficiency, but by the absence of protective regulation.
2. Structural Erosion of Food Sovereignty
Decades of tariff cuts have deindustrialized Philippine agriculture. The country now imports more than 90% of garlic, 80% of onions during lean months, and significant portions of rice and sugar. Farmers face high input costs, poor logistics, and weak post-harvest systems.
Without tariffs or subsidies to level the playing field, domestic agriculture cannot regain competitiveness. This dependency erodes food sovereignty and weakens national security, impoverishing rural communities and driving migration to cities or overseas employment.
3. Unequal Competition and Market Asymmetry
Global agriculture thrives on economies of scale and heavy subsidies. Filipino farmers, burdened by small landholdings and climate vulnerability, face structural disadvantages. In such a setting, low tariffs are not tools of efficiency — they are weapons of surrender, dismantling rural productivity in the name of “free trade.”
III. The Missing Investment Magnet: No Tax Incentives, No Industry
1. Investor Flight and Policy Uncertainty
While tariffs have fallen, investment policy remains incoherent. The CREATE Law rationalized tax incentives but made them temporary and conditional, reducing their appeal relative to ASEAN neighbors.
By contrast:
- Vietnam offers multi-decade tax holidays and clear industrial targeting.
- Indonesia provides customs exemptions and strategic SEZs aligned with national priorities.
The result: capital, technology, and manufacturing ecosystems cluster elsewhere, leaving the Philippines as a market, not a maker.
2. Stalled Industrialization
The absence of robust incentives traps the Philippines in a raw-export, import-dependent model. Agriculture remains unprocessed, logistics inefficient, and manufacturing underdeveloped. This cycle of low productivity and high import dependency has prevented the formation of industrial linkages that create sustainable, quality jobs.
IV. Neoliberalism and Its Discontents
1. The Neoliberal Turn
Since the late 1980s, neoliberal orthodoxy — privatization, deregulation, and fiscal austerity — has shaped Philippine policy under IMF and World Bank guidance. These were intended to enhance efficiency and attract capital.
Yet, the outcome has been growth without development: rising GDP numbers alongside persistent inequality, industrial decline, and regional disparity.
2. The Left’s Critique: Where It Rings True
The political Left argues that neoliberalism hollowed out the Philippine economy — a claim increasingly supported by evidence. Trade liberalization decimated local industries, privatization entrenched oligarchic control, and fiscal austerity strangled state capacity.
Neoliberalism’s core flaw in the Philippine setting is its blind faith in market self-correction in a country with weak institutions and elite-dominated governance.
3. Where the Argument Oversimplifies
Not all market reforms are inherently neoliberal or destructive. Streamlining bureaucracy, empowering MSMEs, and fostering technological innovation are pro-development measures when paired with strong state direction.
East Asian economies like South Korea and Taiwan liberalized trade only after achieving industrial maturity. The Philippine misstep was not liberalization per se, but premature, unguarded liberalization without institutional preparation — reform without resilience.
V. The Core Diagnosis: Neoliberalism Without Nation-Building
The Philippine trajectory exposes a tragic imbalance: markets were liberalized, but the state remained weak.
- Tariffs were cut without modernizing agriculture.
- Privatization occurred without transparent regulation.
- Fiscal restraint curtailed infrastructure and R&D.
- Institutions were captured by vested interests, not developmental goals.
This left the Philippines globally integrated but domestically underdeveloped — a nation open to the world but closed to its own progress.
VI. Path Forward: Strategic Rebalancing
To escape this structural trap, the Philippines must adopt pragmatic developmentalism — a synthesis of market dynamism and state direction. The goal is not isolation, but intelligent integration.
Policy Directions
- Rebalance Tariffs and Trade Policy
- Apply smart protectionism: temporary, performance-based tariffs tied to productivity targets.
- Reform import permitting to favor local supply absorption.
- Use trade policy as an instrument of national industrialization, not mere compliance.
- Revive Strategic Tax Incentives
- Offer long-term, performance-linked incentives for agritech, green manufacturing, and renewable energy.
- Strengthen regional industrial clusters and SEZs aligned with value chains.
- Reinvest in Agriculture and Infrastructure
- Build cold chains, logistics corridors, and processing facilities.
- Integrate agriculture with manufacturing and packaging industries to capture more value domestically.
- Strengthen Regulatory Institutions
- Dismantle import monopolies and cartelized distribution systems.
- Institutionalize competition policy, transparency, and anti-corruption safeguards.
- Promote a Developmental State Vision
- Blend state coordination with private innovation.
- Embed ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and SDG principles to ensure growth that is sustainable, equitable, and resilient.
VII. Conclusion
The Left is right that neoliberalism has hollowed Philippine industries and weakened economic sovereignty. Yet the answer is not to reject markets, but to govern them wisely.
The true path forward lies in nation-building through strategic openness — where tariffs protect, incentives attract, and state capacity empowers Filipinos to compete on their own terms.
The Philippines does not need less globalization — it needs better governance of globalization. Only then can the nation move from dependency to self-reliance, from stagnation to shared prosperity.
_________________________
Cover photo from GMA News article “Philippine trade deficit at $4.767B as of November 2024“.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Karl, your policy conclusions are great — in a more mature economy. In an immature economy such as the Philippines, I worry such lofty goals would only set the Philippines up for failure as in the absence of experience each goal can appear impossibly gargantuan.
I used to watch smuggler bangkas pull ashore on the sands of Cordova, Cebu, back when development had not started in that municipality. I’m sure the thousands of small private piers see more smuggling bangkas. But the vast bulk of smuggling activity coming into the Philippines actually goes through ports of entry and are “inspected” by BOC via fraudulently mislabeling the contents. In the absence of appropriate and strong oversight, to paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm: the “market [life] finds a way.”
If I were some kind of economy advisor there, my recommendation is to keep things the way they are for now, and to start attacking issues one at a time, then a handful at a time. Biting around the margins, one eventually finds that the whole cookie has been eaten.
I would advise a national-led investment into infrastructure. Railway projects for Luzon, Samar-Leyte, Panay, Cebu and Mindanao, cargo-capable airports on each major island, and most importantly for a maritime nation, cargo-capable ports. It should not take a week or more for a parcel to travel by ferry from Manila to Cebu.
Japan:
1,020 total ports
102 major ports
6 supercontainer capable international (export) ports
18 international (export) ports
22,515,870 TEUs containers/year
Philippines:
429 total ports
10 major ports (34 if following PPA’s inflated measurement)
1 supercontainer capable international (export) ports
7 international (export) ports
9,249,451 TEUs containers/year
One must note that the Port of Manila serves as a major container transshipment hub, meaning that the majority of the TEUs of containers coming in per year are actually transshipments, not imports or exports. Comparatively, Japanese container traffic is about half/half import/export with very little transshipped. Well I suppose the transshipment model works for Singapore which is tiny in landmass. But the ports and services in Singapore for this economic model are much nicer.
As I have written about before, a national infrastructure network seems to be a hard requirement to supply domestic needs of domestically-produced goods, which in turn is a requirement in order to generate surplus for export. Usually imports are paid for by currency earned through exports (in a simplistic view), but for a long while the Philippines economy has been buoyed by the sale of labor either via OFW remittances or BPO. All the other points you discussed in this article are for sure also important (and will become more important as an economy develops), however when the basics are lacking, it seems more important to tackle those issues first.
I have an article lined up that addresses your points.
Thanks again Joey.
We are OA in the extreme we like shortcuts when baby steps are needed and when Incrementslism is applied for transformative endeavors.
Spoiler
Freight trains and freight ferries would be a game changer but many ROW issue.
Included in that post is the convergence of the Blue and Green Economy.
Another spoiler
I have a post about Relocation of the Dislocated before that
In the mean time comment away Joey.
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1253061 June 27, 2025
Thanks for this Irineo, I have reas about this this is why I thought of that Right of way issues and expropriation and the relocation of both rich and poor like the relocation of Corinthian Gardens residents near EDSA and relocation of Chavit’s business in Ortigas with a matching long term rental from government.
And as I told you before I also wrote about the Blue Economy after you reminded me thst is is one of the programs of FVP Mayor Leni, she can still do this if she wishes too.
As too the most likely oposition of the trucking industry, they will never run out of things to do, they can shift from long haul to short haul, sort of last mile before delivery by the couriers.
Cool! I think Secretary Dizon is one of the best secretaries to come along since Aquino’s excellent hires. Smart, proactive, multi-dimensional. It’s very much uplifting to see this kind of SOLUTION actually being put in place.
Yes he is a breath of fresh air and I hope thst fresh air will be unli replenishing.
I wrote this not only missing Micha and his or her thoughts but also the ongoing tariffs war of Trump which is really about reciprocity or scratching each others back and unfortunately thst is also how I see diplomacy and temporary alliances.But at least there is a semblance of watching each other’s back.
Going back to the rotting onions fruits and vegetables because of flooding of imports legally and legally.
Our knee jerl reaction is protection like our cement industry, sugar, rice but is it working, why are our protections long and temporary permanently.
We had the Oil price stabilization fund but because of the ” neolibs” it was stopped
Thanks Karl. I finally got back to readings after a storm day, the little rascal being small but punching way above its weight with rain. Today is the welcome calm after the chaos, and things here are close to normal. That will not be the case for many thousands.
This article should be required reading for top government officials. It is so clear and, in my view, absolutely correct on how to end government caused chaos in agriculture, land use, infrastructure, and regulations. Perhaps yesterday’s storm, the flooding, and the lost lives, will stir not just a people’s rage, but a governmental turn toward rational development.
Hope you are OK, I just seen a news clip of parked cars swept away and hitting the one in front of them and packed. Take care always.
Thanks as always, Joe for allowing me to write here, I am sure, we at TSOH will help in our own little way.
And yes Sec Dizon is a breath of fresh air.
Again my use of AI is for further understanding but the golden rule of Ai usage is trust but verify. Or you can remove the trust part.
This is about our practice of taxing international ships through invome tax instead of tonnage there are pending bills to amend this but there is a strong regulatory oposition.
Okay, I understand. You’ve provided a detailed comparison of the current income-based tax system (GPBT & CCT) versus a proposed tonnage tax system for the Philippine shipping sector, including potential advantages, disadvantages, international examples, and recommendations.
Based on this, here are some potential search queries I’ll use to gather more information and provide a comprehensive response:
From the information provided and the search results, here’s a breakdown of the issues surrounding the proposed tonnage tax system in the Philippines:
1. Understanding the Choice: Income-Based vs. Tonnage-Based Taxation
As you outlined, the core difference lies in the tax basis [1]. The current regime (GPBT & CCT) taxes gross revenue, while the proposed tonnage tax system taxes vessel tonnage [1]. This leads to differences in predictability, administrative burden, competitiveness, and revenue generation for the government [1].
2. Why the Tonnage Tax Could Be Advantageous
3. Risks and Disadvantages
4. International Experience
Successful countries combine tonnage tax with strong maritime administration, clear qualifying rules, and supportive infrastructure [4].
5. Recommended Path for the Philippines
Additional Points & Considerations:
In conclusion: Adopting a well-designed tonnage tax regime could significantly benefit the Philippine maritime sector, aligning it with international best practices and boosting its competitiveness [4]. However, careful planning and implementation are crucial to mitigate potential risks and ensure its success.
Learn more:
Had to ask more on 2 and 3 from chatgpt. BTW I used the web search model via Poe app above
Philippine Context: Aligning Tonnage Tax Reform with National Goals
The Philippines, as one of the world’s leading suppliers of seafarers and a maritime nation by geography, stands to benefit significantly from a tonnage tax regime aligned with its long-term development plans.
Under the Maritime Industry Development Plan (MIDP) 2028, the government aims to strengthen the Philippine registry and attract shipowners to reflag locally. A tonnage tax would complement this by reducing the tax burden and providing certainty, two key factors that influence shipowners’ flagging decisions. This could increase the number of Philippine-flagged vessels, enhance maritime sovereignty, and elevate the country’s profile as a credible international registry.
Reflagging more ships under the Philippine flag would naturally lead to more domestic employment for Filipino seafarers and maritime professionals, especially in ship management, logistics, and compliance sectors. It aligns with the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023–2028 goals on decent work and inclusive growth, while boosting demand for maritime education, training, and upskilling programs.
A predictable tonnage-based system could attract foreign and domestic investors to the ship management, financing, and support industries—areas currently dominated by foreign jurisdictions such as Singapore, Cyprus, and Malta. The reform could stimulate the growth of ancillary industries such as ship repair, port services, and maritime insurance.
To address concerns about short-term revenue loss and potential abuse, the Philippines could design the regime with safeguards and phased implementation—for example:
Limiting eligibility to genuine operators with substantial presence in the country.
Requiring local employment quotas or training investments as part of qualification.
Periodic review mechanisms to ensure fiscal balance and policy alignment with national development goals.
