Beyond Projects: Building the Architecture of National Transformation
Part II — Building the National Operating System
By Karl M. Garcia
Part I argued that the Philippines has reached an inflection point. The country’s central development challenge is no longer simply constructing more roads, ports, airports, or power plants. It is designing a national system in which these investments reinforce one another.
The distinction is fundamental.
Infrastructure should not be understood merely as concrete, steel, or fiber-optic cables. It is the physical architecture through which a nation organizes economic activity, delivers public services, responds to crises, and creates opportunities for its citizens. In this sense, infrastructure functions much like the operating system of a computer. Individual applications may differ, but without an operating system capable of coordinating resources, managing information, and enabling communication, even the most advanced hardware cannot perform effectively.
The same principle applies to nations.
A railway without logistics planning becomes underutilized. A port without efficient customs and digital systems becomes congested. An industrial park without reliable electricity or skilled workers struggles to attract investment. Digital services without institutional reform merely digitize inefficient processes.
Development succeeds when these components operate together.
The Philippines therefore requires more than infrastructure development. It requires a national operating system—an integrated framework that connects transportation, energy, communications, industry, governance, education, finance, and environmental management into a coherent whole.
Infrastructure as a System
Infrastructure is often categorized into sectors: transport, energy, telecommunications, water, housing, and public facilities. This classification is useful for budgeting and administration, but it can obscure how deeply interconnected these systems are.
Consider a modern export manufacturer.
Its competitiveness depends on reliable electricity to power production, ports that move goods efficiently, roads and railways that connect factories to markets, broadband networks that link suppliers and customers, financial institutions that provide credit, universities that develop skilled workers, and government agencies that process permits quickly.
If any one of these components fails, the entire system becomes less competitive.
Economic productivity is therefore not determined by the strength of individual sectors alone. It depends on how effectively they interact.
Countries that consistently rank among the world’s most competitive economies have invested not only in physical assets but also in the relationships between those assets. They understand that infrastructure generates its greatest value when networks reinforce one another rather than operate independently.
For the Philippines, this means shifting from sectoral planning toward systems planning. Transport projects should support industrial policy. Energy investments should anticipate future manufacturing demand. Digital infrastructure should enhance logistics, education, healthcare, and public administration simultaneously. Environmental planning should strengthen resilience rather than compete with development objectives.
This requires a different mindset.
Instead of asking whether a project is worthwhile on its own, policymakers should ask how it strengthens the larger system.
The Maritime Operating System
For an archipelagic nation, the sea is not simply a geographic feature. It is the principal medium through which national integration occurs.
Every day, food, fuel, construction materials, manufactured goods, medical supplies, and consumer products move across Philippine waters. Millions of Filipinos depend on maritime transport for employment, commerce, and access to essential services.
Yet maritime infrastructure is often viewed narrowly as a collection of ports.
A true maritime operating system is far more comprehensive.
It integrates ports with highways, railways, airports, logistics centers, customs systems, fisheries, shipbuilding, maritime education, digital navigation, weather forecasting, environmental protection, and maritime domain awareness.
Each element supports the others.
A modern port without efficient inland transport merely shifts congestion from the harbor to nearby roads. Advanced surveillance systems are of limited value if agencies cannot share information in real time. Shipbuilding requires skilled labor, research institutions, reliable suppliers, and financial support—not simply shipyards.
The Philippines possesses one of the world’s largest coastlines and occupies a strategic position along major international shipping routes. Geography has already provided the foundation for a maritime nation.
The remaining task is institutional.
The country must govern itself as a maritime state rather than merely a collection of islands connected by ferries.
Doing so would transform maritime infrastructure from a transport sector into the backbone of national development.
Industrial Transformation Beyond Assembly
Infrastructure alone does not create prosperity.
Its purpose is to enable production.
For decades, many developing economies have sought growth by attracting investment into assembly operations. While this strategy can generate employment, long-term prosperity depends on moving toward higher-value activities such as engineering, design, research, advanced manufacturing, logistics, software, and innovation.
The Philippines has already demonstrated strengths in services, electronics, business process management, and increasingly in digital industries. These capabilities provide a foundation for broader industrial transformation.
But industrialization in the twenty-first century differs from the factory-centered models of the past.
Modern industries rely on data as much as raw materials. Artificial intelligence, automation, advanced logistics, robotics, renewable energy, and digital platforms are reshaping production worldwide.
Success therefore depends not simply on lowering costs but on increasing capability.
Infrastructure should be designed with this objective in mind.
Industrial estates should be connected to ports and airports through efficient logistics corridors. Universities should collaborate with industry on applied research. Energy planning should support advanced manufacturing and data centers. Digital infrastructure should enable real-time coordination across supply chains.
Industrial policy must become an ecosystem rather than a collection of incentives.
Institutions as Infrastructure
Physical infrastructure often receives greater public attention because it is visible.
Institutions are less tangible, yet they determine whether physical investments achieve their intended purpose.
An efficient customs agency can reduce trade costs as effectively as expanding a port.
A transparent procurement system can accelerate infrastructure delivery.
Reliable courts strengthen investor confidence.
Professional civil services preserve institutional memory beyond electoral cycles.
In this sense, institutions are themselves a form of infrastructure.
They provide the rules, processes, and organizational capacity through which society functions.
Weak institutions increase transaction costs, discourage investment, and reduce public trust.
Strong institutions coordinate complexity.
For the Philippines, strengthening institutions does not necessarily require creating more agencies. In many cases, it requires improving coordination among those that already exist.
Government departments frequently pursue worthwhile objectives independently, yet national development increasingly depends on collaboration across administrative boundaries.
Transportation affects industry.
Education influences productivity.
Energy shapes competitiveness.
Environmental management supports long-term resilience.
Digital governance enhances every sector.
These relationships cannot be managed effectively through isolated planning.
The state must become an integrator.
Digital Infrastructure and the Intelligent State
Digital transformation is often associated with online services and electronic payments.
Its significance extends much further.
Data has become a strategic national resource.
Governments capable of collecting, analyzing, and sharing information effectively make better decisions, respond more quickly to emergencies, and allocate resources more efficiently.
An intelligent state does not simply digitize paperwork.
It uses information to improve governance continuously.
Real-time logistics monitoring can reduce congestion.
Integrated disaster information systems can accelerate emergency response.
Digital land records can simplify investment.
Health information systems can improve public health planning.
Agricultural data platforms can support farmers facing climate variability.
Artificial intelligence will increasingly enhance these capabilities by identifying patterns that human analysts may overlook.
However, technology alone cannot solve institutional problems.
Digital tools amplify existing governance.
Efficient institutions become more efficient.
Inefficient institutions become digitally inefficient.
Successful digital transformation therefore requires organizational reform alongside technological investment.
Building National Resilience
The Philippines experiences some of the highest levels of disaster risk in the world.
Typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, and climate-related disruptions are recurring realities rather than exceptional events.
Resilience should therefore not be viewed as a specialized policy area.
It should become a design principle for every national investment.
Roads should support emergency response.
Ports should facilitate humanitarian logistics.
Energy systems should incorporate redundancy.
Communications networks should remain operational during disasters.
Supply chains should anticipate disruption rather than merely react to it.
Institutional resilience is equally important.
Agencies should learn systematically from crises instead of returning to previous practices once emergencies subside.
Every disruption should improve future preparedness.
In this sense, resilience and learning become inseparable.
From Coordination to Capability
Nations ultimately compete through capability rather than individual assets.
Capability emerges when infrastructure, institutions, technology, and human capital reinforce one another over time.
