FROM THE FREE INDIVIDUAL TO THE FREE REPUBLIC
Ayn Rand, Daron Acemoglu, Political Competition, and the Philippine Search for a More Democratic State
By Karl M. Garcia
Introduction: Freedom Requires Institutions
Ayn Rand and Daron Acemoglu begin from very different intellectual traditions. Rand emphasizes the moral autonomy of the individual; Acemoglu examines how institutions distribute political and economic power. They should not be treated as advocates of a single theory. Yet their perspectives illuminate two sides of the same democratic problem:
How can individuals remain free while living within institutions powerful enough to provide order, public goods and collective action without becoming instruments of domination?
Rand’s starting point is the individual. A person possesses a life, judgment and purposes of his or her own and should not be treated merely as an instrument of the state, society, party or collective.
Acemoglu’s starting point is institutional. His work emphasizes how political and economic institutions determine who has power, who can participate, who benefits from economic activity and whether political authority remains broadly accountable rather than becoming concentrated.
His recent discussion of liberal democracy on Fareed Zakaria GPS reinforces this institutional concern. Acemoglu argued that democratic legitimacy weakens when institutions fail to deliver meaningful political voice, public services and broadly shared prosperity. He also connected the problem to technological change, noting that digital transformation can generate enormous gains without institutions adequately addressing their distributional consequences.
The Philippine implication is not that the country needs to choose between individualism and institutionalism.
It needs both.
Individual rights establish the moral claim to freedom. Institutions determine whether that freedom can actually be exercised.
This leads to a reform agenda centered on political competition, accountable parties, limits on excessive concentration of political power, capable government, legitimate civil society and meaningful citizen participation.
The objective is neither a larger state nor a smaller state for its own sake.
It is a capable, limited, accountable and participatory republic.
I. The Individual Must Not Disappear
Rand’s most important contribution to this discussion is her insistence that the individual must not disappear beneath an abstraction.
History demonstrates the danger of political systems that claim that individuals exist primarily for the purposes of the state, nation, class, party or collective. Once political authority claims ownership over individual purpose, coercion becomes easier to justify.
The individual therefore matters independently of political usefulness.
But individualism becomes incomplete if it is interpreted to mean that people are entirely self-created.
No person creates his or her own language, schools, roads, courts, markets, scientific knowledge or political institutions from nothing. Human beings are autonomous moral agents while simultaneously being dependent upon social cooperation.
The individual is morally autonomous without being socially self-created.
This distinction matters for the Philippines.
A citizen may possess the constitutional right to participate in politics, but that right is less meaningful if political competition is dominated by entrenched networks.
A person may have the legal right to establish a business, but practical freedom is reduced if regulation is arbitrary or access depends upon political connections.
A citizen may have freedom of expression, but meaningful civic participation is weakened if intimidation or concentrated information power makes dissent costly.
Freedom therefore cannot be measured only by the existence of formal rights.
It must also be measured by the institutional conditions under which citizens exercise those rights.
II. From Formal Rights to Effective Agency
The central bridge between Rand and Acemoglu is therefore straightforward:
Individual rights establish the claim to agency; institutions determine how effectively citizens can exercise it.
This does not mean that government should guarantee equal outcomes.
It means that citizens should not face political systems in which access to opportunity is effectively determined by inherited power, patronage or institutional favoritism.
The Philippines already possesses many of the formal institutions of a democracy: elections, Congress, courts, local governments, constitutional rights, political parties, audit mechanisms and procedures for public participation.
The problem is not simply the absence of democratic machinery.
The deeper question is whether that machinery produces meaningful competition and accountability.
A democracy should allow citizens to distinguish among:
candidate + party + platform + record
rather than merely:
candidate + surname + machinery.
Elections matter. But elections alone do not guarantee political competition.
If voters repeatedly choose among personalities backed by similar families, networks and political machines, electoral competition can exist formally while remaining limited substantively.
The objective of democratic reform should therefore be to make political power genuinely contestable.
III. Political Parties Must Become Institutions
Political parties are supposed to organize political alternatives.
They should develop programs, recruit candidates, train leaders, maintain organizations and give voters a basis for choosing among competing visions of government.
Yet Philippine politics has often been highly personality-centered. Alliances can be fluid, while local political organizations and family networks remain influential.
The result is a political system in which party labels can sometimes function more as electoral vehicles than as durable commitments to programs.
This does not mean that every change in party affiliation is illegitimate.
Politicians must remain free to disagree with their parties.
Parties themselves can change.
Coalitions can form and dissolve.
A politician may leave a party because of principle, policy disagreement or a genuine transformation in political circumstances.
The problem is opportunistic realignment in which party affiliation carries no meaningful political consequence.
The solution should therefore not be absolute party discipline.
It should be party accountability without political coercion.
Political organizations should become sufficiently meaningful that voters can evaluate not only individuals but also the institutions behind them.
A durable party should provide:
- a recognizable program;
- transparent leadership selection;
- candidate recruitment and training;
- internal rules;
- financial accountability;
- mechanisms for policy development; and
- a meaningful relationship between party commitments and elected representatives.
The goal is not to eliminate political personalities.
It is to ensure that personalities operate within institutions rather than replacing them.
IV. Anti-Turncoatism Without Suppressing Dissent
The question of political switching illustrates the distinction between democratic freedom and institutional accountability.
The Philippines has historical experience with anti-turncoatism provisions, including restrictions under the 1973 Constitution. The 1987 Constitution does not restore a general prohibition of party switching.