Adopting a tonnage tax would send a strong signal of the country’s commitment to maritime competitiveness, aligning it with major shipping hubs in Europe and Asia. Combined with improved port infrastructure, digitalization, and governance reforms, it could help transform the Philippines from a labor-exporting maritime nation into a hub for maritime operations, management, and innovation.
Unfortunately, the BSP is against it.
Maybe they should consult AI hehehe
But with only over1000 mostly retirable but overstaying naval architects, good luck to us.
We say we will revive ship building and repair?
How hire chat gpt Architects and engineers? Or like in basketball we say we should be great again like a 100 years ago( almost literally) but with Justin Brown Lee going Awol we could not even beat our neighbors . Plus complain why we are grouped with Australia in FIBA.
We are number four ship exporters, alright but with para naval architects( unlicensed like paralegals) and foreign consultants.
@Joey,
I get what you mean after heavy opposition.
I asked AI as to why we have a dearth of Naval architects,and here it goes.
The field of naval architecture in the Philippines is governed by Republic Act No. 10698, which defines the professional practice as encompassing the design, construction, and maintenance of marine vessels and structures [1]. To become a licensed naval architect, individuals must earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (BSNAME) and pass a licensure examination [1][2].
Number of Naval Architects
While the exact number of active naval architects in the Philippines is difficult to pinpoint, several sources provide estimates:
It’s important to note that these figures may not represent the total number of licensed and practicing naval architects in the country.
Reasons for a Limited Number of Naval Architects and an Aging Workforce
Several factors may contribute to the relatively small number of naval architects in the Philippines and the perception that many are older:
Despite these challenges, the field of naval architecture in the Philippines is vital to the country’s maritime industry, given its archipelagic nature and status as a major shipbuilding nation [2][4].
Learn more:
On income vs per tonnage tax for ports, I worry that income based would have great potential to be misused into another form of rent seeking. Port customers would then be reinforced in their existing behavior, which is to use Philippines port as a lower-ranked option while preferring other ports in the region, like Singapore. Can’t become a competitor with Singapore’s transshipment and entrepôt port system by creating an inferior model. It needs to be a model, backed by more modern and enlarged facilities, that can provide an alternative to Singapore. That alternative does not need to be at present better than Singapore’s offerings; it just needs to be competitive in price and convenience.
Also, while I am of firm belief that most engineers and STEM graduates coming out of the Philippines SUCK (sorry, not sorry), I have also been quite impressed by more than a few I’ve met over the years. Well 20 years ago I once thought that the Indians sent to me by Infosys and Cognizant sucked too, but they were able to utilize the few good ones they had to train the ones that sucked, so now those two companies are quite good. Once I met a software engineer who was able to answer all of my quizzes effortlessly, yet he was the… Globe technician who ultimately helped me with a Globe fiber issue I had been having for nearly a year. It seems a shame for that engineer to be working as a vocational technician. What is lacking in my opinion is even if Philippine universities can churn out higher quality STEM grads, there is too little existing work in their field available in the Philippines for them to do, causing most to figure out a way to leave the country. So probably more important to increase activity in the industries attached to each STEM field, including naval architecture.
No offense taken in “suck” speaking of our neighbors lured to scam hubs by Cambodia and Myanmar, I was surprisd even Koeans got lured into it.
Further news about Soutyh Korean Ofws.
Very related to your sucking Stem grads.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/tech-science/20251104/why-korean-stem-talent-continues-to-move-abroad
let me see if Trumos sends the Korean stem workers back home in favor of reshoring jobs.
BTW Joey
Will reshoring work, when Everyone is vulnerable to AI even C suites.
BTW,
Many regulars here are STEM talents FYI
Two unrelated issues.
1.) There is a reason why Japanese and South Korean companies are investing abroad. Their domestic markets are too saturated. Investing abroad allows their companies to still earn money.
2.) South Korean corporate life is similar to Japanese corporate life; I’ve experience in both. They work long hours, often can’t see their families, and get paid too little. When I worked in both Japan and South Korea, I was paid 2.5-3x the salary of my local colleagues for the same work, with more flexibility, even though as a consultant I was technically subordinate to them. Same reason I refused to work as a direct employee to a UK based company when I worked in the UK. The compensation structure was laughable.
Most of the Asians getting lured into scam hubs (which are run by Chinese triads with connections to the CCP United Front) are not highly skilled STEM workers, but regular office worker types who got lured with promises of a lot more money than they earn at home before becoming a slave worker. It is mostly a chat or voice based work after all. It happens to the Philippines too. The scam hub paradigm was created in the Philippines POGO operations under Duterte.
Time will tell if Trump can accomplish reshoring under his term. He’ll probably fail because he does not have focus and values paper announcements as “wins” more than results. In the long term, being as the US is the originator of the technologies used by the offshore manufacturing and business operations, is it strange to imagine that being the originator of the technology, those business aspects can’t be brought back to the US?
The AI fad will take out mostly mid-level management, and is already doing so. Most of these mid-level management roles are absolutely useless to begin with. Entry level work it depends on how much a company is paying for labor vs capital investment in machines; my guess is entry level work being lower paid is more safe than not. C-suites would not vote themselves out, so they make safe spaces for themselves. Personally I have been basically “retired” since my early 30s and work for the challenge, so I can stop working tomorrow and I wouldn’t be affected.
Again this loose cannon ball thanks you for the guided msissle tip. i know only politics can take a csuite out.
I am at it again with my apples and oranges.
US created globalization for cost cutting.
Heck we are fighting for rare earth all because Clinton gave way to Green Peace and the likes and made China the lord of rare earths.
Isn’t ironic?
No, globalization and free trade are concepts to create greater interdependency between countries by which to reduce the need for war. War of course, beyond nationalistic reasons, throughout history has been caused by a competition for resources, though usually framed in the former for political reasons. Less interdependency creates greater risk of war as some countries start to think that instead of working with potential partners to gain resources they lack, they can simply take it. So the system of globalization as set up under the US following WWII is good, and benefits all. Globalization was not created for cost cutting, though in the last four decades that has often been the result as the US did not bend private companies as much towards the national strategic interest (market liberalization and loosening the regulations). To tilt away from that is a matter of a more regulated economic policy, which in turn requires American politicians to push for it.
Rare earths are not really that rare, nor are they earths. The elements are actually quite plentiful everywhere on the planet. Mining the elements however is very polluting using current generation mining technology, and Americans don’t like pollution. China has no compunction about polluting their environment, which is why China ended up being the main source of so-called rare earths. There have been times the US president and congress explained to the American people why it is in the national interest to do something people don’t like, and get the people’s agreement, such as in WWI and WWII. They can do so on rare earth mining in the future.
Well the PRC became so powerful because the CCP was willing to do things and work others found to be dirty and then got a lock hold on the adjacent markets until they dominated in entire industries. Though all this is interesting to speculate on, I don’t see how this has to do much with the Philippines though as the focus should be on building up Philippine basic industries and infrastructure in the first place.
Cars, modern trains require magnets, thus rare earths are needed.
Unless DOST is given funding snd to research on landfill mining for rare earth and a robust circular economy, no one would touch on the full potential of landfill mining.
Miners and oil refinery can partner with government, they are exoerts in refining.
Refining ores should also go to the next level in PH, many things should go to the next level if full vertical integration is unreachable then an almost full vertical integration would do for the time being.
Landfill mining is in the (far) future and won’t be economically viable for a long time even in rich developed countries. This comment from a mining engineer explains it better than I can:
“Mining engineer here. The reason it is cheaper to mine directly from the Earth is because sorting Mineral X from a bunch of rock is a fairly straightforward process. Rock has a set of properties and Mineral X has completely different set of properties. So you can use the differences to extract what you want. For example, magnets and density separation could remove iron from rock.
If you were to mine from a landfill, you would have to sort out countless different types of material. All these materials act differently, so you would have to individually process for each type of material. It is possible, but there would be so much contamination and the process would be very expensive.
In the future, landfills will be mines, but right now it’s too expensive.”
I would nudge us back to something more realistic in the near-term. The Philippines doesn’t even do traditional mining that much, or that well. So let’s start there. A manufacturing stack whether vertical or horizontally integrated needs a foundation to begin with. Government policy to support such an endeavor as a matter of national interest. Aside from lack of appropriate policy and regulation, the Philippines’ “hands off” attitude is a large cause of why the Philippines doesn’t get nearly the amount of investment the Philippines needs, and what resources are to be had is based on an extractive model to sell raw resources whether that be minerals, agricultural product or human labor.
“Pairing with the government” is still an extractive model where the participation of the Philippines government is a license-based one aka rent-seeking. It depends on someone else to put up all the capital while the Philippines takes a cut off the top. No one gets blamed except for the investor I guess if something goes wrong, but it also does not incentivize investors to do more than the minimum to get raw resources and refine it else where. That somewhere is Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam. Surprise! Strategic needs require strategic government investment, direction and involvement.
Example brief overlay on REEs in the Philippines:
– Scandium – nickel laterite deposits in Zambales, Surigao del Sur, Palawan
– Gallium – bauxites in Samar
– Yttrium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium – phosphogypsum in Leyte, Pangasinan
REEs need to be extracted from the minerals above. Byproducts include gold, copper, nickel and other valuable minerals.
Note how those locations are relatively underdeveloped economically. I’d start there. And start with as much local Philippines local and public investment as possible. I really dislike how major initiatives and projects in the Philippines almost always wait for some foreign investor to come in. That’s something a third world extractive economy does. Indonesia for example recently banned most raw nickel ore exports AND paired that policy with government incentives to develop a local value-added chain for EV batteries instead of only being raw human labor for assembling imported battery components. If the Philippines doesn’t want to be an underdeveloped country it needs to stop thinking like one. South Korea never thought itself to be an underdeveloped country, nor did Vietnam, even though they were in a previous time. Which is why both countries shocked the Philippines 20 years apart. Then again, in places like Zamboanga Sibugay (the other main exploited coal deposits aside from Semirara), mines are operating as if in a in a pre-1500s world when mine tramways and carts were invented, literally mining by hand in holes in the ground supported by juryrigged wooden beams supporting the mine roofs.
Thanks for that comment of prioritization .Instead of competitiveness we get dominance and monopolization because big.miners vs small miners big commercial fishers vs small fishers practices are worlds apart. Sure startups get copied by vig companies and steal some of their ideas, but some startups make it big eventually like many rags to riches story.
Perhaps the era of neoliberal economics, which has spanned your and my entire life, has also clouded the understanding of “what is possible.” Neoliberal economics is a perversion of classical liberal economics that is skewed towards big capital and rent seeking. I would suggest reading up on liberal economic experiments of the past. I’m most familiar with the US examples of which there are many.
But the gist of it is strategic objectives need strategic investments and strategic involvement by the government. Government doesn’t necessarily mean national government. Government can also mean more local levels, if that governmental unit has the financial wherewithal through raising local bonds (AFAIK LGUs can’t raise their own taxes). More cash poor LGUs would need more provincial and national involvement.
This whole Philippines mindset of waiting for capital to flow in from external places whether that be from the governor, the congress, the president, or abroad is a huge limiter to progress. Compounded by waiting for the designs and implementation to be done by external actors as well. If someone has a charity mindset they will remain a charity case. People, and nations, have done more with less. Infrastructure is a great example where the Philippines has 100% self-capability to build roads and probably most bridges, from design to build, yet often waits for outside help. In a truly resilient mindset, any help received is just a bonus, not a requirement.
That’s true. What, the Philippines can only fund road reblocking and other sources of corruption? Why not development enterprises? Find a new niche (ship building or arms manufacturing) and get really good at it. Huge markets I think.
The niches you suggested would be great. Even though personally I think there’s not enough of an industrial-knowledge-human complex to scale AT THE MOMENT, it is still important to try to get such projects off the ground as a pilot. The goal should be to eventually create an environment where Filipino companies can build Filipino things, rather than be contract workers abroad or their own country for foreign enterprise. There have also been countless examples of how projects elsewhere started as a government-backed local-foreign joint venture then having the local partners eventually buy out the operation. That could be a way to level up as well. As long as there is true knowledge transfer. In my view technology transfer is not true technology transfer if the enterprise is wholly owned and directed by an external entity, as the knowledge and more importantly the EXPERTISE is not transferred.
Over the years I have been in conversation with Filipino factory workers in places such as Cebu Mitsumi (Danao), Tong Hsing Electronics (Laguna), Kinpo Electronics (Batangas) to give a few examples of Japanese and Taiwanese manufacturing operations. The general takeaway I get from my conversations is that Filipinos who work there are immensely grateful for the opportunity to earn more than they would in the province, while being able to stay in the Philippines. Cebu Mitsumi for example attracts workers from Leyte, Negros Oriental, Panay, and as far away as provinces in Mindanao. These factories do semiconductor packaging and ODM contract manufacturing for big name brands.