This is why development cannot be reduced to annual budgets or isolated flagship projects.
The central question is whether each investment increases the nation’s capacity to solve increasingly complex problems.
Can businesses innovate more rapidly?
Can workers adapt to technological change?
Can government coordinate effectively across agencies?
Can communities recover quickly after disasters?
Can universities contribute directly to industrial development?
Can data improve decision-making?
When the answer becomes increasingly yes, development becomes cumulative.
Each improvement creates opportunities for further improvement.
Capability compounds.
Toward an Integrated State
The Philippines possesses many of the ingredients necessary for long-term success: a strategic maritime location, a young and adaptable population, expanding infrastructure, democratic institutions, growing digital capabilities, and increasing engagement with regional and global partners.
The challenge is to connect these strengths into a coherent national architecture.
This requires seeing infrastructure not as an end but as an enabling platform.
Ports should support industry.
Industry should stimulate innovation.
Innovation should strengthen education.
Education should improve institutions.
Institutions should coordinate infrastructure.
The result is a virtuous cycle in which every component reinforces the others.
The goal is not simply a larger economy.
It is a more capable state.
Such a state is better able to attract investment, manage crises, foster innovation, defend its sovereignty, protect its environment, and improve the lives of its citizens.
Building this kind of state is not the responsibility of a single administration or a single generation. It is a long-term national project requiring continuity, adaptation, and shared purpose.
The final part of this essay argues that achieving this vision ultimately depends on one defining characteristic: the ability of the state itself to learn. Nations that endure are not those that avoid mistakes altogether, but those that transform experience into institutional knowledge, continuously improving their capacity to govern in a changing world. This is the foundation of the learning state and the architecture of national transformation.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
My response to Part II is the same as part one. The Philippines does not have a practical way to build and manage a well integrated national infrastructure architecture in ways other than generalized, and ad hoc.
The highest priority is energy. Electricity. Everyone knows it. There are all kinds of projects going on at the edges, adding here and there. But the National Government only wants to build an oil storage reserve. Need drives investment, plans don’t. (I’m learning to write in AI juxtaposed style. Ugh.)
There’s a lot going on. The PPP list of projects is huge. Here’s the PPP project dashboard. https://ppp.gov.ph/project-dashboard/
Government corporations are also pushing forward. PEZA and BCDA are drivers of investment and development. They are generating good revenue and changing the business landscape of the Philippines. Clark is blossoming under both, the center of a connected arc between Subic and Manila.
As for digital infrastructure, let’s ask Gemini:
I believe agencies are working under an unstated umbrella architecture perhaps. Or their missions state it, as it pertains to their charter. I believe President Marcos operates under an architecture that is not far from the ideas presented in this article.
Less than a year ago we were wringing our hands that BPOs will collapse as AI supplants jobs. That does not seem to be happening. BPOs now contribute more to foreign exchange revenue than OFWs, and the forecast is continued growth.
Note this quote as well, about infrastructure:
“Developers are also following new infrastructure investments into emerging provincial growth corridors.
Lobien said major projects under the government’s expanding expressway and transport network — including new links in North and South Luzon — are making previously distant locations far more attractive to both businesses and homeowners.
“Capital is also flowing… to the provincial market,” she said. “
https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/business/2026/7/9/bpos-overtake-remittances-as-biggest-growth-engine-drive-property-demand-lobien-1306
Yes BPOs were predicted its early demise which proved to be exaggerated
“Less than a year ago we were wringing our hands that BPOs will collapse as AI supplants jobs. That does not seem to be happening. BPOs now contribute more to foreign exchange revenue than OFWs, and the forecast is continued growth.” – JoeAm
But the question is, will that trend continue? The other day, here in the US, I called the water company to pay my bill with credit card. Just a year ago (maybe less), I would give my information to a human on the other end of the phone. The last 2 times I paid, I did not deal with a human. I just followed the prompts given by a computer.
The use of BPOs is moving toward more sophisticated tasks as mundane and repetitive tasks are being taken over by machines. The challenge to those employed by BPOs is to be able to handle those sophisticated tasks. Can we meet that challenge. We have recently talked about the failure of our “rote learning” educational system. Will that hinder our ability to meet the challenge of handling more sophisticated BPO tasks?
So the forecast is continued growth in BPO revenues? Who is making this forecast? And is it growth of revenue, or growth of jobs, or both? It might be forecast of more revenue with less people meaning less jobs. The Water Company still got my money, but it didn’t need an employee to get it from me.
Growth of jobs and leasing space. The article cites the BPO group making the assessment. I think the key is that the large BPOs are run by American corporations who serve huge companies with huge customer bases and huge communications issues. They are adapting to AI but still need skilled people to handle customers with tough issues. You are right, the future is an unknown. If the US passes a proposed bill requiring companies to stop using foreign call centers, that could certainly collapse things. But for now, it’s still healthy.
Here’s a pertinent article about government owned corporations. It would be fascinating to develop performance metrics for all of them. My gut instinct is that PEZA is sorely underperforming.
https://bworldonline.com/economy/2026/07/09/762469/bcda-peza-among-billion-peso-dividend-club/
PEZA at 30: The Philippines’ Quiet Engine of Export-Led Growth
For three decades, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) has been one of the country’s most successful economic institutions. Since its establishment under the Special Economic Zone Act of 1995, PEZA has consistently attracted foreign direct investment (FDI), expanded exports, generated employment, and integrated the Philippines into global value chains.
Unlike many government agencies measured primarily by spending, PEZA is measured by its ability to attract private capital. Over the past 30 years, it has secured trillions of pesos in investments, generated nearly one trillion US dollars in cumulative export revenues, and consistently contributed about 16% of Philippine Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Through a stable regulatory framework, investment incentives, and efficient administration, PEZA has become a cornerstone of the country’s export-oriented industrialization strategy.
Long-Term Economic Impact (1995–Present)
PEZA’s cumulative performance illustrates the scale of its contribution to national development.
– Total approved investment pledges: More than ₱4.058 trillion
– Cumulative export revenues: US$965.94 billion
– Direct employment: 1.72 million workers
– Estimated indirect employment: 8.6 million jobs
– Share of Philippine merchandise exports: More than 54%
– Share of services exports: Approximately 37%
These figures demonstrate that PEZA is not merely an investment promotion agency but one of the principal engines of Philippine exports, manufacturing, and employment.
Investment Performance: Recovery and Expansion
PEZA’s recent investment trajectory reflects both global economic disruptions and the resilience of the Philippine investment environment.
Period| Performance
2018–2021| Investment approvals declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical uncertainty, including the Russia–Ukraine war.
2024| PEZA recorded ₱214.2 billion in approved investments, a 22% increase from the previous year, creating over 72,000 jobs and supporting US$58.7 billion in exports.
2025| Investment approvals reached ₱260.89 billion across 314 projects, the highest level since 2016 and the sixth-highest in PEZA’s history.
2026 (First Half)| PEZA approved ₱140.688 billion, representing a 94.42% increase over the same period in 2025, placing the agency on track to achieve its ₱300 billion full-year investment target.
The strong post-pandemic recovery suggests that investor confidence in Philippine economic zones remains robust despite heightened global uncertainty.
The Industries Driving PEZA
PEZA’s success has historically been anchored by two globally competitive sectors.
Export Manufacturing remains the largest contributor, led by semiconductor and electronics production. The Philippines continues to serve as an important manufacturing base within regional and global supply chains.
The second pillar is Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM), where PEZA-accredited facilities have helped establish the Philippines as one of the world’s leading providers of outsourcing and shared services.
