FROM STRATEGIC LEARNING TO RESILIENT SOVEREIGNTY
A Philippine Doctrine of Capability, Strategic Autonomy and Mega-Systems
By Karl M. Garcia
Introduction: The Real Strategic Question
The Philippines does not lack assets.
It has geography, a vast maritime domain, natural resources, agricultural potential, a large workforce, universities, ports, cities, entrepreneurial capacity, a substantial domestic market and a strategic position in the Indo-Pacific.
What it lacks is capability integration.
A mineral deposit is an asset; mineral processing is capability.
A coastline is an asset; persistent maritime-domain awareness is capability.
A university graduate is potential; an engineer working within a productive industrial ecosystem is capability.
A port is infrastructure; a port connected to logistics, manufacturing, energy, ship repair, digital systems and markets is strategic capability.
The central task of Philippine development should therefore be:
Convert assets into capabilities, and capabilities into interconnected national systems.
This leads to a simple doctrine:
Learn from everyone. Copy no one. Build Philippine capability.
The objective is not autarky. It is resilient sovereignty—the practical ability to see, understand, decide, produce, protect, move, recover, adapt and choose.
That is strategic autonomy through managed interdependence.
I. CAPABILITY IS NATIONAL POWER
National power should not be measured simply by what a country owns or purchases, but by what it can actually do.
The strategic progression is:
Resources → Processing → Manufacturing → Engineering → Design → Innovation
And:
Importer → Operator → Maintainer → Adapter → Engineer → Designer → Innovator
This applies equally to semiconductors, shipbuilding, agriculture, energy, digital infrastructure, defense, water systems and advanced manufacturing.
Foreign investment and technology acquisition should therefore leave behind more than factories and imported equipment.
They should create:
Skills + suppliers + engineering + R&D + domestic firms + intellectual property.
Otherwise, sophisticated technology can become sophisticated dependency.
The ultimate test is simple:
Can Filipinos increasingly operate, maintain, modify, improve, design and eventually create what the country strategically needs?
II. LEARN FROM EVERYONE, COPY NO ONE
No single country provides the Philippine model.
Japan, South Korea and Taiwan offer lessons in industrial upgrading.
Singapore demonstrates the importance of logistics, planning and state capacity.
China demonstrates the potential of infrastructure, industrial scale and long-term investment.
India offers lessons in strategic autonomy.
The United States demonstrates the power of innovation ecosystems, capital and alliances.
Australia offers lessons in resource development and maritime strategy.
The Gulf states demonstrate how infrastructure and capital can reshape economic geography.
The Philippine question should not be:
“Which country should we copy?”
It should be:
“What capability did they build, what institutional arrangements made it possible, and how can we adapt the lesson to Philippine conditions?”
The same principle applies to strategic thinkers.
Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Nye, Porter, Hirschman, Schumpeter, Perez, Romer, Deming, Rumelt, North, Ostrom and Sen offer different pieces of the puzzle.
No single theory is sufficient.
The Philippine doctrine must therefore be synthetic rather than ideological.
III. STRATEGIC CHOICE AND THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF CONFLICT
Strategic autonomy also requires diplomatic flexibility.
Palmerston’s famous 1848 formulation—that Britain had neither perpetual allies nor eternal enemies, but enduring interests—has often been attributed to Henry Kissinger. The documented origin is Palmerston; Kissinger later echoed and discussed similar principles.
The Philippine lesson is not cynicism.
It is strategic flexibility anchored in enduring national interests.
Those interests include:
Sovereignty + territorial integrity + economic prosperity + maritime security + food and energy security + resilience + strategic choice.
Alliances matter.
Partnerships matter.
Trust matters.
But national strategy cannot be outsourced to friendship.
At the same time, contemporary competition cannot be understood purely through conventional military power.
The work of Mary Kaldor on new forms of organized conflict, Rupert Smith’s concept of “war amongst the people,” and the writings of Russian General Valery Gerasimov all highlight different aspects of a broader reality: competition can operate simultaneously through military, political, economic, informational, cyber and civilian domains.
The expression “Gerasimov Doctrine” should be used cautiously; it is more accurate to discuss Gerasimov’s writings and Russia’s broader approach rather than assume a formally adopted doctrine bearing that name.
For the Philippines, strategic competition may involve:
Disinformation → cyber disruption → economic pressure → coercive maritime activity → legal and political pressure → infrastructure vulnerability → military signaling.
The response therefore must be integrated:
Maritime awareness + cybersecurity + diplomacy + economic resilience + information resilience + law enforcement + civil defense + military deterrence.
IV. RESILIENT SOVEREIGNTY
Sovereignty is more than legal jurisdiction.
A state exercises meaningful sovereignty when it possesses enough practical capability to make choices.
Resilient sovereignty means the ability to:
See → Understand → Decide → Produce → Protect → Move → Recover → Adapt → Choose.
This does not require complete self-sufficiency.