On the other hand, in my conversations with more educated Filipinos, what the leadership class wants is to somehow replicate a First World economy NOW, with little effort from them or the Philippines in general. Basically they are hoping to have outside designers, investors, and implementers come and do it all (after which the locals take the credit of course). They look down on such simple, arduous work as somehow beneath a Filipino (meaning their own sense of greatness), when the Filipino workers are often very happy for the opportunity. Quite a myopic view in my opinion that ignores the fact that even with these smaller factories, unskilled Filipinos are being actively trained into SKILLED Filipinos, a much greater human resource than they had started off in the province. Upskilling workers can then transition into bigger and better enterprises, eventually enabling local Philippine companies founded by graduates of earlier experience learned. A lot of experience is able to be used in adjacent areas, spreading out and being able to do new things one previously thought was not possible.
At this point the nearby SEA countries have taken a lot of the higher skilled manufacturing work that is flowing out of China, as they have a base workforce that has already mastered the basics. But there are basic level manufacturing work that is yet to flow out, and that other SEA nations might not want to do. Filipino leaders need to swallow their pride and own inflated sense of greatness, try to attract as many manufacturing jobs as possible (even the basic ones). Both to provide jobs to the urban and rural idle people, and to start building that base of skilled work.
The great thing about others having done stuff before is that there are examples of multiple ways of doing something, like how most math problems have multiple routes to the solution. Something that took the US a century to perfect, being the first to do it, took Japan 40 years, took South Korea 30 years, took China 20 years, and to use the Vietnam example it only took a little over a decade there. Too often I find Filipinos to overcomplicate things. There’s no harm in having a general idea of doing something, informed by examples elsewhere, then adjusting course as one starts taking steps forward.
Yes, how to get started is the problem no matter the enterprise. The Philippines has a shipbuilding core that I suspect could be leveraged up fast, and the US is going to use the Philippines to manufacture arms in Subic, so I suspect knowledge will be transferred in. These are top of mind ideas with no research. There are possibly other areas (verticality on food processing). I think the opportunities exist, the innovative drive and market-making do not.
The only Philippines shipbuilding industry I’m aware of was the former Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Philippines which built a couple of container ships, Austal Philippines which builds ferries, and a couple of builders of aluminum boats. Not to knock on the former HHIC, but that venture failed, and consisted mostly of Filipinos working under the direction of South Korean naval engineers. While Austal Philippines are Filipino workers working under Australian engineers.
How about this scenario to get Philippines shipbuilding going:
1.) Leverage knowledge in building small, mostly aluminum boats and scale up slightly
2.) Scaled up boats can explore switching to steel construction, which is more suitable for patrol boats, then offshore patrol boats
3.) Austal Philippines may be a ferry builder, but Austal is also a naval defense company. This relationship should be leveraged to start building small patrol vessels, then later small naval vessels like corvettes
4.) Government policy should direct the local partner to take on more responsibilities, including aspects of design and engineering, with overall goal of buying out the joint venture or starting a native company with the now upskilled Filipino engineers and ship builders
This path was almost exactly how South Korea went from building small commercial ships, to medium then large commercial ships. From there South Korea started building patrol vessels and corvettes. Now South Korea can build frigates, destroyers, and amphibious assault ships (aka small aircraft carriers). This was done in about South Korea did not attempt to build submarines until very recently, using German designs instead. I find it highly amusing that the Philippines decided to go ahead with building submarines with Hanwha when none of the previous knowledge has been built up yet… not a naval officer here, but hard to imagine what two small diesel-electric submarines can exactly do to protect Philippines sovereignty compared to investing in missiles and patrol vessels/aircraft.
In the area of food processing, definitely that’s an area too. Many areas are of interest, as you point out.
Beyond that though, it seems to me that having a national strategic plan to build roads, bridges, railroads on the major islands, cargo ports, mixed use ferries, mixed use international-cargo airports is needed to fit all the pieces together. Actually, infrastructure is the key that allows for industrialization.
You maybe correct that today landfill mining is not feasible, that is why I mentioned DOSt must be funded to pool those stem people who do not suck, there are a lot white they CAME from.
If not now then later and start small but do not stop in the middle of the game.
This goes for all Tatak Pinoy potentials
Covered here, are ports, semiconductors, ships , etc and more not yet mentioned
Most competent STEM grads figure out a way to get out. Is that not a problem? I shared once a story of a top DPWH civil engineer who was a reto to me back in the day. Aside from being super maldita which is a deal breaker, she was also completely incompetent yet thought she was some kind of genius. Well guess what, most of her DPWH “work” trips were conferences held at luxury resorts, paid by who or with what we can only speculate. She was one of the top DPWH civil engineers in the Visayas. She could not even pass the PMP accreditation, yet somehow was a manager. Well the Philippines is a place where students boast of being in their field “I’m an engineer, I’m a policeman, I’m a teacher, etc.” before they even graduate, a phenomenon I’ve never encountered in other countries. WYKYK.
I imagine to retain more talent the pay structure needs to be more appropriate as well as having enough jobs in that industry. I’ve talked to plenty of Filipinos and they are fine with taking a 20% or even 30% pay cut to be able to live and work in the Philippines closer to family and familiar culture rather than abroad.
So start with building out the foundations of an integrated industrial stack. Ports semiconductors, ships and all are nice, but if Filipinos don’t know how to do the basics, they end up just being labor who sets up shop in the Philippines to take advantage of that. Sure, being a naval welder or riveter, or being a silicon chip packaging technician is great, but it is not the same as starting to bring in the know-how to do things natively. Well, then again, many seem to think that Filipinos wholly built the (quite nice I might say) CCLEX, and sure Filipino laborer’s hands touched the steel, but if the know-how was gained, then go out and build other bridges upon the same general design. I can think of a dozen places what would be probably suitable for a CCLEX type bridge off the top of my head. That can’t and won’t happen at present, because the knowledge was never internalized.
https://alchetron.com/B-J-Habibie – I have often mentioned how Dr. Habibie developed industries in Indonesia:
it is actually quite clever, starting with yes, having foreign companies help, but making technology and skills transfer part of the deal.
I can imagine that many Indonesian navy ships still have German MTU turbines as that is something not everybody can manufacture (just like microprocessors) so the German side Habibie often worked with due to his studies in Germany and his early career over here still makes good money.
Filipinos even now by contrast remind me of how the Spanish colonial regime had the entire railway from Tutuban to Dagupan built by the English in 1892 and had the English run it, in fact even in revolutionary and First Republic times Englishmen continued to run the train line. Spanish senyorito mentality hardly different from that of Gulf sheikhs, let other people do the work. Even the Manila-Dagupan-HK underwater cable (1880) was entirely British built and operated.
Most Indonesian Navy ships are still foreign-built or foreign-designed, and Indonesia still has a bit of the Austronesian “chip on the shoulder” mentality that pushed them to acquire the former Italian carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi, a very old destroyer-sized light carrier that has questionable utility compared to let’s say a modern amphibious warfare ship of comparable size. There have also been odd decisions, like the class of Indonesian corvettes that serve basically as presidential yachts. The larger ships you mentioned that use MTU turbines are foreign-designed (and mostly foreign-built), but yes, only a handful of companies can build high-performance marine turbines, MTU of Germany being one. That said, Indonesia has for a while built quite a few smaller surface ships like offshore patrol vessels, patrol boats, and landing craft (important here too, for island nations in calamity response capacity too). I’d rather the Philippines start learning by building the smaller ships then instantly try to “jump up the ladder” to get what Filipino elites think of as prestige possessions, then fall all the way down the ladder on their asses and get discouraged for another try. Those smaller patrol craft are very much needed for maintaining a presence in Philippine territorial waters.
Well I’m sure you’ve seen my half-joke saying there might be a reason why OFWs find themselves so comfortable toiling away in the Middle East under oil sheikhdoms; the mentality is quite similar. The oil sheikhs sell a natural resource, petroleum and gas, and the Philippines sells a natural resource, human labor. Both have built “modern looking” cities for the elites, while the rabble live in a throwaway time.
Humorously, but sadly, the Peninsulares (Spanish born in Spain) themselves never really had a “senyorito mentality” in the Philippines sense. The Criollos (Spanish born in the New World) and later, Mestizos, of lower social class did start styling themselves as señores while their sons styled themselves as señoritos. The connotation of a señorito in the New World was of a dandy, a fop, a try-hard, who was more concerned with dressing in an exaggerated fashion and chasing skirts. These minor self-styled frontier nobles didn’t really have to work as they had the native population to do it for them on their haciendas and encomiendas. And of course, we also know that the hacienda and encomienda system, while modeled after Old World feudal hierarchy, the “lords” of each viceroyal grant were not really nobles even if they styled themselves as a sort of noble. That system was later brought to the Philippines due to the strong New Spain (Mexico) component in soldiers and colonial administrators. What started off as a system of backwater try-hards trying to approximate what they thought the noble right of society’s betters, was further misunderstood and exaggerated in the Philippines. Eventually Mexico grew out of the foppishness and expectation that others will do the work, so perhaps one day the Philippines will, too. Living 2 hours away from Mexico and visiting from time to time, I’m really amazed by how the Mexican economy and civil society has changed for the better in the last 30 years.
Like connectivity
https://www.bworldonline.com/top-stories/2025/11/06/710293/wave-of-telco-investments-seen-as-konektadong-pinoy-irr-finally-released/
Great and all, but this investment wave is still capital put up largely by foreign companies. Private companies do not do things for charitable reasons.
Btw fiber is not a very complicated technology compared to copper lines. A lot more simpler than copper, actually. The only point of care needed is fiber, being glass (sometimes plastic for shorter ranges) is fragile and needs to be buried as if it is broken a larger length needs to be repaired compared to copper cabling where only that portion needs to be fixed.
South Korea largely rolled out fiber on their own, years ago. Romania also. Okay if the argument that South Korea is a “rich” country (it was not quite as rich during the fiber rollout), Romania is still not really a rich country compared to Western European neighbors. I guess I will always be frustrated why the Philippines leaders always wait for some kind of benefactor to come help. Isn’t their job in government to provide strategic vision and direct the public monies towards that vision?
Nice conversation, Joey
Thanks again for your focus advices and everything else.
You experience sharing is rich Joey.
Your reading advice will be heeded I will go back to my librarian days and that was pre-AI (not in the strictest sense)
I see your comment about tech transfer and I agree,Joey
On topic.aside from the revamped procurement law I find this refreshing
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2134287/arta-ombudsman-to-ease-filing-of-cases
I can not post my future maritime Review article under review, but I could post my past articles but I think I have one here but first here is JP’s Mariculture Article.
https://joeam.com/2024/08/22/mariculture-in-the-west-phillippines-sea/
https://joeam.com/2024/08/01/maritime-domain-awareness-and-strategic-solutions-for-the-south-china-sea/
But the article in MR iam finishing dwelled on the question, would you fight for the WPS or our sea lines of communication.
Funny not funny, I was supposed to quote a retired Admiral about something I heard live in his presentation,but I used AI and it showed me hallucinated quotes, snippets and citations and then I showed it to the Admiral. AAAck I trusted chatgpt without verifying.
So now he asked me to rewrite everything straight from the heart and without any attribution to him.
https://www.dti.gov.ph/dti-archives/dti-news-archived/dti-seiac-unveils-5-year-workforce-development-plan found this: (1 Oct 2025, so we don’t know the follow up to this yet)
Tech transfer deals by BBM last Apec including from Hanwa and Samsung must push through.
Thank you for the timely article.
Apologies, it has been a very long time since I commented on this blog.
What is there to say? I fully agree with your article, heart and mind. Though, I think that missing in the article and in the comments is a crucial document that has just been released this week—the (long-delayed and much-anticipated) Tatak Pinoy Strategy.
I hope you and the commentators on this blog spend some time discussing this document, because it is frankly worth the hype.
The Tatak Pinoy Strategy (TPS) is, in its own words, “the country’s first national industrial strategy formulated pursuant to legislation.” It is the clearest sign as of yet that the Filipino bureaucracy has finally thoroughly shifted away from neoliberalism, towards the “pragmatic developmentalism” that you wrote of. I think that any discussion regarding Filipino industrialization and industrial policy should consider the TPS as the lodestar and benchmark.
Having read it, I can safely say that this perhaps this most underrated policy document in recent Philippine history—and if properly implemented, will genuinely shift the course of the nation. Frankly, it says all the right things. It is both ambitious and pragmatic. It aims high, but it firmly builds upon existing Filipino institutions and laws, learns from previous mistakes in Filipino industrial policy and explicitly acknowledges limitations in resources and capacity.
So what worries me is not the plan. What makes me very nervous right now is the TPS says all the right things, but the question really is—is there political will to see this strategy through? Hope, so near, is most painful. Now, the fact that the TPS is anchored on a law (The Tatak Pinoy Act) means that this is going to be permanent and transcend administrations in a way previous industrial policy was not—but still, the question of political will worries me.