Recent investment approvals also indicate growing diversification into:
– Logistics and warehousing
– Green utilities and renewable energy support services
– Transportation and storage
– Domestic market-oriented enterprises
This diversification broadens the country’s industrial base while reducing dependence on a limited number of export sectors.
Global Investment Partners
PEZA’s investor base reflects long-standing international confidence in the Philippine economy.
Historically, Japan has been the largest source of investments, followed by the Netherlands, South Korea, Singapore, and the United States. These economies continue to view Philippine economic zones as competitive locations for export manufacturing, services, and regional operations.
Fiscal Discipline
Beyond attracting investment, PEZA has distinguished itself through sound financial management.
Between 1995 and 2022, the agency remitted ₱10.82 billion in dividends to the National Government. More recently, PEZA entered the Government-Owned and Controlled Corporation (GOCC) “Billionaires’ Club” after remitting more than ₱1 billion in dividends for multiple consecutive years.
This is unusual among investment promotion agencies worldwide. Rather than relying heavily on public subsidies, PEZA has demonstrated that an investment promotion institution can simultaneously attract private capital, generate exports, create employment, and contribute directly to government revenues.
Looking Ahead
As global supply chains continue to diversify, the Philippines has an opportunity to strengthen its position as a regional investment destination. PEZA’s sustained performance indicates that economic zones will remain central to this effort.
The next stage of PEZA’s evolution, however, will require moving beyond labor-intensive industries toward higher-value manufacturing, advanced electronics, semiconductor packaging and design, renewable energy supply chains, digital industries, and research-driven investments. Achieving this transition will allow PEZA not only to sustain investment inflows but also to deepen the country’s industrial capabilities and enhance long-term economic competitiveness.
Thirty years after its creation, PEZA remains one of the Philippines’ most effective institutions for translating policy into measurable economic outcomes. Its record demonstrates that stable rules, efficient governance, and sustained investor confidence can generate enduring benefits for national development.
My gut seems to have erred. So this is actually the backbone of Philippine manufacturing where companies like Toyota can enter and not be fleeced by LGUs. Pax Silica is primarily a BCDA initiative but PEZA incentives will apply. And BPOs are a part of the PEZA effort. I think investments outside PEZA are more lucrative, economically, but are hard to get. Thanks for the overview.
JoeAm, your gut may not have erred. I’ve long heard Filipinos talk of how little foreign direct investment is coming into the country as we lose out to our competitors in the region. The talk didn’t match the glowing report from Karl. It may be worth delving into more deeply. I browsed this recent news report from Business Times: The Philippines scores investment pledges, but fading FDI risks missing Asean manufacturing boom
Manila is struggling to convert commitments into hard cash
URL is https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/international/asean/philippines-scores-investment-pledges-fading-fdi-risks-missing-asean-manufacturing-boom
That’s exactly the information that led me to believe PEZA is underperforming. But it may not be just PEZA, which gives investors an escape from corruption that is a huge problem, and from taxation.. It is energy, internet, traffic, corruption, burdensome permitting, and a 40% ownership limit.
My pleasure.
“The Philippines does not have a practical way to build and manage a well integrated national infrastructure architecture in ways other than generalized, and ad hoc.” – JoeAm
I agree…it is a negative assessment of the Philippines, but I believe it is accurate.
“I agree…it is a negative assessment of the Philippines, but I believe it is accurate.” – CV
Having said that, I think it is great that Karl wrote about this concept of a National Architecture as opposed to just local architectures as JoeAm pointed out currently exist in our democracy with each locality pulling in its own directions as they see beneficial for their local needs, not the overall national picture. JoeAm pointed out that we Filipinos have an inability to conceptualize things because of our rote learning in our schooling experience. Karl’s conception of a National Architecture will take time to digest as is easily seen by our tendency to wander off into projects when Karl tries to steer us towards a more unified national purpose overriding all these projects.
But there is hope. JoeAm sees Marcos, Jr. as guiding the country’s projects along this concept of a national architecture.
And I agree it is a negative assessment.
“And I agree it is a negative assessment.” – JoeAm
We can file it under “This relentless grinding of the Philippines against an idealized and impossible to reach target…”
In Part 1 of Karl’s essay, JoeAm asked: “In what form would you expect this National Architecture to take, who would craft it, who would approve it, how long would the effort take, how much would it cost, and what is the probability it would achieve completion by the target date?”
These are good questions, and questions we should have asked AND answered before we demanded independence and our right to self-determination. JoeAm’s observation that we are “a republic and local governments develop for themselves, not for the nation” does not bode well for a group of people that wants independence and sovereignty. That is why Rizal rightly observed that we were not ready for it in 1896, and our leaders (like Quezon and Osmeña) knew we were not ready for it even as they demanded for it during the Commonwealth years forty years after Rizal.
But in the spirit of developing for our individual selves and not for the nation we went ahead anyway and today pay the price for it – a poorly integrated collection of systems that does its best to get by. And for most Filipinos, that is what life is like for them – getting by.
Karl G. did not spoon feed the answers to JoeAm’s questions to us. Instead, he leaves it to us to figure out how to arrive at this National Architecture.
But as JoeAm reminded us recently: “You can’t be dumb and thrive.”
JoeAm also suggested I try Gemini or Claude. While those are good tools, I think we see enough of Gemini and Claude here at TSOH…you guys can correct me if I am wrong on that.
I’m impressed with AI. It collects and organizes information better than most human writers can. It is routinely dry and likes to emote in patterns that reveal it is an over-trying machine. It writes long screes whereas I like pithy lessons. I use it regularly to get quick confirmations or elaborations on curiosities. One can read or not read. Explore or not explore. AI gives us unlimited access to information and new ways of doing things. It’s not going away. I also like original thought. It’s getting rare.
I’m impressed w/ AI too. I used it to examine your reversal of your gut feel regarding PEZA after Karl’s brief and probably AI generated report.
I also used it to follow the installation and progress of egovDX and the Super App egovPH. I recall when I first brought it up, even you were quite ignorant of it like most Filipinos. I noticed lately that you have more awareness of the program and you mention it to show the country’s attempt at achieving integration of its multiple projects.
Meanwhile, the subject of my post was your excellent questions regarding Karl’s subject of National Architecture. Believe it or not, I’ve been trying to generate exchange of ideas on that subject, but no one seems to want to chime in, not even Karl (“Karl G. did not spoon feed the answers to JoeAm’s questions to us. Instead, he leaves it to us to figure out how to arrive at this National Architecture.”). Perhaps we are having a problem conceptualizing the concept that Karl is presenting, a weakness you have pointed out that we Filipinos have.
Joey N. thankfully did just address Karl’s idea, but I think for the most part he just renamed it National Framework instead of National Architecture. As I understand Joey’s view, we have a national architecture and what we need is a national framework.
Your position is that regardless of what you call it, we don’t have it and we are not going to have it any time soon (again I refer to your questions: “In what form would you expect this National Architecture to take, who would craft it, who would approve it, how long would the effort take, how much would it cost, and what is the probability it would achieve completion by the target date?”).
You asked me my position. I agree with you – it is not going to happen anytime soon. We as a people cannot achieve something we cannot even conceptualize.
BTW, I between Joey and your agreement with him, I saw more “relentless grinding.” Am I right, or am I imagining it? 🙂
Haha, you are right, of course, and I appreciate your contributions here, which inspire me to do original thinking and writing, tinged with a little AI.