It requires sufficient domestic capability and sufficient alternatives so that dependence does not become vulnerability.
The objective is therefore not artificial equidistance among major powers.
It is:
Strategic choice.
V. FROM MEGA-PROJECTS TO MEGA-SYSTEMS
The Philippines should think at larger scale, but it should stop confusing physical size with strategic importance.
The strategic value of infrastructure comes from the systems it enables.
Ports should connect to cities, industries, farms, energy systems, universities and digital networks.
Railways should connect production to markets.
Energy infrastructure should connect generation to manufacturing.
Universities should connect to laboratories and industry.
Digital infrastructure should connect businesses, government and research.
The objective is not necessarily the largest individual project.
It is:
The greatest system effect per peso.
A mega-project is a physical object.
A mega-system is a network of mutually reinforcing capabilities.
VI. THE LUZON ECONOMIC CORRIDOR AND INDUSTRIAL TRANSFORMATION
The Luzon Economic Corridor provides a practical foundation for this approach, linking Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas through coordinated investment in transport, clean energy, semiconductor supply chains, agribusiness and related infrastructure.
Its strategic importance lies not merely in individual projects but in the possibility of creating an integrated economic geography.
The proposed Pax Silica hub in New Clark City should likewise be evaluated not simply as an industrial location but as a capability-building platform.
It should progressively move the Philippines from:
Assembly → Testing → Packaging → Components → Equipment → Engineering → Design → R&D → Intellectual Property.
Its success should therefore be measured by Philippine capability created—not merely by foreign capital invested.
The objective is:
Industrial ecosystem formation, not industrial enclave formation.
VII. AGRICULTURE, CIRCULARITY AND RESOURCE SECURITY
Agriculture should be treated not only as food production but as an industrial platform.
Abacá, piña, banana fiber, coconut coir, bamboo and other biomass can support:
Textiles + composites + packaging + construction + filtration + marine products + industrial materials.
Agricultural policy can therefore become industrial policy.
The same principle applies to waste.
The traditional model is:
Extract → Manufacture → Consume → Dispose
A more resilient model is:
Extract → Manufacture → Use → Recover → Process → Remanufacture → Reuse
A Philippine Planetary Refinery concept could recover value from plastics, textiles, agricultural residues, construction waste, electronic waste and industrial by-products.
Circularity should not become recycling for its own sake.
It should be pursued where it:
Reduces resource dependence + creates competitive industries + improves resilience + makes economic sense.
VIII. THE PHILIPPINES AS A MARITIME SYSTEM
For an archipelagic country, the sea is not a boundary.
It is the country’s:
Highway + food system + resource base + energy frontier + industrial platform + security domain + connection to the world.
The maritime system must allow the country to:
See → Understand → Protect → Operate → Sustain → Restore.
Maritime Domain Awareness should integrate appropriate information from defense, the coast guard, fisheries, science, ports, shipping and law enforcement.
This is essential not only for conventional defense but also for gray-zone competition, illegal activity, environmental protection and the exercise of sovereign rights.
A country that cannot see what is occurring in its maritime domain cannot fully exercise sovereignty over it.
IX. THE MARITIME ECONOMIC NETWORK
The archipelago should function as one maritime economic network:
Farm → Consolidation → Processing → Cold Chain → Regional Port → Domestic Shipping → Gateway Port → Industrial Zone → Global Market
Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao should not function as isolated economic islands.
Mindanao, in particular, can be developed as a network of complementary maritime-industrial nodes:
Davao — logistics and services
General Santos — agriculture, fisheries and food processing
Cagayan de Oro — manufacturing and logistics
Iligan — industry, energy and agro-processing
Zamboanga — western Mindanao and ASEAN-facing trade
Surigao — minerals and maritime logistics
The objective is not competition among cities.
It is a Mindanao Economic Network.
X. TRANSFORMATIVE INFRASTRUCTURE
Proposals such as the Quezon Canal or future Mindanao canal and maritime-connectivity concepts should neither be dismissed because they are ambitious nor approved because they are ambitious.
They should be compared against alternatives.
The question is not:
“Is this a mega-project?”
It is:
“Does this create greater strategic and economic value than the alternatives?”
Every transformative project should therefore undergo staged feasibility assessment, economic analysis, environmental review, financing evaluation and implementation planning.
Ambition should be welcomed.
But ambition must be disciplined by evidence.
XI. HUMAN CAPITAL IS STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE
No mega-system works without people.
A shipyard without naval architects cannot become a strategic shipbuilding industry.
A semiconductor ecosystem without engineers cannot scale.
A digital economy without cybersecurity professionals cannot remain resilient.
An advanced manufacturing industry without technicians cannot compete.
The Philippines therefore needs workforce planning synchronized with industrial strategy.
The progression should be:
Education → Skills → Research → Industry → Experience → Engineering → Innovation
And the state must build the institutions that connect those stages.
XII. FROM “KAYA NG PINOY” TO A CAPABLE PHILIPPINES
The Philippines already demonstrates extraordinary individual capability.