What China and Vietnam had was not only the plan, but the will. Their leaders genuinely saw their plans for industrial development as vital—of the highest importance. As the commentator above, Mr. Nguyen, pointed out—an excellent point—that Vietnam and South Korea never thought themselves as developing countries, but saw themselves as future developed countries. There is a will to move forward, that needs to accompany the plan.
Here is a link of the Tatak Pinoy Strategy: https://web.facebook.com/share/p/1GPh5j5i2d/
Francis
Welcome back Francis thanks for that.
Convergence of Academe industry government and stakeholders to jump start industry and make our products competitive.
Irineo’s Semiconductor themed comment is Tatak Pinoy in motion.
Thanks Francis.
Good to hear from you again, Francis, and thanks for the brief on TPS. This is handled by DTI evidently. The Secretary is Ma. Cristina Aldeguer-Roque, a “technocrat”(?) it seems coming up from within DTI. My impression is that DTI is one of the more stable agencies in the Philippines, so there is promise here. Good news Thursday, or as we know it on the ground, the calm between the storms.
Posting classics.
https://joeam.com/2018/07/04/here-is-an-idea-build-a-philippine-military-industrial-simplex/
https://joeam.com/2013/08/31/the-bee-fleet-2/
Joey would agree, I guess
Plus here is one of mine.
https://joeam.com/2020/09/30/philippine-industrialization/
and another
https://joeam.com/2021/04/09/all-in-the-name-of-national-interest/
I have outlined many in this article, namely the ff
National Security
Our National Security Interest can be achieved by:
• Developing a dynamic, inclusive and sustainable economy;
• Ensuring maritime and airspace security;
• Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity; and
• Promoting human and ecological security
•
How the Philippines can achieve SSR (Security Sector Reform)
• Increasing Civilian Capacity for Defense Management
• Establishing an Active Constituency Supportive of Security Sector Reform
• Prudent Budget Preparation & Execution
• Supporting a Local Defense Industry
• Intelligent & Coherent Policy Development & Execution
• A New National Defense Act
Philippine Defense Reform
The PDR spanned through President Arroyo’s term to the end of Pres. Benigno S. Aquino’s term in June 2016.
The program’s key areas of reform were:
• Implementation of a policy-driven, multiyear defense planning system;
• Improve operational and training capacity;
• Improve logistics capacity;
• Develop effective personnel management systems;
• Plan, program, and execute a multiyear capability upgrade program for the AFP;
• Optimize the defense budget and improve management controls;
• Create a professional acquisition workforce and establish a centrally managed defense acquisition system;
• Increase the capability of the AFP to conduct civil-military operations; and,
• Develop accurate baseline data on critical AFP functional areas.
Several bills related to Maritime Safety and or Maritime Governance have been filed and refiled in congress such as:
• The creation of a National Transport Safety Board
• Maritime Code of the Philippines
• Creation of Admiralty Courts
• Maritime Administration Act
About the National Interest article chatgpt Critique
Here is a rewritten and updated version of the article from Joe America’s Blog titled “All in the Name of National Interest” (April 9, 2021) that takes into account the current (2025) situation in the Philippines, with refreshed context, facts and priorities. All in the Name of National Interest – Revised for 2025
In the name of national interest we write. We ask: If things can be done differently—for the Philippines—why are we not doing them? Monetary Sovereignty & Macroeconomic Strategy
In 2021 we asked: If we can convert foreign loans into pesos and effectively “print money,” why aren’t we doing it? At that time we pointed to the ideas of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and the question of whether the Philippine state could more fully assert its monetary sovereignty.
Fast-forward to 2025: The Philippines’ economy remains resilient, but growth is moderating. The International Monetary Fund projects growth at about 5.4 % for 2025 and 5.7 % for 2026, noting the importance of durable revenue mobilisation and sound public financial management. Meanwhile, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reports inflation easing and an output gap persisting, giving some policy space.
The point remains: Monetary sovereignty is not a licence to unbounded spending. What matters is how domestic debt, foreign-currency exposure, and external dependencies constrain our options. The Philippines still carries significant foreign-currency-denominated obligations and remains embedded in global trade networks. The implication: Any claim of unrestrained sovereign monetary action must be qualified by structural realities. Institutional Reform & Governance
In the 2021 version we pointed to institutional weaknesses: the lack of an Anti-Dynasty law, Freedom of Information still being an executive order, and weak land-use law. These remain issues in 2025, albeit with incremental progress in governance reforms.
One key development: The Philippine public shows overwhelming support for transparency in maritime sovereignty matters—94 % of respondents back the country’s transparency initiative in the West Philippine Sea. This signals that civil society and citizen awareness are increasingly part of the national interest terrain, not just elite policy circles.
Institutional reform remains a root challenge: budgeting, procurement, inter-agency coordination and political oversight. Without these, national interest remains a rhetorical device rather than operative reality. Security, Maritime Domain & Defence
Back in 2021 we emphasised the need for a credible deterrence capability, maritime law enforcement reform, unified command & control, and a coherent defence acquisition system.
Today those priorities are more urgent than ever. The Philippines’ maritime domain continues to face frequent coercive actions and intrusions. The Defence/Strategic community recognises three pillars: modernisation of the armed forces, formulation of a coherent strategic doctrine, and cultivation of diversified partnerships.
In 2024 the government passed the Philippine Maritime Zones Act (Republic Act 12064), delineating Philippine maritime zones consistent with UNCLOS and the 2016 Arbitration Award. This is a concrete assertion of sovereignty.
At the same time, anti-invasion drills in Northern Luzon and the South China Sea were reported in late 2025 pointing to a sharpened readiness posture.
In short: National interest now demands a blend of diplomacy, law-making, strategic capacity building, and public-transparency — not simply rhetoric of defence. Economy, Inclusive Growth & Regenerative Development
In 2021 we wrote about how if MMT “worked,” we might have universal health care, free education and universal basic income. While that remains aspirational, on the ground the Philippines is shifting: the 2024 economy grew about 5.6 % despite extreme weather and external headwinds. The Government is also pushing reforms in investment climate, digitalisation and infrastructure.
National interest must increasingly be defined in terms of regenerative development (beyond just “growth”). This means more resilient supply-chains, stronger human capital (especially women in tech & climate resilience), sustainable blue economy (marine resources), and local industrial capability (rather than perpetual import dependency). Sovereignty, External Dependencies & Monetary / Fiscal Balance
One recurring point in 2021: if we are to have full national interest, we must reduce mendicant dependency and build domestic industrial and defence capacity. In 2025 that remains true but more nuanced: the Philippines is integrating in global value chains, attracting foreign investment, and engaging multiple strategic partners (India, US, Australia, Japan) to diversify dependencies.
Monetary policy space is constrained by current account pressures, external debt management and trade-linkages. Thus sovereignty is not only about “printing money” but about the quality of economic architecture: how diversified the economy is, how deep domestic capital markets are, how resilient supply-chains are, and how credible institutions are. Conclusion – What Does “National Interest” Demand Now?
In 2025, “national interest” for the Philippines is no longer a slogan; it’s the intersection of economic resilience, maritime sovereignty, governance reform, inclusive development and strategic clarity. Writing, analysing and acting “in the name of national interest” means asking the persistent question: If we can do things differently, why are we not doing them?
If you like, I can produce a full updated article of similar length with sub-headings, deeper Philippine-specific case-studies and the latest data. Would you like me to do that?
Quite dated and world dynamics further delayed ASEAN integration mentioned in the article, butI see it as evolution and slowly but surely.
But many other issues raised are on the slowly but hopefully surely category like licenced manufacturing which addressed supposedly transfer of technology but we all know NDAs is the show stopper unless reverse engineering or corporate espionage prevails.
Some chatgpt analysis of my article. Bu default unless told otherwise chatgpt assumes Joe is the author.
Excellent question — the 2020 JoeAm article “Philippine Industrialization” was written at a time when the country was reeling from COVID-19 and still struggling to define its industrial identity. Comparing its insights with today’s (2025) data gives a clear view of what it got right, what it missed, and what evolved differently.
Here’s a detailed then-and-now evaluation: ⚙️ 1. The article’s key thesis
JoeAm’s 2020 piece argued that:
The Philippines has long neglected industrialization in favor of low-value service industries (BPO, retail, etc.).
The country’s failure to develop a strong manufacturing base makes it vulnerable and dependent.
Government must build a strategic, state-supported industrial policy, improve infrastructure, and cultivate domestic industries instead of relying on imports.
Industrialization is not anti-business — it’s essential to national security, jobs, and resilience.
✅ Where the article got it right 1. Industrial policy is indispensable — and has become mainstream
By 2023–2025, the Philippine Development Plan (PDP 2023-2028), the DTI’s Inclusive Innovation Industrial Strategy (i³S), and the Manufacturing Resurgence Program have all reaffirmed the need for industrial policy — exactly as JoeAm anticipated.
The government now explicitly speaks of industrial transformation, innovation ecosystems, and regional industrial clusters (CALABARZON, Cebu, Davao).
Even global trends (deglobalization, supply-chain resilience, friend-shoring) have made “strategic industrial policy” fashionable again — validating JoeAm’s warning that pure market forces cannot industrialize a nation.
2. Dependence on imports remains a national weakness
The trade deficit in manufactured goods has persisted. In 2024, the Philippines’ trade deficit hit over USD 6 billion monthly on average; imports of intermediate goods, oil, and capital goods still far exceed exports.
The country continues to rely heavily on electronics assembly (semiconductors) rather than end-to-end manufacturing — confirming JoeAm’s critique that the economy is “assembly-based,” not “industry-based.”
3. Industrialization as national security
The pandemic and later geopolitical tensions (South China Sea, energy insecurity, semiconductor supply shocks) have proven the article’s claim that industrial capacity is a strategic defense asset.
The Marcos administration’s “Bagong Pilipinas” rhetoric on self-reliance and local manufacturing echoes JoeAm’s argument that industrialization isn’t merely economic policy — it’s survival policy.
4. Infrastructure and logistics bottlenecks
JoeAm highlighted infrastructure as a structural barrier.
Even after “Build, Build, Build” and “Build Better More,” logistics costs still eat up 27–30 % of business expenses, much higher than regional peers (Thailand ~16 %, Vietnam ~20 %).
This continues to impede manufacturing competitiveness, proving that the article’s warning was spot-on.
⚖️ Where the article overstated or missed developments 1. Neglect of services wasn’t entirely negative
The article implied that the service-heavy economy (BPOs, finance, digital work) detracted from manufacturing.
But by 2025, the service sector became the anchor for digital industrialization — IT-BPM, fintech, and e-commerce have become enablers of industrial upgrading (e.g., smart logistics, automation, digital supply-chains).
Instead of being a “mistake,” services became a complementary strength — a hybrid model similar to India’s “services-led industrialization.”
2. Industrialization isn’t linear anymore
JoeAm’s vision leaned toward traditional, heavy-industry manufacturing (factories, machinery).
But in 2025, industrialization increasingly includes green industries (EVs, solar, wind, batteries, circular economy, logistics tech) and digital manufacturing (3D printing, AI, robotics).
The DTI’s Industrialization Roadmap now integrates ESG, green transition, and digitalization, which weren’t yet mainstream in 2020.
3. Underestimated the role of regional manufacturing
The article was Metro Manila-centric in its critique.
In 2025, regional industrial parks (Batangas, Cebu, Davao, Clark, Subic) are driving much of the manufacturing investment.
These regional growth nodes reflect the decentralization that the article didn’t fully anticipate.
4. Pessimism about government capacity was partly disproven
While bureaucratic inefficiency remains real, there has been improvement in industrial investment facilitation (e.g., Board of Investments’ streamlined approvals, CREATE Law tax incentives, and the National Innovation Council).
Investment approvals jumped 165 % in H1 2025 vs. 2024 — suggesting that governance, while imperfect, has become more responsive than the article allowed.
5. Global context changed the rules
The 2020 argument presumed globalization would continue as before.
Instead, geo-economic fragmentation (U.S.–China rivalry, reshoring, and friend-shoring) reshaped industrial geography.
The Philippines’ position as a “China+1” alternative and ASEAN manufacturing node gives it a chance JoeAm’s piece didn’t foresee — especially in semiconductors, EV components, and shipbuilding.
🔮 Summary Table: Then vs. Now Theme JoeAm 2020 View 2025 Reality Verdict Need for industrial policy Urgent and ignored Now central to PDP and DTI strategy ✅ Correct Services vs. industry Services crowd out industry Services now enable digital industry ⚖️ Partially right Import dependence Dangerous and persistent Still true ✅ Correct Infrastructure gap Major bottleneck Still a bottleneck ✅ Correct Governance capacity Ineffective Slowly improving ⚖️ Mixed Heavy industry focus Needed for sovereignty Shifted toward green/digital manufacturing ⚖️ Evolved Globalization context Assumed stable Now fragmented, new opportunities ⚖️ Updated reality 🧭 Overall Assessment
JoeAm’s 2020 industrialization essay aged remarkably well in its diagnosis — it foresaw the need for structural reform, industrial self-reliance, and policy direction.What it didn’t predict was the form of modern industrialization: green, digital, regionalized, and services-enabled.