Just to clarify:
Here I am pointing out that in systems theory there is a difference between architectures (the blueprint) and frameworks (the rulebook). The individual “domains” that Karl had in his article (e.g. transport infrastructure, energy systems, communications, government agencies, etc.) are the individual architectures working within an already existing national framework (which I go into). So basically I am saying that the Philippines already has “national” architectures and framework; it’s just not the sort of architecture or framework that the Western-facing educated middle class and elite expect, but it makes complete and innate sense to a dynast, a commercial baron, a poor Filipino.
The framework is the 1987 Constitution and the sub-frameworks (enabling laws) set up around it, one such enabling law which I pointed out (Article X -> Local Government Code Act). I implied that the Philippines had many chances to do a “clean reset” (6 constitutions, 1 commonwealth, 5 republics) to create a modern-for-that-time-period administrative state. Instead the Philippines always went back to devolution, handing power and resources to local potentates. Perhaps we just have to accept that this is what political actors and political coalitions, backed by a majority of the Filipino people, in the Philippines want.
The upside is that PEZA and now BCDA are in effect enclaves directly administered by the executive where the architecture and framework is standardized and regularized, respectively. Not a democratic or ideal solution, but one that at least enables the Philippines to move forward within the enclave. An “intramuros” arrangement for a modern time where one can expect to do business without having the rules changed midway, swindled, or coerced.
***So basically I am saying that the Philippines already has “national” architectures and framework; it’s just not the sort of architecture or framework that the Western-facing educated middle class and elite expect…*** – Joey N.
People like Karl Garcia (Western-facing educated middle class)?
“… but it makes complete and innate sense to a dynast, a commercial baron, a poor Filipino.” – Joey N.
Are these (dynast, commercial baron, poor Filipino) the “happy fools” that JoeAm speaks of (O rise ye land of happy fools!)?
Hmm I’m not sure about Karl’s personal feeling on it but the AFP which Karl grew up around is like the US Military in that it is a microcosm of Philippine society with members from all social classes. And like the US Military the AFP is probably the one of the most if not the most egalitarian and merit-based institution in the Philippines.
The Western-facing middle class and elite I’m referring to are the ones who insist that the Philippines become a carbon copy of America, and when unable to do this fast electorally have built all manner of enclaves for themselves where they may experience that First World life rather than doing the hard work of evangelizing to their fellow Filipino in a language and cultural framing Filipinos can understand.
As for the Happy Fools, I’m not aware of the origin story behind the slogan. I believe the slogan was originally used by Edgar Lores but as I was not around during that time I’m not aware of the context.
“Hmm I’m not sure about Karl’s personal feeling on it…” – Joey N.
I meant based on his two part essay on National Architecture, etc.
“The Western-facing middle class and elite I’m referring to are the ones who insist that the Philippines become a carbon copy of America, and when unable to do this fast electorally have built all manner of enclaves for themselves where they may experience that First World life rather than doing the hard work of evangelizing to their fellow Filipino in a language and cultural framing Filipinos can understand.” – Joey N.
Sounds like you have an axe to grind against the Filipino Western-facing middle class and elite…and that may include people like Karl G. whose vision of National Architecture for the Philippines may be a “carbon copy of America.” Yours could be a counter productive approach to the Philippine situation.
What do you think?
CV, sometimes you have a habit of putting words in others mouths, perhaps unintentionally. Please be aware that words do matter. You may have your own views, as I have mine, but leave playing people against each other out of it.
I do not see what I have written to be counter productive to what Karl wrote or what Joe added about PEZA. The only minor quibble I had was that “framework” probably was a better term to use, as architecture implies componency. Once that word is swapped out the rest of Karl’s two part essay stands. I am sure Karl is well aware of the numerous blockers in the Philippines. If you read his two part essay again, you’ll see that Karl is actually attempting to make sense of and square the incongruences in order to find a way forward.
I have explained the historical “why” in order to better understand the disconnect between the Western-facing thinking and the “native” thinking. I have seen the same pattern in Indonesia and Malaysia, and seen echoes of it in Oceania and Polynesia. There have been many books and studies written on the subject of Austro-Polynesian cultural tendencies.
I have also explained two possible ways to ways to go:
1.) Use PEZA/BCDA as a workaround for economic progress; M4GG coalition as examples to other LGU heads how good governance is beneficial; Hope both evangelizes the population and spreads to other LGU heads through the cultural habit of intense envy.
2.) Accept the Philippines as the Philippines.
Points one and two are superb. A roadmap in two brief paragraphs.
As I recall, the happy fools was Edgar and I put it int the “oh rise” slogan, and used it as the blogs byline. It’s like poetry. Poets need not explain their meanings and the beauty of it is that others can figure it out, for themselves.
“CV, sometimes you have a habit of putting words in others mouths, perhaps unintentionally.” – Joey N.
Always unintentionally. Do do it intentionally is counter productive to good intelligent and honest discussion.
In face, you probably noticed my style of often re-stating in quotes the specific words I am referring to, so that if I am putting words in others’ mouths, it can be easily caught. Then all you have to say is “that is clearly not what the other person said.”
“…but leave playing people against each other out of it.” – Joey N.
How about playing one person’s ideas against another person’s ideas? Is that a bad thing in a vibrant intellectual discussion? I don’t think so, as long as people don’t get “pikon” and defensive. Karl G. says one thing, and JoeAm says the opposite, is pointing out the difference playing one against the other? I think each party should find it flattering that someone pays attention to his idea and is willing to discuss it further even if one should disagree with it. It is an opportunity to for an individual to expand on one’s thoughts. If everyone says “yes” to everyone’s ideas, there will hardly be any discussion.
I would say that you are best in this forum in expanding on your ideas when questioned about them. Kudos to you, and just like the good mayors of M4GG, may others here see the benefit of such extended discussion and emulate such behavior.
“The only minor quibble I had was that “framework” probably was a better term to use, as architecture implies componency. Once that word is swapped out the rest of Karl’s two part essay stands.” – Joey N.
Yes indeed a minor quibble, as I said to JoeAm at almost the same time you were posting that response (I don’t know if you saw it.): “Joey N. thankfully did just address Karl’s idea, but I think for the most part he just renamed it National Framework instead of National Architecture. As I understand Joey’s view, we have a national architecture and what we need is a national framework.”
You then say that after that minor “quibble”…Karl’s 2 essays stand. I believe they do stand, but you have to admit (unless I misunderstand your words) you believe that the National architecture/framework does exist while the crux of Karl’s 2 part essay is that we need to develop one (because it does not exist).
BTW, I note that in Part 2, Karl avoids “National Architecture” and instead calls in “National Operating System.” (“The Philippines therefore requires more than infrastructure development. It requires a national operating system—an integrated framework that connects transportation, energy, communications, industry, governance, education, finance, and environmental management into a coherent whole.”)
In your post, w/ regard to 2 possible ways to go, do you mean we have to choose one or the other, or we can choose both? (“I have also explained two possible ways to ways to go:
1.) Use PEZA/BCDA as a workaround for economic progress; M4GG coalition as examples to other LGU heads how good governance is beneficial; Hope both evangelizes the population and spreads to other LGU heads through the cultural habit of intense envy.
2.) Accept the Philippines as the Philippines.”)
I read them as both. In my perspective you have to understand the Philippines to change its framework and processes. Although it could be read differently, as I see now.
On Point #2: about accepting the Philippines, I probably should have added “because it’s not all that bad” — which seems true enough, otherwise why would people like Joe choose to live there, or people like me keep coming back to visit? Could there be improvement? Yes. Does improvement require more effort and less complaining? Also yes. Like accepting there’s a problem is the first step to fixing it, accepting an existent baseline that could be improved is the first step to building up something better, while simply complaining is the same as surrendering.