Filipino engineers, seafarers, nurses, architects, programmers, scientists, technicians, entrepreneurs, pilots, soldiers and skilled workers compete globally.
The question is not:
“Are Filipinos capable?”
The question is:
“Can the Philippines organize Filipino capability at scale?”
An engineer working abroad represents individual capability.
A Philippine engineering ecosystem capable of designing, manufacturing, certifying, exporting and continuously improving complex systems represents national capability.
A Filipino naval architect is capability.
A Philippine maritime-industrial ecosystem capable of designing ships, producing components, maintaining fleets and generating intellectual property is national capability.
This is the difference between:
Capable Filipinos
and
a capable Philippines.
XIII. “KAYA NATIN ’TO” MUST NOT MEAN “BAHALA NA”
Filipino optimism is valuable, but it must not become an excuse for improvisation without preparation.
“Kaya natin ’to” should not mean:
Bahala na.
Real capability is technical and repetitive.
It requires:
Standards + specifications + procurement + laboratories + testing + certification + financing + apprenticeships + universities + factories + supply chains + maintenance + competent institutions.
The slogan says:
Kaya.
Capability asks:
How?
Who will build it?
Who will operate it?
Who will maintain it?
Who will train the next generation?
Can we manufacture replacement parts?
Can we improve what we acquired?
Can the system survive a change of administration?
Can we eventually export what we develop?
That is the pathway from Filipino ingenuity to national capability.
XIV. EDUCATION AND SCIENCE AS NATIONAL CAPABILITY INFRASTRUCTURE
Education is not simply a social-service expenditure.
It is the foundation of national capability.
The Philippine Constitution gives education the highest budgetary priority, and the national education-sector allocation has grown substantially.
But expenditure is an input.
Capability is the outcome.
The relevant questions are therefore:
Are learning outcomes improving?
Are graduates acquiring useful skills?
Are laboratories adequate?
Are universities producing research?
Are technical graduates employable?
Are science and engineering graduates finding productive opportunities at home?
Is education synchronized with industrial strategy?
Education produces capability potential.
Science creates knowledge and technology.
Industry creates productive scale.
Infrastructure creates connectivity.
Finance creates investable scale.
Government creates coordination, rules and strategic direction.
Only when these systems reinforce one another does capability compound.
XV. DOST AND THE RESEARCH-TO-INDUSTRY PIPELINE
The same principle applies to the Department of Science and Technology.
DOST’s institutional evolution—from the National Science Development Board to the National Science and Technology Authority and eventually a Cabinet-level department—reflects the country’s long-standing recognition that science and technology are components of national development.
Its role extends beyond laboratory research.
It encompasses scientific services, research councils, research institutes, scholarships, technology development, commercialization and critical national services such as weather and geohazard monitoring.
Therefore, the question should not simply be:
“How much does the Philippines spend on DOST?”
It should be:
“How effectively does the national system turn knowledge into capability?”
The desired pipeline is:
Education → Research → Technology → Prototype → Certification → Commercialization → Manufacturing → Export
R&D funding without industry can create research islands.
Industry without domestic R&D can create technological dependence.
The objective is a functioning research-to-industry pipeline.
XVI. PLANNING IS ALSO NATIONAL CAPABILITY
A modern state needs an institutional capacity to think ahead.
The Philippines has recently reorganized its economic-planning architecture. Under Republic Act No. 12145, the Economy, Planning and Development Act, NEDA was reorganized into the Department of Economy, Planning and Development (DEPDev) and the NEDA Board into the Economy and Development Council.
The institutional names may change.
The underlying national requirement does not.
The country still needs:
Economic analysis + development planning + investment programming + project evaluation + monitoring + policy coordination + long-term strategy.
Planning is often invisible.
A bridge can be photographed.
A road can be inaugurated.
But the most valuable planning decision may be the project that government wisely decides not to build.
Therefore:
Planning capacity is institutional infrastructure.
Statistics are infrastructure.
Research institutions are infrastructure.
Regulatory capacity is infrastructure.
Professional civil service is infrastructure.
Project evaluation is infrastructure.
Strategic planning is infrastructure.
XVII. MISSION ACCUMULATION AND INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN
The Philippine problem is not necessarily that government has too many agencies.
Sometimes it is that existing institutions have accumulated too many unrelated missions.
A new national problem appears.
Government asks:
“Which existing agency can handle it?”
The answer is often:
“Give it another mandate.”
Over time, institutions become compressed under layers of responsibilities requiring different expertise, incentives and accountability systems.
This creates mission accumulation.
The solution is not automatically to create more agencies.
Nor is it automatically to merge agencies.
The real question is:
What institutional architecture best matches the capabilities the country needs?
Government should therefore be designed around functions, competencies and outcomes—not simply organizational charts.
XVIII. INFRASTRUCTURE AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY ARE NATIONAL SECURITY
Ports, energy systems, telecommunications, shipyards, industrial zones, transportation corridors and digital networks are simultaneously economic and strategic assets.