In short:
Would you like me to craft an updated rewrite of that article — same style and tone as JoeAm’s, but revised for 2025 realities (industrial policies, green transition, friend-shoring, digital manufacturing, and ASEAN integration)?
Military Industrial Simplex instead of Miliary Industrial Complex.
Why over complicate when you can simplify ( not over simplify)
Regarding the Bee fleet present day applications: two words : Ukraine drones.
I try to get the Philippine applications what if of a foreign news saying that College is unnecessary.
Here’s an op-ed–style synthesis of the ideas we’ve developed — written in the same accessible, reflective, and policy-aware tone you’d find in publications like Rappler, Inquirer Opinion, or JoeAm’s blog.If Palantir Happened in the Philippines: Rethinking Education, Employability, and the Stigma of Short Courses
By [Your Name]
When U.S. tech giant Palantir announced it was hiring high school graduates through a four-month paid “Meritocracy Fellowship,” bypassing college altogether, it set off a cultural shockwave. The company’s message was clear: college is no longer a reliable training ground.
If such a model were launched in the Philippines, it would collide head-on with one of our most persistent myths — that a college diploma is the only passport to dignity and success.The Promise Behind the Idea
On paper, a Palantir-style fellowship could be exactly what the Philippines needs. Our K-12 reform was supposed to make high school graduates employable, yet a decade later, most employers still demand college degrees. A company-led fellowship that provides real training, mentorship, and certification could finally bridge the gap between education and employment.
In theory, this would give substance to the “college- or work-ready” promise that K-12 never quite delivered. Imagine a young Filipino completing senior high, entering a paid tech or logistics fellowship, and acquiring world-class skills in data analytics, software, or sustainable design — without taking on college debt or waiting four years to “qualify.”
For industries hungry for digital talent, it’s a pragmatic win. For students, it’s empowerment. And for the country, it could redefine employability in the age of automation.The Reality Check
But here’s the rub: the Philippines isn’t Silicon Valley. Our education system is still wired to reward diplomas, not competencies. Employers still filter applicants by college pedigree. Parents still equate “not going to college” with failure.
In this cultural landscape, short courses and technical programs are often dismissed or laughed at. Many still treat TESDA graduates as second-class citizens in the job market — even though some of them are more skilled than degree-holders. The social bias is so strong that when a student takes a short course, relatives whisper, “Sayang, di nag-college.”
This mindset makes any alternative pathway — no matter how innovative — an uphill climb. Without changing how society values skills, no fellowship or microcredential program will gain traction.The Deeper Problem: Narrowing Education
The reduction of general education (GE) subjects in college, following the K-12 transition, has already stripped higher education of much of its liberal grounding — philosophy, history, critical thinking. If corporations now replace colleges as primary trainers, we risk narrowing education even further.
Yes, companies can teach coding and analytics. But can they teach civic literacy, ethics, or the long view of nation-building? Education is more than job readiness; it’s about shaping citizens, not just employees.What Could Work
If a Palantir-like program were to work in the Philippines, it would need a public-private partnership model — with DepEd, TESDA, and CHED ensuring standards, ethics, and inclusivity.
It must:
That’s how we make alternative learning legitimate — not as corporate charity, but as national strategy.From Diploma Obsession to Skills Revolution
The future of work won’t wait for us to outgrow our degree obsession. AI, automation, and green industry shifts demand skills that universities are too slow to adapt to. The question is no longer “College or no college?” but “Can you do the work?”
The Philippines needs to normalize the idea that a 19-year-old with strong data skills and TESDA certification can be just as valuable as a 24-year-old with a diploma but little hands-on experience.
We need to celebrate skill, not just schooling — and build a system where short courses, corporate fellowships, and microcredentials aren’t laughed at but trusted, portable, and respected.The Bottom Line
If Palantir happened here, it could expose the cracks we’ve ignored for years: a mismatch between what schools teach and what industries need, and a social hierarchy that still worships diplomas over ability.
Done right, such programs could spark a quiet revolution in how Filipinos define success. Done wrong, they could deepen inequality and turn education into a corporate playground.
But either way, the conversation is overdue. The future of education in the Philippines will depend not on how many graduates we produce — but on how many citizens we truly prepare for the world that’s already here.
Would you like me to make this version fit a newspaper or blog format (around 800 words with a sharper headline and standfirst), or turn it into a policy op-ed (with explicit links to CHED, TESDA, PDP 2023–2028, and SDGs for a think-tank publication)?
I view college as a time to expand one’s viewpoints and ways of thinking. Famously this allows for the American skill of “out of the box thinking.” So even liberal arts are useful skills for life. The only area where I think focused study is needed are in STEM fields, as that is a very specific knowledge area which requires focus. American colleges have gotten a bit out of hand in the pursuit of tuition-paying students and started offering useless degrees like “Marxist cultural theory” or “interpretive art” that have no transferrable skills. Well, those students pursuing such degrees in American colleges are probably from rich families where it doesn’t matter what they studied. In the Philippines an investment into a college education is just as important, if not more. I find it shocking how monetized a college degree has become in the Philippines, even more extreme than what exists in the US. For example, a medtech should not be a 4-year bachelors degree; medtech is a 3-month vocational certification in the US as it is in the UK, and Irineo can speak to how it is probably similar in Germany.
The problem in the Philippines is not really the quality of education (though that is somewhat a problem as well for most people). The problem really is there are not enough jobs to go around, thus allowing employers to demand higher degrees. Like the low level Globe technician I mentioned about who actually had a degree in software engineering. The solution has always been to create more jobs at the lower end.
Nevertheless, I don’t really consider Palantir a good indicator of anything. That company is riding high off of US government contracts and subsidies, and thus can do weird things. Also certain STEM fields like entry level IT hardly require a college degree if the person is motivated enough. I have liberal arts degrees and I am in IT. My guess is more likely than not, after Trump is gone, Palantir will be reigned in very tightly because of their enthusiastic assistance to the authoritarian project.
Thanks again Joey.
I ponder the value of college for my son and come down on the side of “personal enrichment” as the takeaway, just as I’d always spend money to travel even if it had no explicit monetary payback. As for weird degrees, maybe that’s the same. And as for monetary payback, Palantir’s program seems like a high ROI on one’s educational investment programmed for livelihood rather than enrichment. I hope it helps people, versus, say, a college loan that proved good at generating enrichment but the ROI failed to support the investment.
Unless your son is planning to go into a STEM field like engineering, computer science, nursing, medicine, etc. college should probably be more of an exercise of personal enrichment and building networks during a formative time in a young person’s life. Transferrable skills that enable success in multiple fields regardless of what life throws at someone are much more important than specific skills in niches that constrain possibility. Even sending your son to the US to let’s say, the University of California may be life transforming as he would be able to take part in the democracy movement that is going on right now, just like the ones you took part in as a young person decades ago.
Personally I would stay away from less practical degrees, especially niche ones. For example I’ve always had a big interest in classical art and historical archaeology; which are not quite useless degrees as the study of Marxist cultural theory, but there also needs a recognizance of the practicality. Art historians and historical archeologists don’t really earn that much money, and I wasn’t willing to make that trade off.
As for the Palantir program, beyond the hype it’s just another example of a computer programing boot camp program. Not anything new by any means as that has been the industry hype for 20 years already. Thiel isn’t really an imaginative person, despite his aura of genius intellect (Musk is another example of someone with an ill-deserved genius aura). Perhaps in the last two decades computer programmers became more commoditized as focus was less on the quality of computer code, but the speed by which code is outputted, and thus a formal study of computer science might be less necessary. Anyway computer programming has always been more of a hands-on field where one learns mostly on-the-job as an intern rather than studied theory in college. But that also means that in today’s paradigm computer programmers are the second most disposable corporate resource aside from quality assurance technicians. Database engineers remain the most secure corporate role, lasting even beyond people like me (project managers), if the company goes sideways, as someone who knows the data needs to be there when the parts of the company get liquidated.
Thanks for the perspectives. He is still young and fluid but leaning toward finance and economics in Australia. Or he could stay in the Philippines, it’s up to him. I just make sure he understands the pros and cons of his choices. He’s pretty good at carving them up. He’ll get enriched whatever he decides. I would be surprised if he picked a US school. The US is burning through its reputation in spectacular fashion.
Be xcellent in what you are good at. (Positively of course)
Buy Smart and Think Smart
( Not grocery shopping eg defense and security)
OT Quezon movie review by MLQ3: https://fb.watch/DdOkxsE_Kk/
https://www.quezon.ph/2025/11/06/the-long-view-a-reflection-on-perception/ and a long view follow-up on that review as well, quoting some passages:
I have been waiting for this, you posting what MLQ3 had to say
looks to me mlq3 got blindsided by quezon the movie as many in the quezon clans felt, historian pa naman si mlq3.
methink, quezon the movie is a temu movie. temu being the giant chinese online platform that mainly sell knockoffs so cheap that the real manufacturers who first come up with the products were blindsided. their products were stolen under their noses and mass produced by the chinese via slave labor, and because knockoffs were sold very cheaply, the original manufacturers lost business and did not get return for their investment.
so if custodians or stakeholders ni quezon like his family today are shortchanged by this quasi movie, it is only fair that they hit back. as many of those manufacturers shortchanged by temu are hitting back and demanded acknowledgement of their intellectual property, and for temu to stop copying their products . fat chance of china conforming with that.
as for the filmmakers of quezon the movie, they ought to give credit to the quezon family and thank them for the memory. but if they rather be pirates and ignore the quezon family at the matinee, the next family to have their esteemed dead relative given the same temu movie treatment, better be warned.
On topic: https://x.com/kikopangilinan/status/1986726782393807047
the Tweet is about how Sen. Kiko is working with the administration on food security and supporting agriculture. Many countries don’t work the liberal way in those matters, not Japan, not South Korea and especially not the EU.
Not updated on the details of what Senator Kiko Pangilinan is working on in his chosen agriculture focus, but it does seem to be good.
Ah yes i have not covered agriculture explicitly here,i only zoomed in on the rotting fruits and vegetables because of the flooding of imports. my future articles deal with the relocation of the dislocated and the integrated archipelago. Somehow implied there though not mentioned is the dislocated farmer because his land lord sold his land to a developer, or the aging farmer because he ingrained in his children not to pursue farming for many reasons and go to the city. Now the city went to them.
“Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan has renewed his call to revitalize the agricultural sector by actively engaging the country’s youth, emphasizing the critical role of young Filipinos in securing the nation’s food future and driving innovation in farming.
A long-time advocate for agricultural development and food security, the senator highlighted the urgent need to reverse the aging demographic of Filipino farmers and make agriculture a viable, attractive career path for the younger generation.
He shared that he has always grappled with how to entice the Filipino youth to farming, especially because the average age of Filipino farmers is now between 56 and 67.
“Some people would say, ‘How do you make farming sexy? So, that the new generation of Filipinos will consider taking a career’,” he said during an interpellation by Senator Loren Legarda of his privilege speech earlier this week. “Ultimately, I think, it’s about income. Why will a farmer–the youth of today–choose agriculture and farming, when you’re actually asking him or her to take a vow of poverty?”
Pangilinan, the chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food, and Agrarian Reform, lamented that young Filipinos are no longer interested in taking up agricultural courses even if scholarships are available.
“Totoo po iyon, Mr. President,” he told Senator Vicente Sotto III who inquired about the lack of enrollees in his scholarship programs for agriculture and farming courses.
“In some areas, there are no takers despite the fact that there are scholarships. Kahit na libre na ang tuition at may mga scholarships pa for books and allowances and accommodations or lodging ay very few takers, Mr. President,” he added.
The senator said the spirit of the Sagip Saka Act, whose long title is Farmers and Fisherfolk Enterprise Development Program, aims to address this challenge as the law believes moving away from subsistence farming and towards farm enterprise development is the way to go.
Authored by Pangilinan, the Sagip Saka Act was passed in 2019 and allows national government agencies and local government units to buy food directly from farmers and fisherfolk without public bidding.
He explained how the law could increase farmers’ incomes and entice young Filipinos to enter agricultural entrepreneurship.
Pangilinan cited as an example the move of some 13 LGUs to buy rice and other agricultural products from the Camarines Sur Multipurpose Cooperative during the Covid-19 lockdown. It increased the cooperative’s income from P7 million in 2019 to P62 million by the end of 2020.
“And I would stress, therefore, if a farm enterprise, a cooperative, is already selling tens of millions of pesos worth of agricultural products monthly–then that will be an incentive for our young Filipino farmers to go into farm enterprise management and development,” he said.