On Point #1: one of the underappreciated advantages the Philippines has is that the written record from first sustained Spanish contact onward is unusually rich — missionary accounts, colonial administrative records, and so on give a exquisitely detailed picture of society from the 16th century forward, which enabled historians like William Henry Scott with tools to reconstruct precolonial Philippine life in such granular detail. Reading that record across four centuries, one can trace a recurring pattern: small groups of elites trying to “convert” the much larger majority to foreign concepts, over and over, never quite succeeding widely. The larger group sometimes absorbed and indigenized foreign ideas — famously cuisine, at times certain institutions — but foreign frameworks were never adopted wholesale by the majority, which is basically how most cultures everywhere handle new ideas yet somehow lost on a certain subset of Philippine elite.
Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution traces this exact pattern through the 1896 Revolution itself: the ilustrados were working from imported Enlightenment political ideas, but the campesinos who filled the Katipunan ranks and did the actual fighting understood and drove the uprising through an entirely different lens — the Pasyon folk narrative of Christ’s suffering and death — because that was the weltanschauung (German sociological loanword for “worldview”) already available to the Indio peasant class. The problem was never that conversion was attempted; it’s the repeated insistence, by whichever elite held power, that everyone convert completely without local adaptation. This happened during the Revolution. It happened during the Commonwealth. It happened during the Japanese-sponsored Second Republic. It happened during the Third and Fourth Republics. The present Fifth Republic is probably the first to acknowledge native cultural tendencies and try to work around them rather than steamroll through them.
What was the elite counter-reaction to that steamrolling never quite working? Building a private subdivision instead. Essentially they replicated the colonial segregation emblematized by the intramuros — mini islands of elite power and a self-contained Spanish, then American, and now perhaps East Asian microcosm. My grandfather and father both recalled this enclaving behavior starting in the 1960s during their own visits, and it accelerated rapidly from the 1990s onward. Forbes Park, Bel-Air Village, Greenhills, Beverly Hills, etc. etc. BGC may be the ultimate expression of the exclusive enclave. Having spent decades observing this pattern as an outsider, I think there’s a better option than the repeated, failed effort at forced conversion: build examples worth envying, and let the Filipino cultural habit of envy do the work of spreading change by imitation instead of decree. PEZA, BCDA, Pax Silica, and the M4GG mayors’ coalition are all variations of how that can be done. Catholicism became the dominant religion in the Philippines not because friars forced Indios to conform to the exact Roman Rite as preached by the Pope in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, but because Catholicism allows enough flexibility for adapting indigenous ideas as long as those ideas don’t conflict with the core theology. Something worth learning from.
That closing lesson about Catholic adaptability is a humdinger. Excellent.
The Philippines is not suburban America, nor is it South Central LA or Mississippi. Friendly enough, the spice of threat (guns, rage, typhoons, China), terrific weather, never boring, affordable, not an evil government today. It’s easy to write here, it has that creative mood, unsettled adventure, history, and a tad of melancholy. I don’t need bars but I suppose they’re here, and casinos and concerts. Sports galore. Fiestas. Noisy at times, off key karaoke. A third of the population of the US but it’s possible to become friends with important people here. Touchable. Touching.
**Reading that record across four centuries, one can trace a recurring pattern: small groups of elites trying to “convert” the much larger majority to foreign concepts, over and over, never quite succeeding widely.** – Joey N.
I have a different understanding of our history than what you have. I believe that almost from day -1, shortly after the rule of the first governor-general Legazpi, the “small groups of elites” used adaptations of these “foreign concepts” to control the general population so that they could be exploited for profit. Historian John Leddy Phelan published his work “Hispanization of the Philippines” in 1959. He explains quite well how Spain managed to rule the Philippines for much longer than most of its American colonies through “creative adaptation” meaning these “foreign concepts” were creatively adapted for more easy digestion by the locals. Really the only “foreign concept” (if we can even call it that) that the Spaniards tried to convert the people to was that the Spaniards were the new sheriff in town so to speak.
Also, you cannot talk about our long history under Spain without mentioning the role of the Catholic Church, specifically the friars, who were the real power behind Malacañang.
This, however, is too much of a digression from the subject of Karl’s 2 part essay. If we want to discuss it (and I do find the subject interesting), we have to acknowledge that we are leaving the general vicinity of Karl’s subject (which I hate to do because feel we have not exhausted much of what his thesis is).
Digressions are allowed, and Karl has been exhaustive in his article. The primary rules of engagement here are, make it about the Philippines, and be civil. No need to suggest to others what they should write about. Just put your ideas on the table.
Interesting Phelan’s Hispanization of the Philippines (1959) was brought up. I’ll just point out that the subtitle of that work is Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, which gives a strong hint that Phelan’s thesis doesn’t work the way you may think based on the main title does because Phelan’s conclusion was one of those which had helped me form my view in the first place.
Motive and outcome are two different questions and I think an argument that conflates the two becomes a weaker argument. Whether “conversion” was ever sincerely meant, or was always an instrument of control dressed up for easier digestion by the indio, doesn’t change whether it was absorbed. The pattern I described: small elite groups pushing foreign frameworks, the larger population never fully taking them up wholesale — is applicable either way. An imposed and instrumental version of a foreign framework gives people more reason to bend it toward their own weltanschauung rather than adopt it fully without adaptation. Ileto describes this process with great detail in Pasyon: the masa didn’t just fail to absorb the ilustrado-and-friar version of Christian teaching, they made something of their own out of it.
Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses, 1565-1700 by John Leddy Phelan (1959)
Going back to Phelan the subtitle Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses explicitly puts the Spanish-Philippine framework as a two-way framework right there on the title page. Phelan describes a Spain with “no wealth in the islands to attract conquistadores,” (publisher’s summary) unlike the Americas so the Philippine conquest ran mostly through scattered missionaries rather than profit-seekers, with native chieftains serving as intermediaries who let Filipinos “react selectively” to introduced Spanish innovations, producing a hispanization in which “resilient and adaptable Filipinos played a creative part.” Phelan points out that Spanish aims were three separate things — unification, Christianization, hispanization — each distinct, each sometimes supportive of the others, but none reducible to the other aims. Phelan’s work explores the failures of that Spanish colonial project as much as the successes. It seems to me that when Phelan is actually understood, his work stands a long way from “the only foreign concept was that the Spaniards were the new sheriff in town.” In fact, Phelan’s conclusion of how Filipinos reacted to foreign concepts is closer to what I said earlier: it was a creative, selective, incomplete adaptation — not wholesale conversion by the masses, and not pure calculating control by the elites either.
This isn’t quite correct either. It would be better to understand this in the Philippine cultural context which is explored in Laura Lee Junker’s Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms (1999). Junker points out, backed up by archeological excavation (Tanjay River basin) and the same Spanish accounts that allowed William Henry Scott to reconstruct pre-Spanish society, that pre-colonial society operated on the trade of prestige. Specifically the highest value of prestige was the control of luxury goods, preferably foreign luxury goods. For this very reason Rajah Humabon readily accepted the Santo Niño, which was seen not only as an object of immense godly power, but an object of prestige. Besides the Spanish fiscal record doesn’t support “exploited for profit.” The colonized Philippines ran a deficit for most of the Spanish period. Madrid covered the deficit through the situado, an annual transfer from Mexico averaging roughly 250,000 pesos, which is well-documented, and there was multiple debates in Spain about abandoning the unprofitable Philippines. Most prominently in the 16th century when Philip II went bankrupt and in the 18th century after the British 1762-1764 occupation which destroyed what little local economy existed. Amusingly in the first instance Philip II ordered a consultation with the principalía who unanimously expressed their extreme satisfaction with being colonized by the Spanish (because they could control luxury goods, thus prestige). In the second instance it was decided that there were no alternatives to the Philippines leg of the Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade which brought Chinese luxury goods to Europe. In both instances one of the documented reasons the Philippines wasn’t abandoned was the desire to continue religious conversion in the region (with the aim of converting China, Japan, Vietnam, and Cambodia) — an odd thing for the Spanish to prioritize if profit were the whole point. That doesn’t mean extraction didn’t exist at the local level, facilitated by local chieftains who kept their own “cut” — tribute, forced labor, and forced produce sales did move appreciable resources out of communities even while the colony as a whole cost Spain money. It is possible for more than one motive to coexist.