A country capable of building and repairing ships has greater maritime resilience.
A country with multiple logistics routes is harder to paralyze.
A country with resilient energy infrastructure can withstand disruption.
A country capable of producing critical technologies is less vulnerable to coercion.
A country with resilient information systems is harder to destabilize.
Therefore:
Economic resilience is national security.
And:
Industrial policy is increasingly a security policy.
XIX. GOVERNANCE: FROM MASTER PLANS TO EXECUTION
The Philippines does not lack plans.
Its deeper problem is fragmentation.
Ports, roads, railways, energy, water, industrial zones, land use, environmental policy, defense and regional development are often planned separately even though citizens and businesses experience them as one system.
The country therefore needs stronger national strategy integration capable of aligning:
Plans + budgets + infrastructure + industrial policy + maritime policy + defense + environment + regional development + human capital + information resilience.
Every major strategy should follow:
Vision → Diagnosis → Priorities → Capability Targets → Spatial Strategy → Infrastructure → Projects → Financing → Implementation → Measurement → Evaluation → Adaptation
The objective is not to produce another master plan.
It is to build an execution system.
XX. MODULARITY AND THE OFF-RAMP
Mega-systems should be built modularly.
A maritime economic corridor, for example, could progressively integrate:
Port + rail + road + dry port + cold chain + shipyard + digital platform.
The system does not have to be completed simultaneously.
Each module should demonstrate value and strengthen the next.
Every major project should also have an off-ramp.
At every stage government should ask:
Is the problem still real?
Are the assumptions still valid?
Is the project still affordable?
Has a better alternative emerged?
Is the expected capability actually materializing?
If not, the project should be modified, delayed or stopped.
That is not failure.
That is disciplined governance.
XXI. THE SIX PILLARS OF RESILIENT SOVEREIGNTY
The national capability architecture can be organized around six mutually reinforcing pillars:
1. Institutional Resilience
Competent, accountable and continuous government.
2. Economic and Industrial Resilience
Manufacturing, food security, logistics, diversified trade and domestic productive capacity.
3. Technological Resilience
AI, digital infrastructure, cybersecurity, engineering, science and R&D.
4. Strategic and Maritime Resilience
Maritime-domain awareness, defense, law enforcement, shipping, shipbuilding and maritime industry.
5. Human Resilience
Education, technical skills, employment, entrepreneurship and social capacity.
6. Environmental and Humanitarian Resilience
Water security, disaster preparedness, climate adaptation and circular resource management.
Together they constitute a national capability architecture.
XXII. THE PHILIPPINE MEGA-SYSTEM PORTFOLIO
Rather than searching for one national mega-project, the Philippines should build a portfolio of interconnected systems.
Industrial Network
Pax Silica + Luzon Economic Corridor + regional manufacturing.
Maritime Network
Ports + domestic shipping + Ro-Ro + shipyards + logistics.
Agro-Industrial Network
Farms + processing + cold chains + warehouses + ports.
Water Network
Flood control + reservoirs + irrigation + recycling + appropriate desalination.
Energy Network
Generation + transmission + storage + renewable energy + industrial power.
Digital Network
Telecommunications + data centers + cloud + AI + cybersecurity.
Urban Network
Mass transit + housing + smart systems + climate resilience.
The objective is system effect, not project accumulation.
XXIII. THE NATIONAL STRATEGIC OPERATING SYSTEM
Every major national initiative should answer six questions:
- What problem are we solving?
- What capability are we creating?
- What industries and institutions does it connect?
- What vulnerability does it reduce?
- How will success be measured?
- How will the capability be maintained and improved?
This changes the development mindset:
Project completion → Capability creation
Budget utilization → Strategic outcomes
Technology acquisition → Domestic competence
Waste disposal → Resource recovery
Infrastructure → Economic linkages
Foreign investment → Capability transfer
Military modernization → Integrated resilience
Master plans → Execution systems
XXIV. CONCLUSION: THE REAL MEGA-PROJECT IS THE PHILIPPINES
The Philippines does not need to become a great power.
It needs to become a capable power.
A country capable of protecting its maritime domain.
Capable of producing more of what it strategically needs.
Capable of transforming resources into higher-value products.
Capable of operating and maintaining advanced technology.
Capable of recovering value from waste.
Capable of moving food, people and goods efficiently across its islands.
Capable of surviving disasters and recovering from disruption.
Capable of resisting coercion below the threshold of war.
Capable of maintaining alliances while adapting to changing circumstances.
Capable of anchoring foreign policy in enduring national interests.
And, most importantly:
Capable of making choices.
That is the deepest meaning of sovereignty.
The Philippines already possesses many of the ingredients:
People. Geography. Maritime territory. Resources. Agriculture. Cities. Ports. Universities. Entrepreneurial energy. Strategic location.
The strategic task is to connect them.
Connect farms to industry.