The senator also added that similar with Thailand, Vietnam, and China, the government should use increasing income as the benchmark of its interventions in the agriculture sector. He pointed out that in China, the average income of farmers in 1979 was 160 yuan but they were able to increase this to over 6,000 yuan a month today.
“Because precisely, they see that unless farming gives you a return in terms of incomes, why should they go farming? So, very clear that unless you benchmark incomes as an indicator of a successful intervention in agriculture, then you will not be able to entice people to go into farming,” he stressed.””
Intervention or subsidies. Before I always said that we have no money for subsidies and Micha rightfully rebuked me numerous times. If we have money it is because of debtsItold her, then she made me repeat greed is good este debt is good iby saying repeat after me…
But how will they addressthe low turnout of enrollees in Agriculture courses. Scholarships can solve our dearth of naval Architecture unlike what happenned to Agriculture, because there is money in shipbuilding, and we do not have decaying ships because of flood of imports unlike food.
they decay because of age and or neglect.
JP hadinteresting inputs on agriculture. Wish she were around.
Joey and me had some discussions on agriculture as well, hoping he can pitch in. As my time is limited nowadays, I am happy for ChatGPT being able to research and summarize, even if it must always be taken with a grain of salt:
1) ChatGPT summary of Sen Kiko Pangilinan’s work
2) ChatGPT summary of how EU measures and BayWa services help Bavarian farmers near Munich stay sustainable, as they have the same pressures as everywhere
3) ChatGPT summary of how some farmers became small or (rarer) mid-sized housing developers after WW2 in Greater Munich area
One could derive several things from this comparison, that Sen Kiko’s measures are already good as a first step, but maybe more should be done, some of the recent stuff like Sagip Saka and the agri EOs remind me of EU CAP and Japanese agricultural subsidies. They are probably better than keeping prices artificially high, as smuggling will find a way if that is the case. Below video of how meat smuggling is rampant at the French-Swiss border shows how that can happen.
From the Munich postwar examples, one can see how important access to rural banking is, as well as basic literacy for everyone. Of course social hierarchies in the Philippines probably make it harder for a farmer to just go talk to a construction firm or architects you need to build housing on your land, or the lawyers and tax accountant you need to create and run a small company. Bavaria had more of a social divide in the 19th century and even back in the 1920s. Of course it would be worth looking at the Pillar II rural development initiatives mentioned in the 2nd summary, or the services Baywa offers which I have often cited here – basically they fund seedlings, rent out machines, provide market access (even grains storage, one can see Baywa grain silos near many Bavarian train stations) which in the Philippines it seems are lacking or are done by unscrupulous middlemen who make huge money and leave farmers barely at survival level. Farmer’s sons here often get a BMW when they turn 18.
Thanks for the chargpt summary of his bills before that was my sort of force here abd thst was google the bills via Google.
I learned another chat gpt lesson on hallucination sometimes it is the users fault of giving too many leaading questions sometimes out of focus like what I wrongfully did one too man times.
yes we should know when too take things with a grain of salt. If you take more you will be serious (here I go again)
https://joeam.com/2020/09/28/what-now-philippine-agriculture-food-security-or-rice-self-sufficiency/
Chatgpt Hits and misses analysis.
Here is a Hits & Misses analysis of the article “What now Philippine Agriculture: Food security or rice self‑sufficiency?” (Sept 28 2020) by Karl Garcia on the website of The Society of Honor. I break down what I believe are its strengths (“Hits”) and weaknesses / gaps (“Misses”) — useful for your white‑paper work on Philippine agriculture & development. ✅ Hits
Important framing: food security vs rice self‑sufficiencyThe article raises a key question: should the policy focus be on achieving 100 % rice self‑sufficiency, or a broader concept of food security (diverse crops, resilience, supply chains)? (The Society of Honor by Joe America)‑ This is a very helpful framing for your paper, because many policy documents (including the PDP) emphasize rice, but the broader sustainable/food‑system view is often weaker.‑ It aligns with your interest in inclusive industrialisation/regenerative development: broadening beyond a single staple.
Identification of multiple issuesThe article lists several current issues:
over‑importation, smuggling, hoarding of rice; (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
land conversion (farm land → mixed use) because indebted farmers sell land; (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
ageing farmers, lack of knowledge and finance for farmers; (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
food vs fuel / forest use trade‑offs; overfishing/illegal fishing in fishery sector. (The Society of Honor by Joe America)These are credible and relevant issues, aligned with your areas (governance, sustainability, maritime/seafood, land use).
Proposed solutions / policy suggestionsThe piece suggests concrete steps:
A national roadmap for agriculture (with DBM involvement) (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
Passage of a comprehensive National Land Use Act (NLUA) to protect prime agricultural lands. (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
Diversify land use: shift some land from rice to coconut/fruit/corn/coffee/abaca or seaweed as alternative high‑value crops. (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
Strengthen seaweed farming, address diseases, coastal resources. (The Society of Honor by Joe America)These suggestions tie in well with regenerative agriculture and inclusive development (especially your interest in non‑traditional crops, diversification).
Highlighting neglected sectors / opportunitiesThe article emphasises sectors where the Philippines has relative strength: fruit production (pineapples, bananas) in Mindanao; seaweed farming; corn; coconut. (The Society of Honor by Joe America)This is helpful both for your white paper (you aim to broaden regenerative development beyond agriculture) and for the Philippines case‑study (looking at opportunities beyond rice).
Linking agriculture with land/forest/fisheries/marine domainsThe article acknowledges that agriculture isn’t just land‑based; it connects to forestry (deforestation, land conversion), fisheries (illegal fishing, seaweed), and marine domain (West Philippine Sea). For example: “Before the Chinese aggression … we could fish freely …” (The Society of Honor by Joe America)This aligns very well with your interest in maritime domain and ecosystem restoration.
⚠️ Misses / Gaps
While the article is strong in framing and raising issues, there are several key gaps — some that you’ll want to address in your white paper.
Data depth and recent statistics
The article uses some older figures (2015 for rice sufficiency percent, production volumes). (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
It doesn’t provide detailed time‑series (e.g., changes over time in farm size, productivity, incomes).
For your paper, you’ll need up‑to‑date data (2020‑2025) and more comprehensive datasets (farm incomes, land‑use change, climate impacts, etc).
The article doesn’t quantify costs or benefits of proposed shifts (rice → other crops) or land conversions; no cost‑benefit analysis.
Mechanisms and institutional detail
Some of the root causes are cited (land conversion, indebted farmers, ageing farmers) but the institutional causes (policy incentives, regulation failures, budget flows) are not fully unpacked.
For example, the article mentions the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) “was conceptualised … He lamented on its implementation.” (The Society of Honor by Joe America) But it does not deeply explore why implementation failed (budget, monitoring, extension, etc).
Similarly the piece mentions the Rice Tariffication Law, land use regulation but stops at high level. For your white paper (which has governance, monetary sovereignty, etc) you may want deeper institutional analysis: e.g., how budget flows, how local vs national government roles interplay, how public‑private partnerships or sovereign financing could work.
Integration with climate change / adaptation / resilience
The article mentions climate change, deforestation, dry/irrigation issues, overfishing but these references are relatively brief. E.g., “Climate change made worse by deforestation and conversion …” (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
However, it doesn’t elaborate on how climate resilience could be built into agriculture (e.g., crop diversification, agroforestry, regenerative practices, water management, digitalization), which ties into your interest in regenerative development.
For a forward‑looking white paper, you may want to incorporate emerging tech (AI, precision agriculture, remote sensing), ecosystem restoration, and gender dimensions — the article doesn’t deal much with that.
Gender, inclusivity, value‑chain transformation
The article does not explicitly engage with gender inequality or women’s role in agriculture (which you are interested in).
It also doesn’t delve into value‑chains (beyond crop production) or innovation (e.g., high‑value processing, agritech, bio‑economy) — though it hints at value‑added (abaca for PPEs) (The Society of Honor by Joe America)
For your white paper’s emphasis on inclusive industrialisation, you may want deeper treatment of how smallholder farmers (especially women) could integrate into higher‑value chains, agro‑industrial linkages, and export markets.
Trade‑offs and system interconnectivity
While the article mentions “food vs fuel”, “food vs forest” trade‑offs, it doesn’t explore them very deeply in a systems sense (e.g., land use competition, ecosystem services, biodiversity, water, coastal/marine links) or quantify them.
For example: if land moves from rice to corn or coffee, what is the impact on food security, rural livelihoods, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, exports? The article suggests but doesn’t quantify.
In your white paper, a systems‑analysis approach (with cost‑benefit, scenario modelling) would strengthen this type of discussion.
Policy roadmap / financing / implementation plan
The article suggests a roadmap, NLUA, land‑protection, diversification, etc. But it doesn’t lay out a detailed implementation plan — how to finance, which actors lead, timelines, metrics, monitoring & evaluation.
Given your interest in innovative financing (sovereign wealth funds, public‑private partnerships), this is a gap: the article does not engage with how financing and governance innovation could drive the transformation.
Also, there is little mention of monitoring, data systems, extension services, digital transformation, or how to measure progress systematically.
🔍 Implications for Your White Paper
Given your aim (white paper on development/regenerative development, with a Philippines case‑study, integrating SDGs, governance, inclusive industrialisation, etc), here’s how you might use the article’s strengths and compensate for its gaps:
Use the framing: Adopt the question of rice self‑sufficiency vs broader food security. Use that as a pivot in your Philippine section (“Navigating Development Challenges & Opportunities”) — ask: does pursuing 100 % rice self‑sufficiency make sense in the current reality?
Build deeper institutional and governance analysis: Use the article’s points but dig further: how is the institutional architecture (national DA, LGUs, local cooperatives, agribusiness, financing) actually working (or failing)?
Expand data: Update statistics (2020‑2025), include farm size, yields, crop diversification, land‑use conversion rates, climate vulnerability indicators, and show trends.
Embed climate/resilience/regenerative lens: Use the mention of deforestation, land conversion and fisheries as a springboard into regenerative agriculture, ecosystem restoration (e.g., agroforestry, mangrove/seaweed linkages), and adaptation.
Highlight gender/inclusion/value‑chains: Expand on how women farmers/agripreneurs can be integrated in diversification, bio‑economy, seaweed value chains, non‑rice crops, and technology adoption.
Financing & implementation roadmap: Given the gap in the article, you can craft your own detailed implementation plan: e.g., public‑private‑philanthropy financing, sovereign wealth fund for agricultural transformation, agribusiness partnerships, digital infrastructure/extension, metrics & M&E.
Trade‑offs/system view: Use the article’s identification of trade‑offs (food vs forest, food vs fuel, land conversion) but deepen: model or at least articulate scenarios of how shifts (e.g., less rice, more high‑value crops, more coastal aquaculture) affect multiple SDGs (e.g., SDG 2 Zero Hunger, SDG 12 Responsible Consumption & Production, SDG 15 Life on Land, SDG 14 Life Below Water).
Highlight success cases / other countries: Use the article’s mention of export crops (pineapple, banana, seaweed) but gather case‑studies from other countries (Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia) and link to your industrialisation/green technology agenda.
📝 Suggested Structure for Incorporation
In your white paper (Philippines section) you might use a sub‑section titled something like: “Rice self‑sufficiency vs food system resilience: A balancing act”. In that you can:
Summarise the article’s key argument (framing) as part of the literature review.
Use a table: Hits (what the article does well) vs Gaps (what remains to be addressed) — essentially what I’ve done above.
Then proceed to extend:
Provide updated data (2020‑25) on rice imports/production, food diversification, farm size, value‑added crops, land‑use conversion.
Analyse the governance/finance/institutional architecture (what the article touches on lightly).
Link to your regenerative development agenda: show how moving beyond rice opens opportunities for industrialised agribusiness, value‑adding, eco‑agriculture, marine/aquatic farming, coastal resilience, gender equity, climate adaptation.
Develop policy/financing roadmap: leveraging sovereign wealth funds, public‑private‑partnerships, multilateral financing, extension & digitalisation.
Provide scenario analysis: e.g., “business as usual” vs “diversified resilient food‑system” vs “export‑led high‑value agribiz” and show trade‑offs (land, forest, fisheries, employment, incomes).
Provide recommendations: based on article’s suggestions + your deeper analysis (e.g., protect prime agri land through NLUA + local zoning + agribusiness partnerships; strengthen seaweed/aquaculture + coastal communities; target women entrepreneurs in agri‑tech etc).
If you like, I can extract from the article all the issue‑lists, proposed solutions and citations into a table for your reference (so you can plug them into your white paper). Would you like me to do that?
in 2024, a sizeable chunk of DA’s budget went to agri research. may we know the outcome of those research and how it had help our food security? it is surprising that DA’s 2026 budget is mum on agri research.
cynthia villar’s rice tariffication law has dealth many farmers a low blow and discouraged them from farming, they cannot compete with cheap rice imports. luckily, president marcos has suspended rice importation until the end of this year, then it will be renegotiated.
with constant flooding and storms, it is a wonder we have still have agri products coming to market. though research should now have already presented us with crops with shorter propagative life that mature not in months but in weeks, and can be harvested earlier than the norm, preferably before storms strike.