The activities of the friars doesn’t fit into a profit or power-driven narrative at all, even if some friars, being literate, might have been advisors in Malacañang (and the Palacio del Gobernador before that). In actuality the friars had a large degree independence from both Manila and Madrid — as they were governed by their own orders’ internal hierarchy as by the civil authorities nominally above them. But that’s my whole point: semi-autonomous local power that exists somewhat apart from whatever the nominal central framework says, whether we’re talking about a 17th century parish or a 21st century LGU.
I appreciate your points, which I have linked back to the overall pattern. If that pattern is four centuries deep, then there’s an argument for getting to the future the way the friars actually did it rather than by forced decree: to do so within a meaning-system people already understand by setting up examples others voluntarily join due to recognized benefits. PEZA, BCDA, and M4GG are possible ways to employ that method.
“I appreciate your points, which I have linked back to the overall pattern. If that pattern is four centuries deep, then there’s an argument for getting to the future the way the friars actually did it rather than by forced decree: to do so within a meaning-system people already understand by setting up examples others voluntarily join due to recognized benefits. PEZA, BCDA, and M4GG are possible ways to employ that method.” – Joey N.
Thanks for your response, Joey. We read Phelan differently, but that is okay. Nice to have another point of view. There is much in your post that I wanted to comment on, but maybe another time. I want to turn to your conclusion AND Karl’s topic of National Architecture/Framework.
Karl says we need one, you say we have one.
You suggest using the method the friars used. If you revisit the Catholicism that the friars did bring to the Philippines, you might change your mind. Rizal attacked the religion viciously, yet his best friend and kindred spirit, Ferdinand Blumentritt, was a devout Catholic. Why? Because the Catholicism taught and practiced in the Philippines was not the Catholicism of Rome. Blumentritt’s was more like the latter.
Filipinos are animists, or spiritists and that had a heavy influence on their practice of Catholicism. Rizal commented on his observation that many Filipino Catholics believed that the different “Birhens” were different Virgin Marys, i.e. the Birhen ng Antipolo was different from the Birhen ng Guadalupe. So they would argue with fellow Catholics over the “power” of one over the other!
Can you imagine that kind of a response to any attempt at a National Architecture/Framework?! Hahaha
When you talk about the benefits of observing a system that works as in PEZA, BCDA, and M4GG, you are preaching to the choir. I can pretty much guarantee you, however, that such would bring a patchwork of Architecture/Framework, not a unity as is the critical component in Karl’s essay. That is who we are. We are not a very logical people, at least not in the Western view of logical. That is accepting Philippines as Philippines.
As an aside, I recommend for leisure reading that you study Rizal. I may have recommended this before. He was an elitist, and I know you don’t care much for elitists. I am confident that he will change your mind about them. A historian, I think Leon Ma. Guerrero, labeled him The First Filipino. After getting to know him I think you will find it hard to come up with a Second Filipino. I have read about 5 or 6 of his biographies. My favorite is by the Englishman Austin Coates “Rizal, Philippine Martyr and Nationalist.”
Rizal had a goal – to bring dignity to the Filipino. I know you have a similar goal, and I like the way you go about it – start small, think tall. But I think even you are amazed at how we have a tendency to stay small. The big picture never comes.
The Americans started big in the 1900s….by the 1920s they realized they were closer to the beginning than they were to the end. So they bailed. I think having a knowledge and intimacy with Rizal will come in handy for you.
Like your previous Phelan example, the new many Birhens example seems good at first but in actuality proves the opposite of your argument 🙂
Personally I am a Marian devotee and have studied Christian/Catholic theology at an academic level. First things first, competing devotion to local Marian titles isn’t even a Filipino peculiarity — it’s probably the most universal feature of lived Catholicism anywhere Catholicism is practiced. Mexicans have their own rivalries between the Señoras of Guadalupe, Zapopan, and San Juan de los Lagos. Italy has campanilismo — intensely local patron-saint and Madonna loyalties, argued between small towns close enough to see the other’s church bell towers. In Vietnam, nominally a communist one-party state, Marian devotion actually increased after unification under the communists at the 15 major Vietnamese Marian shrines and hundreds of minor shrines in villages and towns. Poland, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain herself — everywhere the Catholic Church became a lived religion accepted spiritually by the local people instead of a decree, practices localized into exactly this kind of personal, competitive devotion. Which happened during the Apostolic time between Apostles when those men were still alive; just as it happened in Judaism before that. Or happened in any other number of religions like Islam, Buddhism, Islam, to name a few. If that counts as illogic, perhaps you’re dismissing the human experience as being central to transformation and instead prefer imposed rules, which to be frank the ilustrados and Katipunan tried to do as well.
I’ll explain it another way since you decided to move goalposts by introducing new examples while discarding your previous examples once again: Your many Birhens isn’t a counterexample to unity coexisting with local variation that you think it is; rather it’s a 2,000-year proof of unity and local variation coexistence actually working. The Catholic Church has held one ecclesiastical hierarchy, one set of sacred sacraments, one Canon Law, across Filipino, Mexican, Vietnamese, Polish, Irish, Portuguese, and Spanish local parishes that look and feel completely different at first glance and whose parishioners occasionally argue about whose icons are stronger. But that’s not fragmentation instead of unity — that’s the actual shape unity takes at large scale. The framework holds rules where it has to (doctrine, ecclesiastical hierarchy, valid sacraments), and the architecture varies everywhere else (devotional life, language, local saints). PEZA, BCDA, and M4GG are not proposing to make every project or LGU identical. They’re proposing a framework: hold the rules that matter, let the rest be Filipino.
Pointing out that the American colonial administration’s preparation to leave the Philippines to Filipinos is a straw man that removes Philippine capacity and Filipino agency, which I am against doing. In actuality what happened was the same that happened under the Spanish examples I brought up previously — the politics and budget back in the United States rather than a reaction to lack of a Filipino will. That political shift happened almost as immediately as the Philippines was gained as an American colony before the ink dried on the 1898 Treaty of Paris, not in the 1920s. Almost ever case of empires in history giving up territories were for reasons that had more to do with the metropole than the colony. And of course the departing power would try to color their experience in a positive light as a coping mechanism; just as Philippine nationalism insists on boosterism.
Thanks for the suggestion about reading Rizal. I’ve already read Rizal, Blumentritt, and other contemporaneous writers in the original Spanish. I don’t think you really understand Rizal at all beyond glossing over his translated writings. When I say “accepting the Philippines as the Philippines,” I meant it as a precondition for effort, not a ceiling on ambition. If the acceptance stops at “that is who we are,” it isn’t acceptance as a baseline for moving forward anymore — it’s just a nicer-sounding way of saying nothing changes. Another way of saying defeatism but with more words.