Connect industry to ports.
Connect ports to markets.
Connect universities to industry.
Connect science to production.
Connect technology to Filipino capability.
Connect waste to resource recovery.
Connect energy to manufacturing.
Connect infrastructure to economic geography.
Connect the islands through the maritime domain.
Connect economic resilience to national security.
Connect diplomacy to enduring national interests.
Connect defense to the realities of contemporary conflict.
And connect all of them through institutions capable of planning, financing, executing, measuring and continuously improving.
The Philippine doctrine can therefore be reduced to ten principles:
LEARN FROM EVERYONE.
COPY NO ONE.
ANCHOR POLICY IN ENDURING NATIONAL INTERESTS.
UNDERSTAND THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF CONFLICT.
THINK AT MEGA-SCALE.
BUILD MODULARLY.
INTEGRATE SYSTEMS.
DEVELOP PHILIPPINE CAPABILITY.
MAXIMIZE TRANSFORMATION PER PESO.
BUILD A STATE CAPABLE OF CAPABILITY.
This is what “Kaya ng Pinoy” should ultimately mean.
Not that Filipinos can somehow improvise their way through every problem.
But that the Philippines can deliberately build the institutions, industries, infrastructure, knowledge, technology, workforce and systems that allow Filipino capability to compound across generations.
The slogan says: Kaya.
National strategy asks: How?
Institutions provide the pathway.
Capability provides the answer.
And sovereignty provides the purpose.
The objective is not to build the world’s biggest canal, city, industrial park, port or infrastructure project.
It is to build something more consequential:
A Philippines capable of choosing its future rather than merely reacting to it.
That is resilient sovereignty.
That is strategic autonomy.
That is the Philippine mega-system.
And ultimately:
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Thanks, Karl. I look forward to reading your latest essay. I noticed “Embassy of the Philippines – Manila.”
I would ask a question, but then I’ve been too Socratic lately. So I’ll humbly leave it as a statement.
Let us try that approach.
I agree… Here is another statement: In the interest of accuracy, I don’t believe that the Philippines has an embassy in Manila.
it took me some looking to find that error in one of the graphics, wow.
My question to you, are you looking at the trees or do you also see the forest?
“it took me some looking to find that error in one of the graphics, wow.
“My question to you, are you looking at the trees or do you also see the forest?” – Irineo
Thanks for the question, Irineo.
In this particular case, I was looking at the trees, specifically the graphics. These AI generated graphics can be impressive. I believe it is good to take the time to appreciate, and possibly see the messages in them that are related to the essay itself.
A few essays ago, I caught another error (and I say this humbly) which was on a map of the Philippines which had mislabeled the Cagayan area as Albay. I remember as a child, specifically in 4th grade, I was fascinated with the map of the Philippines as a result was familiar with all the provinces and where they were. Also, I know the feeling when someone inadvertently mislabels one’s hometown. I am not from Cagayan, but I can imagine how someone from there would feel if it was labeled “Albay” on a map of the Philippines.
So I was looking at the trees for as I explained to Karl, I would have to read the essay later and check out the forest.
But in relation to previous essays in SOH, do I see the forest? I would say yes, but my view of the forest may not be the same as others’ views. So it may be possible that the forest that I see is not exactly the same as the forest another sees. But close is good enough for the sake of good discussion.
These words of Rizal probably best express the point I humbly try to make (here he is speaking to Fr. Pastells, SJ from his exile in Dapitan:
”I look upon human judgment as a statue in a studio: a class of students or sculptors surrounds it, each observing it from a different angle; to one it seems to be facing right, to another facing left, to another in front, and to another behind; one sees its head tilted up, another sees it lowered, and each believes that he alone is right because he describes what he sees. But to see the statue as it really is, one would have to place his eyes at exactly the same height, distance, and angle as the others, possess the same curvature of the retina, and have the same artistic sense.”
I trust you will agree that these are insightful words from a Filipino that we can all be proud of. He is speaking in defense of intellectual tolerance, freedom of thought, and humility: no single person possesses the absolute, objective viewpoint because every human mind is bounded by its own vantage point.
Very cool, eh?
oh, that shows again that Rizal gave things a lot of thought.
He would have like this essay of mine I am sure:
what I am implying is that we all know the Philippines based on what parts of the country we have seen and lived in.
Also to some extent by what groups of people from the country we have interacted with.
which is why it is important to exchange points of view even if they differ. Many in-groups in the Philippines are quite limited in perspective.
This blog with its combination of people with extremely different perspectives of the Philippines gets quite close to a 360 degree IMAX 5D view haha.
the question is also with what goal one checks out the forest. In Munich it would depend on one’s role:
– a gardener from the Gartenamt (Bureau of Gardening) would have a database of all trees, their species, age and health history
– a planner in the Gartenamt would be looking at the Bestand (inventory) to see if the city is still as green as it should be
– city hall wouldd want to know if the goal of three trees near (whatever that means) every house is fulfilled, and other clearly defined goals
so one could ask at what level we are looking at stuff over here – at many levels for sure.
one could go really philosophical in the sense an Ilokana ex of mine defined philosophy as “iti apay iti apay” – the why of the why.