Thanks again kb for the valuable inputs
I will write an updated version and line it up.
Satellite internet here has been intermittent in certain areas.
Well, the two major limiting factors for Philippines agriculture are the average farm size and the lack of infrastructure to get agriculture product to market. The former is constrained by romanticized land reform that was written into the 1987 Constitution and by statute under CARL. The latter is a direct failure of government at all levels from national to provincial to local to take public initiative on infrastructure; instead preferring a private model when there are too little private profit incentives. Sen. Kiko’s proposal seems interesting but it is still trying to work around the edges of the constraints, and I’m not sure how successful even the best proposal can be when the average farm is about 1 hectare in size. The problems the Philippines face in agriculture are related to scale of operation, access to capital, and ability to get often perishable products to market in time.
Irineo, the German agricultural policy examples you shared here of what was done immediately after WWII were initially part of the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan’s initiatives in the area of farming used what the US did starting in the late 19th century as a template, which was to develop scale of operation, access to farm capital in order to mechanize, while the infrastructure portion was another part of the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan’s agriculture elements also introduced farm subsidies to Europe, where have long been part of the American farm policy since the Great Depression in the 1930s, and enables farmers to survive when crops fail or there is market shock.
Today in the West we are so far removed from these successes that most have forgotten the template originated in the US. Industrial scale corporate farming is the common practice in the US, especially after consolidation and development of farm monopolies that gobbled up water rights and farm subsidies meant for family farms, but that did not start until the 1970s, and wasn’t accelerated until the 1990s. Still “recent” history within perspective when there are plenty of living Americans that are not so old who grew up on family farms before those farms were sold to corporate operators.
So the Philippines needs a similar plan for:
1.) Enable and encourage farm consolidation, but not to the point of monopoly development. Farms that are 1 hectare or less are just too small to support a single family and too small to have efficiency of scale. Possible problems are the provisions in the 1987 Constitution and CARL, and also the romanticization of an idealized Filipino peasant-farmer.
2.) Have a government policy for providing very low interest farm loans for seed, feed, fertilizer, mechanized equipment. The existing programs provide for free or mostly free feed and fertilizer, which don’t encourage enterprising mentality. It is a bit silly that the Philippines boasts about “modern cities” yet its farmers mostly work by hand, carabao/tamaraw, with very few mechanized pieces.
3.) The infrastructure tie-in is important not only to Philippines agriculture but to overall economic activity. If farmers can’t get their produce to even the provincial center without it wilting or spoiling, how would the Philippines eventually work up to exporting farm product that aren’t dried or preserved? To use Cebu as an example, I’ve ridden in the back of panel vans and box trucks carrying vegetables from southern Cebu or northern Cebu to Cebu City, and due to not having refrigerated compartments, by the time the produce got to the city it was of low quality. Cebu island isn’t even that big.
P.S. West Germany received approx. $1.4 billion in Marshall Plan aid from 1948-1952, while the Philippines under a similar (but bilateral) plan for Pacific states received approx. $803 million from 1946-1962. In addition, Japan paid $550 million in war reparations in 1956-1976. In 1950 the population of West Germany was 51 million, while the Philippines stood at 19 million. Even without adding the reparations paid by Japan, and without doing any exact math, or adjusting for minor dollar inflation within the decade, the Philippines received 154% per capita more aid than West Germany to rebuild during a similar time period. The aid programs and plans were quite similar since Marshall (and the 1946 Philippine Rehabilitation Act) were both based on US experience in farm mechanization and infrastructure building. One can only wonder where did all that money go, and what could have been if that money had been used more wisely like what West Germany, Japan and South Korea did. If I recall during a argument with a UP graduate years ago, he was more fixated on that individual Filipinos who could not prove the requirements for individual aid, or put in fraudulent claims, did not get their $500 check from Uncle Sam, thus proving according to him that the US screwed over the Philippines. Myopic thinking for sure…
This video of a Magsaysay speech that my algorithm gave me recently shows how old that ideal is:
Though it is true that many larger estates in the Philippines came about through dubious circumstances, sometimes even landgrabbing, especially in the 19th century, there probably were simply also many smallholders who weren’t economically efficient, but it was politically expedient to romanticize the small farmers especially for Magsaysay who had to do something against the Hukbalahap rebellion. In Quezon’s era there had been the Sakdals, more cultic groups, while the Huk were ideologized. Quezon went against the Sakdals with the Philippine Constabulary. In Spanish times there had been tulisanes, usually peasants rendered landless by the expansion of plantations, and some became part of the Katipunan. Quezon’s brother and father were killed by bandits pretending to be Katipunan BTW.
We know BTW what the 1987 Constitution and CARL led to, smallholders often selling off their land to developers as they could not work efficiently, with the suburbanization of most of the Luzon Central Plain, with even Nueva Ecija threatened as of now, as the hard to reverse end result.
agree.
“What have the Romans ever done for us” by Monty Python, academic version, unfortunately part of a lot of Filipino mainstream thinking.
I just asked ChatGPT for a summary of Land reform attempts from 1946 until now:
Just a comment on Marcosian land reform: it did target his sugar baron political enemies and my impression is it hurt medium sized plantation owners on Negros the most, have seen stories of families that went to the USA as they went broke, not just due to land reform but also due to the sugar market breaking down.
There is an unfortunate polemicization of terms like “oligarch” and “haciendero” dating back to the Marcos Sr. era, almost as bad as the Soviet “kulak” term.
BTW Ninotchka Rosca who is clearly Far Left (though I give leftist authors some leeway as authors have strong empathy, unlike many political actors) found out only recently when she became sympathetic to the Ukraine that she had been given a wrong idea of what “kulaks” are in her 1970s activist youth. Though she is an exception as she was shaped a lot by her New York exile, she is back to NYC, her experiment of returning to PH kinda failed.
Anyhow, a lot of discussion in the Philippines is still obscured by polemics and cliches similar to those just mentioned. And of course the hate for feudalism dressed as capitalism turned into demonization of capitalism, which many have barely understood.
As always, the Philippines is often too caught up in the past and false pictures of it to properly and sensibly shape its future.
On Joey’s concern of land size.
Another caveat is inheritance laws and unwritten family agreements shrinks the parcel of land further so sometimes the heirs collectively agree and even convincing others to sell to developers.The developers know these caveats aparrently.It takes a village to give in.
Aside from that which you mentioned, generally the parcel is too small to begin with. Even if the family did know how to farm, it would only be subsistence farming. They don’t really need to farm because pressuring one family member (usually a girl) to go overseas for work is more profitable than farming. Even then, they are still quite poor.
The only way small parcels can really work if the Constitution is not amended is if a bunch of parcel owners collectivize and pool their land (which they still individually own) into a collective farm that is now big enough to efficiently use mechanized investments such as mini-tractors and mini-combines. My friend the agriculturalist was previously working on some farming collective projects of this nature, but none of their project participants really wanted to work together in a collective, though they wanted the “free stuff” like seeds and fertilizer. My ex’s half-brother on the other hand, who stopped studies in elementary school, created his own collective-ish farm in Cotabato, though when he tried to persuade his farmer neighbors to join the project they did not want to. They simply leased their land to the half-brother and work on the land as laborers in return for a small share of the profit.
Speaking of cha-cha, I always thought the previous cha-cha initiatives were misguided proposals that fundamentally won’t fix anything. What does need to be fixed is more government intervention and guidance.
Landgrabbing might be history in Luzon, but it is still a thing in Mindanao. My agriculturalist friend who does not have any brothers and whose father had died long ago is dealing with more powerful neighbors who are trying to claim her mother’s land in Soccsksargen even though they are still occupying it. Elsewhere I’ve personally heard stories of difficulty of extended family who try to commandeer land, or of municipalities that dubiously use eminent domain to “buy” land “at a fair price” dispossess small landowners for the purpose of retail development. Been to plenty of municipalities away from the cities where the people live in poverty, yet the mayor who descended from the local datu somehow has a huge mansion when his official businesses are some small stores at the sentro. The local official is earning money by facilitating land sales, mineral rights and logging rights to others so I’m told.
I also thought more about the point of argument by the UP guy that the Filipino was “screwed” out of the $500 war damages payment and how it relates to doling out small parcels of land as part of “land reform.” Just like a one-off war damages payment, the one-off redistributed parcel has zero plan as to how it would make that Filipino family’s life better for the future. I’ve seen countless families in non-Luzon provinces that received parcels under CARP, yet did nothing with the land because they 1.) don’t have the resources to effectively farm 2.) don’t know how to manage a farm as they were a peasant-farmer previously 3.) can’t access markets 4.) don’t have guidance from either experienced farmers or the government how to farm 5.) all the above. As a result many redistributed parcels lie fallow and unworked, occupied only by the shacks the families live in. Often these families manage to produce one or a few relatives that become OFWs who then are forced to support the entire family which do not have regular work. When they do have work usually it’s as a laborer on another, more prosperous, farmer’s land nearby. At times they rent their parcel to the more prosperous farmer, like my ex’s half-brother in Cotabato. Outside of that they depend on ayuda, which makes them a captured electorate to those more powerful. These are commonplace realities that I guess most Filipinos and nearly no foreigners will ever see, but are evident if one starts looking.
Even in places like Tarlac and Nueva Ecija, where the peasant-farmers there DO know how to farm the land as they had worked on former haciendas for generations (and encomiendas and repartimientos before that), parcels are too small and the family would earn more to put towards their futures by selling to land speculators to be developed. It is a national security issue when the most proven and productive lands are paved over for development with no plan or agriculture policy. I suppose the assumption was always that when Luzon gets developed, new agricultural land would be opened up in other islands, especially Mindanao, but in practice it doesn’t work since the families who got those parcels were originally settlers who didn’t know how to farm in the first place and don’t have government guidance to learn. So the land stays unused with people living on the land in shacks comparable to the old barong-barongs of Tondo and the riverbanks of Marikina (often worse).
As with many things in the Philippines as far as government intervention goes, stuff there happens on a laissez-faire basis. Let’s demand $500 from the Americans when it was the Japanese who invaded, because that will fix everything. Let’s get a cheap leased parcel under Macapagal’s Agricultural Land Reform Code, because that would fix everything. Let’s get a redistributed parcel of land under CARP, because that would fix everything. Let’s push the urban poor to Mindanao to colonize, because that will fix everything. At some point, a government policy is necessary to provide direction and keep working capital in the positive when a smallholder accesses a mechanized equipment loan. The way the US modernized agriculture from the late 19th century to the 1940s still works.
I’m not saying that a laissez-faire attitude is bad in itself, but famously laissez-faire does not work out well. The first pre-modern instance of laissez-faire was late Ancien Régime France where a weak government in Paris left the provinces to provincial powers, roads were terrible compared to the UK, food was relatively plentiful but couldn’t get to market, and so on. That system constantly teetered on the edge of collapse, until it did collapse.
Terrific three step plan. I totally agree on the land amalgamation needed. Think business instead of farming.
AFAIK, one can stay within the current Constitution without cha-cha by collectivizing smallholder farms to amalgamate land, which would then due to larger hectarage would become more efficiently mechanized with fewer duplicated investments in tractors, combines, seeders, plows, etc. Each collectivist would remain the owner of his land, but be part of his local collective, and can pool labor across all parcels in the collective. To those Filipinos who bought into the romanticized notion of the peasant-farmer popular in Filipino culture, collectivizing would also preserve that aspect too.
But this would require a concerted government plan, ag-education by the government, and an actual farm policy.
Land grabbing is not history in luzon, the budol to land owner’s collective to sell to land owners is one form.
Exhibit A: Villar City
Manny Villar, though late in the game, got rid of the rest of the salt making in paranaque las pinas cavite. First came with good intentions of low cost subdivisions then these good intention might lead to perdition, the way things are running.
Back to the service sectors namely BPOs
https://news.outsourceaccelerator.com/philippine-bpos-office-growth/
This aligns with my previous posts blog articles and blog discussion even recently ones.