“Like your previous Phelan example, the new many Birhens example seems good at first but in actuality proves the opposite of your argument J” – Joey N.
I’m happy to know that you know Rizal, Blumentritt, etc.
“Rizal attacked the religion viciously, yet his best friend and kindred spirit, Ferdinand Blumentritt, was a devout Catholic. Why? Because the Catholicism taught and practiced in the Philippines was not the Catholicism of Rome. Blumentritt’s was more like the latter.”
Thanks in advance.
CV, I wrote a long reply to your questions but decided not to post it since you’re searching for confirmation of your biases and not engaging in an actual discussion. I’ve put enough effort into this thread, which has stretched over 2 days, where each of my responses to your questions was not reciprocated by you expounding your own views on how the Philippines can be better but rather by you moving goalposts (6 times by my count). If you would like to move back to discussing how the Philippines can improve from the current baseline, instead of constantly doing “what if” this or that in the past that cannot be changed, I’m more than happy to entertain your discussion if I have time.
As for your last two questions: Unfortunately you’re wrong on both points but the good news is that the answers may be found within my previous replies.
Thanks.
“CV, I wrote a long reply to your questions but decided not to post it since you’re searching for confirmation of your biases and not engaging in an actual discussion.” – Joey N.
Aww…just when I start to pin you down on your many assertions, you decide to stop making assertions. That is indeed one way to stop a discussion.
“I’ve put enough effort into this thread, which has stretched over 2 days, where each of my responses to your questions was not reciprocated by you expounding your own views on how the Philippines can be better but rather by you moving goalposts (6 times by my count).” _Joey N.
Our lengthy exchanges were about assertions you made as we discuss the problem of the Philippines. We have not even gone into the solutions. You yourself have said that you have to understand the problem before you start going to solutions. By jumping to talking about solutions, it is you who are moving these so-called goal posts. I don’t recall expounding any views on how the Philippines can be better. We were talking about this assertion of yours: **Reading that record across four centuries, one can trace a recurring pattern: small groups of elites trying to “convert” the much larger majority to foreign concepts, over and over, never quite succeeding widely.**
“As for your last two questions: Unfortunately you’re wrong on both points but the good news is that the answers may be found within my previous replies.” – Joey N.
My first question asks you to explain your assertion. It asks specific questions regarding your assertion. You refuse to answer?!
My second “question” was not even a question. It asks for your opinion on a statement from one “Rizalista” to another (who has the advantage of having read much of what Rizal AND Blumentritt wrote in their original Spanish). You refuse to answer?!
That is a shame. But so be it. You give some vague assertion that you have answered them in your previous replies. I suspect even you cannot find the answers in your previous replies, so you just shut the conversation down. Fair enough
We both know where we each stand, so let us just do the honorable thing and move forward.
lol okay
Terrific explanation of how difference and unity can coexist.
“When I say “accepting the Philippines as the Philippines,” I meant it as a precondition for effort, not a ceiling on ambition.”
Exquisite. And I read it right.
One of the biggest liabilities that higher socioeconomic Filipinos have is the penchant of relitigating the past, even up to romanticized versions of the past. Too much time is spent motionless and complaining, rather than moving forward. In that regard I admire my poor Filipino acquaintances who move forward because they don’t really have a choice. Sometimes moving forward involves making new mistakes, but overall forward movement equates to eventual progress over time; a forward movement which smooths out mistakes made while practiced repetition reduces future error.
“One of the biggest liabilities that higher socioeconomic Filipinos have is the penchant of relitigating the past, even up to romanticized versions of the past.” – Joey N.
Yes, that that is one way of handling the thoughts and ideas of “higher socioeconomic Filipinos” – dismiss them as “relitigating the past” and “romanticized versions of the past.”
Oh, don’t forget: **small groups of elites trying to “convert” the much larger majority to foreign concepts, over and over, never quite succeeding widely.** – Joey N.
👍🏼
“Sometimes moving forward involves making new mistakes . . .” That goes into my quote list.
CV,
There is a fine line between observed opinions and harsh judging. (That’s all)
Sharing a critique I got from another forum.
The first step of correcting a problem is to accept that there is problem. Look around you. We are structurally, culturally or morally doomed. To say that we are not is like saying that everything is fine. If everything is fine then there is no need to correct the problem. If there is a problem, it will never be solved. To some it might sound like a surrender. But to warriors it is a challenge. So if you are a warrior, accepting that you are weak is a challenge for you to be strong. The question is does our country have enough warriors? It’s not about being optimistic or pessimistic. It’s about accepting reality and do what needs to done. Our boat is sinking. What are your options? 1) if you’re a pessimist you’ll abandon ship; 2) if you’re an optimist, you’ll say that it is not; 3) if your a warrior, you’ll bail water out like hell. You only abandon ship if you are 100% sure that the sinking cannot be stopped. But if you abandon ship if the sinking can be stopped would discourage those bailing water out. Saying the boat is not sinking will only give those bailing out water a false sense of security which would make them stop doing what they should be doing. So those that will say that the boat is not sinking is worse than those that abandon the ship. Because those that abandon the ship at least made the boat lighter, slowing down the sinking. But if you’re a warrior, you’ll bail out water like hell to save the ship regardless of those that choose to abandon ship or think that the boat is not sinking.
The writer suggests there are two views, the ship is sinking or it is not. I disagree. The ship has a defective motor so drifts where the winds and waves take it, and occasionally, when the motor is cranked to life, moves toward some hazy ill-defined destination that seems to keep changing locations.
He or she says there are but three choices, jump ship, ride with it into doom, or be a warrior to correct course. Well, there are also aging warriors willing to let others bail, or row, or tinker with the motor, who look on with neither bitterness nor joy, but occasionally amusement, at the apoplexy of critics who haven’t succeeded either.
Nice assesments. This one and Admiral Cusi’s opions. Precisely, Joe!
A look back at a January comment that left a mark.
May I refer you to what Admiral Allan Cusi told me as a reaction to one of my blog articles. Reply Allan Ferdinand Cusi says: January 14, 2026 at 10:37 am
On the Claim That the Philippines Was “Never” Going to Become Singapore The argument that the Philippines was never capable of reform—that it was structurally, culturally, or morally doomed to fail—sounds sophisticated. It presents itself as realism. In truth, it is a form of surrender. History is unkind to deterministic thinking. No nation that successfully transformed itself did so because success was inevitable. Singapore did not rise because it was destined to; it rose because its leaders rejected excuses when excuses were abundant. To argue that the Philippines could never emulate Singapore “no matter who promised it” is to confuse difficulty with impossibility, and leadership failure with national incapacity. Singapore in the 1960s had: * No natural resources * Severe ethnic divisions * External threats * Weak institutions Lee Kuan Yew himself repeatedly stated that failure was the default outcome. What changed Singapore’s trajectory was not culture, size, or destiny—but discipline imposed by leadership, institutions that enforced accountability, and consequences that were real. To say the Philippines is different in kind—not merely degree—is not analysis. It is cultural determinism, a lazy explanation that absolves leaders of responsibility while blaming abstract forces like “culture,” “history,” or “the people.” Culture does not precede systems. Culture follows incentives. When corruption is punished swiftly and without exception, behavior changes. When competence is rewarded and patronage penalized, norms shift. When law is enforced consistently, morality stops being optional. Singapore did not wait for virtue to appear. It engineered behavior through institutions, enforcement, and incentives. Over time, culture followed. The defeatist narrative is especially dangerous because it benefits the very failures it claims to explain. If reform is impossible, then no one is accountable. If corruption is inevitable, then integrity becomes naïve. If the nation is irredeemable, then moral compromise becomes reasonable. This way of thinking does not challenge power—it protects it. The Philippines’ problem has never been a lack of faith, talent, or intelligence. It has been a lack of sustained moral courage among those entrusted with authority. The country did not fail because it tried too hard to reform; it failed because reform was repeatedly postponed, diluted, or selectively enforced. To call this reality “proof” that reform is impossible is to mistake repeated abdication for destiny. No serious leader believes that nations succeed by accident. They succeed because someone, at some point, decided that excuses would no longer be accepted—and paid the political price for enforcing standards. The belief that the Philippines has “no chance of redemption” is not realism. It is resignation. And resignation, when adopted by educated elites and leaders, becomes self-fulfilling. Nations do not collapse because reform is impossible. They collapse when those who know better stop believing that responsibility
Well, Admiral Cusi is a brilliant man, no doubt. Imposed discipline changed Singapore. Culture follows incentives. The defeatist narrative assumes corruption wins, a view that supports corruption. Nations collapse when those who know better stop taking responsibility. Startlingly accurate, vivid observations, in my book.