I now wonder if her claim that she had an English railway engineer based in Dagupan among her ancestors was true or not.
Her being very eager about the plays of Shakespeare – which she said was family tradition – was real, just like her being a Marcos loyalist.
one could ask now what is the why of the why of TSOH.
are we all just people lost in the woods who somehow met at a tree trunk?
tell me.
“which is why it is important to exchange points of view even if they differ. Many in-groups in the Philippines are quite limited in perspective. This blog with its combination of people with extremely different perspectives of the Philippines gets quite close to a 360 degree IMAX 5D view haha.” – Irineo
You are preaching to the choir, my good man. When Obama was elected, I first learned of this concept of “Team of Rivals” based on the book. Although the buck stopped with Obama, he did not want to surround himself with yes-men because he was confident in his leadership abilities and did not want to be insulated from reality which is what tends to happen if you surround yourself with yes-men. Trump is too incompetent as POTUS to realize that.
I believe TSOH would benefit from a healthy mix of rivals.
“one could ask now what is the why of the why of TSOH.
“are we all just people lost in the woods who somehow met at a tree trunk?
tell me.” – Irineo
I cannot tell you honestly “because it would get me killed.”
Hehehe
Let me humbly tell you where I got that line in quotes. I am quoting from a negro witness in a courtroom scene in a movie I watched a few months ago. The scene is in the Jim Crow south in a courtroom and this black young man is on the witness stand testifying in favor of the defendant. The prosecuting attorney tries to discredit him as a witness because it had been proven that earlier at some point he had lied I think to the police. The prosecuting attorney asked him “Why did you lie?!” It was more of a rhetorical question.
The black man answered “Because if I told the truth I would have been killed!”
Basically everyone in the courtroom, including the judge and jury, knew that to be true. At least that is how the movie portrayed it in the faces of the people in the courtroom.
So forgive me if I evade you question at this time, something I did when asked about my feelings w/ regard to Sara Duterte.
Anyways…time to get back to the forest and the trees.
BTW, I found another possible anomaly in one of the graphics, the one after the “Embassy of the Philippines – Manila” graphic. Another tree!
Irineo and my self played with Daang Matuwid to our own brand of daang makulit, so it takes one to know one CV.
Thanks Man.
Karl, many thanks – I can see some of your major ideas forming from the previous essay to this one. That is a natural process which happens if one writes stuff and discusses it with others. Further comments on specific key concepts to follow.
here we go:
KOREK! this elaboration is very nice:
I would add, the Bavarian Oktoberfest shows how a local tradition can be made into an efficient mega-event, building tons of capabilities on the side:
1. hotels and accomodation, public transport, gastronomy – in fact every business that booms when get tons of outside guests
2. security, emergency service and crowd control (the upgrade of the CCTV system this year with AI-based early warning shows how they keep in step)
3. building temporary facilities that host thousands (utilized as well for the Adele concert pop-up arena two years ago)
4. world-class event marketing from the city (utilized also for the Taylor Swift Eras concert here as well as the recent BTS Arirang concert)
5. finding the right mix of tradition and modernity in both image and reality (otherwise Oktoberfest would be just another big fairground)
I will gladly show Filipino local politicians who want to learn more the details if they come this year and pay my first beer. Joke lang
seriously, to stay with the Oktoberfest example, festivals like the Ibalong in Albay do their thing pretty well alreadyy, probably not yet scaled in such a way that they can accomodate crowds coming from Bikol International Airport, and not yet marketed that way. But the next competitor is Kaogma in CamSur, with a certain CamSur dynasty behind the scenes, and Joey’s idea of localities trying to outdo each other would already start with the big “fiestas”.
unseriously, I will just have grilled chicken at the expense of whoever comes to Munich to learn from me how the Oktoberfest developed capability, and other capabilities here like university – tech industry collaboration, industrial parks old and new. I LOVE the pork roast here, they can have it, I MAY NOT.
I would also add Joe’s classic about Mindanao development to the mix while we are at it: (Berlin is to Munich as Manila is to Davao in some ways BTW)
heto maganda rin:
my additional example: Filipinos playing at gigs abroad goes back to even the members of the Juan de La Cruz band of the 1970s earning their early spurs in Japan. Filipino groups performing at Japan’s famous Summer Sonic festival like BINI and SB19 will this week are a more coordinated capability.
At present the Creative Industries Act has NOT YET built true Filipino capability at industrial level yet, and DOT getting both PPop groups on the boat as official Tourism Ambassadors is good PR but not much more yet.