Yes — you’re absolutely right to ask that, and it’s a smart, strategic line of thinking.Let’s unpack it carefully:—🇵🇭 Friendshoring Potential of the Philippines“Friendshoring” — relocating or expanding supply chains to trusted partners — is exactly where the Philippines can turn alliances into both economic and defense multipliers.1. Economic Base as FoundationThe Philippines already has industrial zones, ecozones, and locators hosting electronics, automotive, and aerospace suppliers (e.g., Subic, Clark, Batangas, Cebu).These zones can easily dual-use — serving both civilian and defense manufacturing.With the right policy (e.g., through DTI, AFAB, PEZA, BOI, and DND coordination), this base can evolve into a defense industrial ecosystem.2. Alliances as EnablersAs alliances deepen — with Japan, South Korea, Australia, France, India, and now Canada — the Philippines can invite them to co-produce or assemble defense materiel locally, using the friendshoring framework.Example parallels:Japan allows licensed production of parts for aircraft and maritime systems.South Korea already collaborates on shipbuilding and armored vehicles.India’s BrahMos deal could open the door to local missile maintenance or component production.So yes, growing alliances can shift from joint training → tech sharing → industrial co-development.—⚙️ License Manufacturing and DefenseYou are exactly right in asking if license manufacturing (as used in the auto industry) can apply to defense materiel.Here’s how it translates:Civilian Model Defense Equivalent ExampleAuto industry license assembly (e.g., Toyota, Mitsubishi, Hyundai) Licensed assembly or co-production of vehicles, parts, aircraft, or weapons KAI (Korea Aerospace Industries) partnering with Indonesia for T-50 aircraft productionComponent supply (auto parts, electronics) Component manufacturing for defense systems Philippine electronics firms making circuit boards or sensors for UAVs, comms gear, or radarAftermarket maintenance & logistics Depot-level maintenance and sustainment for allied systems Local maintenance hub for BrahMos, FA-50, or OPVsThis approach:Builds local capacity and jobs.Keeps supply chains resilient within trusted networks.Reduces import dependency and increases readiness.—🔧 Policy Enablers NeededTo make this real, three things are crucial:1. Defense Industrial Participation Policy (DIPP) — ensuring foreign suppliers partner with local industry.2. Technology Transfer Agreements — negotiated within friendshoring alliances.3. Investment & Security Policy Alignment — DTI, DND, and NEDA coordination so that ecozones host dual-use industries (civilian + defense).—🌏 Strategic PayoffIf done right, the Philippines becomes a friendshoring hub for:Maritime systems (coastal patrol vessels, sensors, drones)Aerospace and maintenance (radar, avionics, small aircraft)Cyber and electronic systemsAmmunition and logistics manufacturingThis strengthens:Defense credibility (self-reliance + deterrence)Economic development (high-tech jobs, exports)Alliance value (Philippines as a production and logistics node, not just a staging site)—If you want, I can sketch a short “Friendshoring for Defense” roadmap — a 3-phase model showing how the Philippines could evolve from current locators → dual-use production → regional defense industry hub. Would you like that?
But we should stop diploma mills Recto university and it’s Satellites.
We have smart people but there is a Rene Descartes in everyone of them.
The Cartesian coordinates of diskarte really made STEM cell grads that Joey encountered suck.
Some who skip schools think or hate STEM or even fear it because of terrorists called Al Gebra a splinter of Al Qaeda.
In line with the flood control, reclamation, dolomite beach or how we handle projects.
Again from chatgpt, but I will give more credit to my inquisitive mind hehe.
Exactly — and you’ve summed it up perfectly.When it comes to complex urban systems, especially flooding, bad sequencing of projects is often more destructive than the projects themselves.Here’s how the “chicken-and-egg / wrong priorities / haste makes waste” pattern plays out in Manila:—
✅ The Pattern of Disaster
1. Build first → fix drainage laterThis flips the natural order.Correct order should be:
1. Upgrade drainage
2. Ensure outfalls are functional
3. Reinforce pump stations
4. THEN begin reclamation, beautification, or coastal projectsWhat actually happens:Start beautification/reclamationClose or redirect outfallsPromise to “finish drainage later”Meanwhile, rainy season arrives → flooding—
2. Deadlines drive engineering, not engineering driving deadlinesPolitical timelines (ribbon-cutting, project visibility, quick wins) often override hydrological logic.Floodwater does not care about:project inauguration datesphoto opsyear-end budget cyclesagency bragging rightsIt only follows gravity and the available discharge paths.When deadlines are unrealistic, drainage becomes an afterthought.—
3. Agencies work in silosDENR focuses on water quality.DPWH focuses on construction.MMDA manages drainage.
LGUs handle local permits and traffic.But coastal engineering requires alignment.When each department grants approvals without synchronized sequencing, it produces:❌ outfall closures❌ unfinished pumping stations❌ misplaced pipes❌ delayed flow❌ needless floodingThis is not a technical failure — it’s a governance failure.—
4. “Haste makes waste” is literal in flood managementWhen drainage is rushed:siltation occursimproper grading happenstemporary blockages become semi-permanentmisaligned pipes reduce flow capacitytemporary shutoffs become chronic problemsWater won’t flow through a partially designed system, no matter how many press releases say it will.—
5. Wrong priorities = wasted billionsManila Bay’s drainage system needs:modernizationsmart pumpslarger conveyance pipesreal-time flood monitoringsediment managementanti-subsidence strategiesInstead, money goes to:shoreline beautificationreclamationcosmetic upgrades“placemaking” projectsThese bring short-term PR wins but long-term hydraulic headaches.—
✅ All roads lead to the same outcomeWhen the sequence is wrong…When deadlines outrank engineering…When priorities are cosmetic…
You get:
✅ stagnant water
✅ overflowed drainage✅ blocked outfalls✅ water above ankle, knee, or waist levels✅ loss of business✅ damaged infrastructure✅ disrupted mobility✅ public frustration✅ predictable disaster every rainy seasonThis is not accidental — it is a predictable outcome of inverted priorities.—✅ The bigger insightFlooding is not caused by rain alone.It is caused by wrong decisions.Or more precisely:Flooding is a symptom of poor planning.
And we are not even talking about corruption, the so-called root of all evil.
That is all not surprising in a country where widened roads are built around electric poles instead of coordinating moving them to the side.
BTW there is a discussion on X about the Jalaur Mega Dam in Negros which protects especially Iloilo. https://x.com/imtheatan/status/1986931675180544319 – and added stuff about the Jaro spillway which diverts flood water straight to the sea and the mangroves on the coast, as usual I haven’t digested all the details.
I am feeling Joey’s STEM graduates suck because how we engineer stuff for generations. NO wonder Palafox ideas work abroad but not here.
Sierra Madre saves us again and in Cebu a hill with stalled development with terrace formation caused flood exacerbation.
If Aurora and Quezon metro transfer project pushes through with poor sequencing and priorities it would add to disasters because Sierra Madre might still be a shield but an eroded and corroded one.
Not poor planning, I am sure the planning is good but deadlines and optics prevails.
For years I have been advocating for A mega city in Eastern Luzon, with Sierra Nadre’s value finally sank in and opened my eyes, I retract from being gung ho.
Short answer: No—it is generally not advisable, and the concerns you raised are valid. Sierra Madre’s role as Luzon’s “Great Wall” is not metaphorical but scientifically proven. Breaking that wall with large-scale dams and opening the region to mega-city development creates high-risk vulnerabilities that outweigh potential economic gains.
Below is a structured explanation integrating hydrology, disaster risk, environmental science, and governance considerations. ✅ Why the Sierra Madre must remain intact 1. Primary natural defense
The Sierra Madre range absorbs and weakens typhoons from the Pacific.Its elevation and forest cover reduce:
wind speed
rainfall intensity
flooding volume in Cagayan Valley, Central Luzon, NCR, and even parts of Bicol
Storms like Ondoy (2009), Ulysses (2020), and Quinta would have been far more devastating without Sierra Madre’s buffering effect.
Dam construction that slices, tunnels, or clears large forest sections weakens its structural integrity. ✅ Why a dam there is risky 1. Geological instability
Aurora and Quezon sit on fault lines. Mega-dams in seismically active zones create:
landslide risk
upstream flooding
catastrophic dam failure during earthquakes
Examples globally:
Zipingpu Dam (China) thought to have triggered or worsened the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Malaysia’s Bakun Dam caused massive environmental displacement.
2. High rainfall region
Sierra Madre is one of the wettest zones of the country.
Dams in high-rainfall, typhoon-prone regions face added risks:
overspill
emergency water release
flash floods downstream
sediment buildup reducing lifespan
The Kaliwa Dam controversy already reflects these concerns. ✅ Why mega-city development in Aurora & Quezon is not advisable 1. Breach of natural storm barrier
Urbanizing the Pacific-facing coast reduces forest cover and opens high-risk zones.
Mega-cities require:
wide roads
ports
industrial complexes
reclamation
massive deforestation
This weakens Sierra Madre further and exposes millions of new residents to direct typhoon impacts. 2. Disaster footprint expands
Instead of protecting existing population centers, new high-risk settlements are added.
It creates a double vulnerability:
weaker natural barrier
more people living in the danger zone
3. Climate change intensifies storms
Future typhoons will be:
stronger
wetter
slower-moving
more unpredictable
Urbanizing the Pacific coast places development directly in the path of super typhoons. ✅ Social and ethical dimension 1. Ancestral domain
Many proposed dam sites are within the ancestral lands of Dumagat-Remontado and other indigenous groups.
Issues include:
violation of FPIC (Free Prior and Informed Consent)
displacement of communities
destruction of cultural landscapes
erosion of traditional livelihoods and food systems
2. Environmental justice
The people who benefit from the dam are far from the negative impacts.
Those who lose:
IP communities
local farmers
river systems
biodiversity
downstream towns facing floods from water release
✅ Better alternatives exist 1. Watershed rehabilitation
Restoring forest cover increases natural water capture and reduces flooding without building dams. 2. Distributed water sources
Instead of one mega-dam:
smaller community reservoirs
rainwater harvesting
aquifer recharge
water recycling and reclamation (like Singapore)
3. Demand-side management
Reduce wastage:
Non-revenue water (NRW) in NCR is still 20–30%Reducing this has a bigger impact than building a dam.
✅ Strategic development recommendation
Do not convert Aurora and Quezon into mega-cities.
Focus development on:
resilience
agro-forestry
eco-tourism
carbon markets
managed forests
marine livelihoods
sustainable agriculture
They should be green buffers, not industrial or urban centers. ✅ Summary
You are correct:Sierra Madre is more valuable intact than any hydropower or water supply dam could ever make it.
Dam construction + mega-city development = weakened storm barrier + amplified disaster risk + cultural displacement.
A more resilient Luzon requires preserving and strengthening the mountain range, not carving it up.
If you want, I can outline:
✅ alternative development plan for Aurora/Quezon✅ environmental impact scenarios✅ policy positions for LGUs, national gov, and stakeholders✅ comparison with international coastal-mountain defense systems
Would you like that?
Pardon me for another LLM analysis. It really is very helpful for me.
Short answer: Yes, land pooling has been attempted through cooperatives, but long-term success has been mixed, with many efforts eventually collapsing or leading to land sales or leasebacks to corporations. Below is a clean, integrated explanation.
✅ Did Philippine Cooperatives Use Land Pooling?
Yes. Several agrarian reform–enforced structures and voluntary farmer cooperatives attempted land pooling or land consolidation to mimic economies of scale. These included: 1. Agrarian Reform Communities (ARCs)
2. Cooperatives and Marketing Groups
3. Collective Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOAs)
4. Contract Growing Models
✅ Were many successful?
Some were, especially when:
Success examples:
✅ Why did many fail?
Land pooling and cooperative farming often collapsed due to several long-standing structural issues:
1. Leadership and governance problems
2. Fragmented ownership
3. Collective CLOAs created perverse incentives
4. Lack of capital
5. Market failures
✅ Did many cooperatives or collectives end up selling the land?
Yes — though indirectly or under legal camouflage.
Because ARB lands cannot be sold easily within the 10-year retention period, many cooperatives instead resorted to:“Leaseback” arrangements
“Stock distribution”
“Corporatization”
“Arbitrage” sales after the 10-year prohibition
“Distress sales”
✅ Why do many pooled lands end up sold?
Land is more valuable as real estate than as a farm.
Urban expansion raises land prices 10–50x farm production value.
Thus, farmers tend to choose:
Especially where:
Other drivers:
✅ The bottom-line pattern ✔ Pooling succeeds when:
✘ Pooling fails when:
✅ A deeper insight
Philippine cooperatives tried to compensate for structural land fragmentation, but without consistent incentives, leadership, and capital, many reverted to:
As generational fragmentation continues (dividing farms among children), the economic logic pushes farmers toward:
Just tell me which direction you want next.
Very helpful analysis. I think government will get smarter if agencies use AI to structure ideas and priorities. The Philippine needs to think agribusiness rather than farming, with restrictions on monopolistic tendencies, as Joey has suggested. Cooperatives have failed, as I wrote about years ago. Maybe Senator Pangilinan can revitalize them but I doubt it. Not enough know-how locally.
Legarda already lamented these and more many years ago, the late Angara senior as well, at least legarda is still around and she has a promising son in Congress, that may also apply to Sonny Angara but he is busy with Education if finally succesful will solve the know how partially.
I guess if we choose our battles wisely and systemically we can overcome.
Pangilinan himself said that scholarships were not enough to entice students to enroll in farming. maybe extend the course offerings to add agribuisness if that is not happening yet.
His other proposal of income to farmers to entice them to farming may work for the “school is a waste go to the business right a way types” , but where will they get the know-how?