The nation will be what, I ask. What’s the goal. Rich, peaceful, healthy, secure, respected (respect is power).
What’s the problem? Woefully weak justice top to bottom and bad decisions about who to elect, how to motivate Jose, how to structure laws, and where to invest.
What’s the solution? Grow up, accept responsibility.
We have lots of grpwing up to do.
Science will spur growth.
https://www.philstar.com/business/2026/07/12/2541462/science-spur-next-wave-economic-growth-balisacan
Normally within systems theory large systems become divided into domains with domain owners. In a government the domain owner is an executive — a captain, a mayor, a governor, the president in the Philippines case.
I think it is important to point out that an architecture is a blueprint whereas a framework is the repeatable template. IMHO the Philippines doesn’t have an issue with national architecture at all — the many blueprints are operating as expected within the national framework. So a national framework, rather than a national architecture, is necessary to tie together all the LGU executives who sometimes seem to operate as 1,700-odd (i.e. 1,493 municipalities, 149 cities, 82 provinces) separate improvisations. I had an interesting conversation with an attorney once who said that a nation of concurrent improvisations was exactly what the post-EDSA settlement that produced the 1987 Constitution intended.
We can recall that the 1987 Constitution wasn’t even crafted explicitly as an operating system for a modern administrative state despite the ample chance to do a “clean reset” based on the lessons-learned from numerous other developing countries. Certainly such a view would be an interesting interpretation of Ninotchka Rosca’s “Land of Constant Beginnings.” When distilled one can quickly see that the singular objective of the 1987 Constitution was that one person could never again become a dictator sitting on top of a single command structure, to pass out favors to allies and to jail rivals. Article X mandated the passage of the Local Government Code which pushed oversight and management of healthcare, welfare, agriculture, and the environment down to the 1,700 LGUs. Devolution is a protection against dictatorial domination, but it also provided a vector for public corruption and national discoordination. Better governed LGUs used resources efficiently; most LGU executives are not held accountable. It is a bit ironic that the 1987 framework was designed to prevent domination by one person and ended up splitting up that feared power across 1,700 LGUs.
So why does the Philippines operate as 1,700-odd bespoke improvisations rather than by a national architecture within a national framework when the state itself clearly has the technical capacity to standardize? It might be a question of political capacity.
Here I find Alfred W. McCoy’s observations in An Anarchy of Families (1993) illuminating. McCoy argues in Anarchy that the Philippine state has never really functioned as a bureaucracy sitting above provincial society — what we see as a “state” is closer to an arena that a durable set of landed and commercial families compete inside and periodically capture, converting control of local courts, police, and patronage into electoral dominance and back into protected economic position, generation after generation, regardless of which national administration is nominally in charge.
John Sidel’s exploration of political dynasties in Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines (1999) traced the development of Philippine political dynasties up to the immediate post-1987 period and points out some uncomfortable truths I think are often overlooked. In Capital, Coercion, and Crime, Sidel discovered that the power of political dynasties are due less to inherited landed wealth than to being positioned early in periods of poorly-resourced democratic institutions in order to capture state resources. A share of the state resources is a much more valuable prize than farming or developing land (which points to a reason why there isn’t much emphasis on developing agriculture).
Both McCoy’s and Sidel’s accounts gets one to the same conclusion: the dynasties that often capture LGU executive positions don’t push to update the national operating system or national architecture because the existing national framework itself is an asset. Having pieces of national architecture become more standardized and fit better within a national framework makes the asset portable to a non-family successor — the opposite an entrenched dynasty wants. An indicator of this preference is that the IRA/NTA is based on an LGU’s land area and population, not actual need or performance. Undoubtedly Mandanas-Garcia will make entrenchment worse.
PEZA is probably the shining example of what a standardized architecture operating under a regularized framework could look like. Through PEZA (to be joined by BCDA), the Philippines has proof that there is state capacity to build a framework-governed institution with stable rules, multi-administration continuity, and measurable economic output. But in order to do so PEZA (and BCDA) need to be “walled off” from the rest of the Philippines, creating another zone separated from the system rather than disciplining the system itself. Every Philippine governance success story ends up being exercises of enclave-building — subdivisions, economic zones, independent cities, semi-autonomous districts like BGC, and so on.
Maybe the real question, 40 years on after EDSA, is “can the wall be moved outward” or does it just get built again somewhere else.
I picture a laminated and framed blue print. Thanks!
Terrific portrait of the nation, unchecked power rolling up to local clans who use money poorly, live high on the hog, and let National Govt flounder because the system works, for them. National Government administers underfunded agencies that are generally not run by competent managers, and these scammers manage to stagger and swagger to the next administration. PEZA operates outside both these weird incompetencies, more like a proper business.
Also consider that the neo-trapo “anti-corruption” screeds probably would change immediately if they got to enjoy some of the money — in essence they are upset that investments are being funneled through structures they don’t control and gain illicit advantage from.
Recall that many of the flood control projects that were exposed to be failing, poorly managed, and involved corruption were signed off on during Duterte’s term under Duterte-aligned agents. Curiously Duterte-aligned politicians and groups regularly rail against the current administration yet claim their own implicated politicians (i.e. Marcoleta) are blameless.
Pax Silica involves at least ₱600 billion ($10 billion) in investments. During Duterte’s term ₱51 billion (~$1 billion) was mysteriously funneled to Pulong Duterte’s district. Billions and billions of ghost infrastructure projects exist all over Mindanao… I did recall on many occasions passing by tarps or billboards advertising this or that project with Duterte’s and his local ally’s name, yet years later those projects never got off the ground or were shoddily done.
Or after Yolanda where Aquino was attacked because certain politicians smelled an opportunity to earn corrupt money from the large amounts of aid coming in from abroad, then due to the Aquino admin’s good management and foreign donors’ decisions to send money directly to NGOs, a lot of local politicians complained loudly that “they weren’t helped.”
Ah, yes. That history is very vivid. The Philippine’s National Infrastructure Architecture, corruption.
Not all is lost — PEZA and BCDA which we keep bringing up provide enclaves with stable governance. A workaround but one that works.
LGUs still have the option of applying good governance to themselves which would bring about stable governance and attract investments. Clearly the vast majority of LGUs are quite happy to enjoy their NTA portion. We do have the example of the M4GG cities where cities are applying good governance to themselves. The strongest incentive in Filipino culture is envy, so perhaps the success of M4GG cities would give nearby LGU heads an enviable example to replicate.