It is just like DOT having Eala, Obiena, BINI, SB19 and some others on a PR campaign featuring excellent Filipinos is good PR but of course not capability building. Unless you take the removal of the franchise which forced ABS to build new business lines (BINI and Batang Quiapo were their top earners last year) as capability building by attempted sabotage. Anyhow this is just an aside stuff like the article below (shameless self-promo) are more important:
from my Germany-centric perspective, I only have one more thing to add: (apply whatever lessons apply sa Pilipinas)
Germany was able to rebuild its industry after WW2 because it had the capability. The Germanic TRIBES OF YORE that inherited Roman aqueducts like the almost 100 km long one that provided fresh water to Cologne did not have the capability even to fix/maintain it
Thanks for this Irineo.
Welcome.
Notes as I read.
On a scale of 1 to 10 in deploying concepts such as these, I’d say the nation os about 7, doing most of the things mentioned. The nation is a barge in a canal, confined by corruption, incompetent agencies and LGUs, uninformed voters, and limited financial resources. President Marcos understands the ideas. but he’s just a barge captain. He can’t turn the thing around in a canal.
don’t give that to the likes of Senator Bato or other PNP folks at his level, they would get it totally wrong haha.
But yes, I have learned a lot about planning and implementation the past few years and good roadmaps and milestones are indeed paramount.
my decades in German (and European) industry have shown me to what extent competence developed in careers is a component of capability as a whole.
my exposure to Indian IT people gives me the impression they know how to develop both competence (individual) and capability (team).
Excellent points.
Many thanks Joe.
“On a scale of 1 to 10 in deploying concepts such as these, I’d say the nation os about 7, doing most of the things mentioned. The nation is a barge in a canal, confined by corruption, incompetent agencies and LGUs, uninformed voters, and limited financial resources. President Marcos understands the ideas. but he’s just a barge captain. He can’t turn the thing around in a canal.” – JoeAm
Thanks for your notes, JoeAm, which I read with great interest.
A few humble comments without questions, Socratic or otherwise. I hope you don’t mind:
I would place the nation at about a 4 or at best a 5 giving it the benefits of some doubts being a lay person with respect to the nitty gritty of economics/politics/international relations, etc. as respects nation building, or in Karl’s terms building national integration and capability.
I also would not describe the Philippines as a barge. Barges are powerless, usually pulled or pushed by tugboats. But look at Karl’s description of the Philippines:
“It has geography, a vast maritime domain, natural resources, agricultural potential, a large workforce, universities, ports, cities, entrepreneurial capacity, a substantial domestic market and a strategic position in the Indo-Pacific.”
That is no barge!
Incidentally, as a child in the late 50s and early 60s I used to watch and see barges in the Pasig River as we drove over the Jones Bridge. It never occurred to me what they should do should they need to turn around, although the Pasig River was quite wide around there and certainly not a canal.
Also, I don’t see the president of the Philippines as simply the captain of a powerless barge. I believe he wields much more power than that with respect to the direction the country should take. It is in his job description.
Opposing views welcome.
bahala na, here goes nothing!
why is that chinese nepo eunuch topping the billing sa article about philippines capabilities? and why is that chinese writing did not have english or filipino translation contrary to what fda philippines said there there should be equivalent translation, else such products have no place in our society.
are there no filipinos good enough to top the bill? the philippines does not lack assets and yet a chinese is given place of prominence at nauuna pa. I really must be missing something! ah, like what ex justice associate carpio said to teresa lazaro, our foreign sec that china’s permission is not needed when resupplying our hulking presence sa ayungin shoal.
I believe the current DFA Secretary is weak compared to Teddy Bear Locsin who would not concede at all to any taint upon Philippine sovereignty. Maybe she’s good at managing OFW populations. Sec Teodoro must certainly not like her “secret” agreement with China on the Sierra Madre that says the Philippines will merely supply the old ship, not develop it, and will notify China of visits.
I hope you get a response to your questions, Kasambahay. In the graphic with the scale where bureaucracy outweighs State Capability, you will see that the Filipino people are pictured as tipping the scale in favor of the bureaucracy. Looks like a Freudian slip to me. The Filipino people should be looking for balance.
That is the ideal our current situation is we have a bloated bureacracy.
If you start notcing my typos, you would be wasting your time, they would reccur one way or the other.
Bayaan mo na. Wala akong maisagot
This manta should probably be made more effective by being:
Learn from success. Copy the best lessons that can be adapted to the Philippines. Capability is the ability to repeat success on one’s own.
Too often in the Philippines there is no distinction between capability and capacity. If one buys a bespoke nuclear power plant such as the BNPP, engineered and built by another, that may increase capacity but does not necessarily increase capability.
Of course there is an argument that capacity is much needed now and capability can be figured out later; reality often dictates increasing capacity first before capability.
In the Philippines natural talent, which is innate exceptionalism in an area, is also confused for capability. A talented Filipino may become exceptionally capable as opposed to being trained to be more capable than an untrained peer. Capability, as opposed to natural talent, is built by engineering a deliberate pipeline to develop the desired capability. I find that when talent is confused for the be-all of capability, the belief that one may eventually become capable enough to contribute more-than-the-average-person through personal and collective effort is depressed.
To go back to my example of the BNPP as the capacity component, crony corruption in the BNPP project aside, I wonder how many in the Philippines remember that at one time the Philippines had a whole nuclear engineer and nuclear technician training pipeline with the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) in partnership with the UP Diliman College of Engineering in order to build capability.
In 1973 when the BNPP project was unveiled in response to the global oil crisis due to the OPEC embargo, UP Diliman set up in parallel with PNRI the nuclear engineering and technical program which was one of the earliest in Southeast Asia. The aim of the nuclear engineering program was to build capability in graduated nuclear engineers and nuclear technicians to initially man the Westinghouse-built BNPP. The more long term goal was to increase Philippine capability in nuclear energy so that the Philippines could build a domestic nuclear energy industry that weaned off brittle dependencies on imported fuel from the Middle East in the case of future externally caused energy crises.
From 1973 to 1979 the UP Diliman nuclear engineering program had already graduated at least 3 batches of nuclear engineers and nuclear technicians. The New York Three Mile Island nuclear power plant “disaster,” gave considerable arguments to the growing global Green movement (which we now know had links at that time with USSR agitprop, something that remains in the US Greens but not Euro Greens). Almost immediately both BNPP construction, which was already experiencing budget overruns, and the UP Diliman nuclear engineering programs were halted. A year later in 1980 Marcos Sr. signed the letter of instruction directive to restart BNPP construction, but the UP Diliman program which was meant to build capability never fully recovered — 1979 was the last batch of incoming Philippine nuclear engineering students.
By 1984 when the BNPP was completed, the UP Diliman nuclear engineering program had graduated AFAIK less than 5 batches of engineers and technicians. The overthrow of Marcos Sr. following the events of EDSA in February 1986, the Chernobyl disaster later in April of that same year, and the anti-nuclear energy hysteria that followed sealed the fate of both the BNPP’s fully paid for capacity and the capability pipeline that had already graduated 5 batches of nuclear engineers. Those nuclear engineers and technicians went on to scatter across the world working in the nuclear industry, mainly in the US but also in Europe.
The graduated engineers and technicians, trained in a Philippine university program and paid for by the Filipino taxpayer, never were able to train the next generation of Philippine capability, instead dispersing their capability elsewhere. Capability enhancement and retention are critical components of skills upgrading.
I actually visited the PAEC (Philippine Atomic Energy Commission) research reactor (which I considered to be PAEGG because it was egg-shaped) together with fellow UP grade school kids along Commonwealth (similar area as INC and AIT, the latter was Asian Institute of Tourism, also connected to UP so I used their pool at times, small but clean and pleasant) but didn’t know about that training program in detail, of course those who lectured to us knew a lot.
Weird but yes, the egg was at some point no longer along Commonwealth. But let’s also remember that the Filipino reflex of repudiating everything a previous President started played a role back in 1986. There is a reason why Karl is “makulit” (in a good way) about continuity of plans.
I also remember how TMI was received by the high school and university crowd, I was already in 2nd year high when it happened.
I recall telling my father – who I recall as being quite fascinated with the natural futbol (the Latin American spelling is intentional) talent of Brazilians – that possibly Germany didn’t have as much natural talent but it was trained and organized to also have good results – in soccer. The time when Bayern Munich and other Euro teams would get the best natural talent of Latin America and Africa for their academies was yet a long way off.
Of course I know by now that postwar Germany still had the likes of Franz Beckenbauer (whose game was seen as almost “Latin”) growing up playing in the streets of working-class Munich and thus building his exceptional talent in a natural way. I also got to see how Brazil improved its natural talent by more system at some point in the 1990s. Or even how Greece did a one-time ramp-up at the Euro 2002 by hiring Otto Rehhagel and suddenly the Greeks played soccer like Germans from the 1980s as Rehhagel taught them old school systems – it was enough to make the Portuguese cry when they lost against them, I was at the lawn of the Expo 98 grounds in Lisbon when not even Nelly Furtado singing the hymn of that championship could give the Portuguese enough “Forca”. At that time Lisbon definitely still had kids growing up in the poor Alfama district playing street soccer. And Luis Figo was where Cristiano Ronaldo is now, seen as “too old”.
when I look at how Bavaria (not saying it is the non plus ultra, I have often been accused of that, it just happens to be the example I know best) managed becoming part of the modern era (from having been mocked as a bunch of peasant hicks by “the Prussians”, the old Bavarian term for anyone North of the Main river) by training both extreme talent as well as the average people you also need to staff entire industries.
Thus it was not just Munich Polytechnic and Munich Ludwig-Maximillians-University (which also had a nuclear research reactor, also egg-shaped, in Garching, now Garching is where industry and university collaborate to seed startups etc) but also polytechnic colleges across the state of Bavaria. I know a few sons of farmers in the Munich IT industry who learned their trade at such colleges like the one in Rosenheim.