Any contemporary reform must therefore operate within the present constitutional framework.
More importantly, reform must distinguish among different situations.
There is a difference between:
- voluntary departure;
- expulsion;
- principled disagreement;
- party transformation; and
- opportunistic political realignment.
A modern framework should not criminalize disagreement.
Instead, consequences could focus on party-based privileges and institutional positions, subject to constitutional safeguards and due process.
For example, legislators who abandon the organization under which they were elected could face consequences within the party system without losing their constitutional right to hold office merely because they dissent.
The principle should be:
Political freedom protects legitimate dissent; institutional rules make political commitments meaningful.
V. Political Dynasties: The Problem Is Concentration
The same distinction should guide the debate over political dynasties.
The 1987 Constitution directs the State to guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service and prohibits political dynasties as may be defined by law.
The relevant issue, however, should not be whether a family has more than one person in politics.
Political participation is an individual right.
A competent member of a political family should not automatically be disqualified from public service simply because of his or her surname.
The democratic problem arises when family networks become so concentrated that they substantially restrict political competition.
The questions should therefore be:
- How many offices does a political network simultaneously control?
- Does it dominate multiple levels of government?
- Are competitors systematically excluded?
- Does it control party machinery or electoral resources?
- Are public resources used to preserve political dominance?
- Can citizens realistically organize alternative political leadership?
This is an anti-concentration principle, not an anti-family principle.
No family should be permanently indispensable to democratic competition.
Neither should any party, corporation or political machine.
VI. The Cycle of Weak Parties and Concentrated Power
Weak parties and dynastic politics can reinforce each other:
weak parties → personality politics → family networks → electoral machinery → institutional influence → weaker parties.
Strong political organizations can interrupt this cycle.
A talented teacher, engineer, entrepreneur, farmer, lawyer, professional or community organizer should have a realistic path into public life without first inheriting an established political network.
That is where individual agency becomes politically significant.
A democracy should not merely tell citizens that they are free to compete.
It should build institutions through which they can actually compete.
Political competition is therefore not an abstract constitutional ideal.
It is infrastructure for individual agency.
VII. A Capable State Without an Expanding State
Political reform cannot be completely separated from administrative capacity, but the two should not be conflated.
Political parties organize political competition.
Government agencies perform public functions.
The answer to weak administration is therefore not automatically more agencies.
Nor is the answer automatically fewer agencies.
The relevant question is whether government functions are clearly assigned, properly coordinated and subject to accountability.
Where mandates substantially overlap, functions should be integrated or rationalized.
Where agencies perform essentially identical functions, consolidation may be appropriate.
Where programs duplicate one another, duplication should be eliminated.
Where functions have become obsolete, they should be terminated.
Where temporary institutions have fulfilled their purpose, sunset mechanisms should be considered.
This is institutional triage.
The objective is not government reduction as an ideological goal.
It is government capable of doing essential things well.
VIII. Reject the Superbody Reflex
One recurring response to institutional fragmentation is to create another coordinating body.
But coordination problems do not automatically require another permanent institution.
A new body should have to demonstrate:
- a genuinely distinct mandate;
- clear jurisdiction;
- measurable objectives;
- defined accountability;
- sustainable financing; and
- a mechanism for review or sunset where appropriate.
The first question should therefore not be:
What new institution should we create?
It should be:
What should be strengthened, integrated, transferred, consolidated, terminated or retained?
A democracy does not become more capable simply because it has more offices.
IX. Accountability Must Follow Power and Resources
The PDAF controversy provides another institutional lesson.
In Belgica v. Ochoa, the Supreme Court declared the 2013 PDAF Article unconstitutional, including arrangements that permitted legislators impermissible intervention in post-enactment budget execution.
The lesson should not be that nongovernmental organizations are inherently corrupt.
Nor should it be that government institutions are automatically trustworthy.
The deeper lesson is that discretion, resources and weak accountability can create opportunities for capture regardless of institutional label.
Whenever public resources are involved, accountability must follow the entire chain:
authority → allocation → implementation → monitoring → outcome.
If an NGO receives public money, it must be accountable.
So must the agency releasing the funds.
So must officials approving projects.
So must contractors implementing them.
So must auditors and oversight institutions.
And political actors who exercise influence over public resources must also remain subject to accountability.
The appropriate standard is therefore not whether an institution is governmental or nongovernmental.
It is whether power and resources are matched by transparency, controls and responsibility.
X. Civil Society Is Democratic Infrastructure
Civil society should neither be romanticized nor scapegoated.
Some organizations may be poorly governed, politically motivated or financially opaque.
But legitimate civil-society organizations can perform functions that government cannot easily reproduce, particularly in a geographically dispersed country exposed to disasters and uneven administrative capacity.
They can provide:
- local knowledge;
- humanitarian assistance;
- disaster response;
- environmental monitoring;
- education;
- research;
- community organization; and
- public oversight.
Civil society is therefore part of the country’s social infrastructure.
Physical infrastructure moves people, goods, energy and information.
Social infrastructure enables cooperation, knowledge, trust and collective action.
The appropriate standard should be:
mandate → governance → resources → performance → transparency → accountability.
Accountability, however, must be proportionate to risk and resources.
A large organization managing substantial public funds should face robust financial and procurement controls.
A small community organization managing a modest grant should remain accountable without being subjected to requirements so burdensome that only large professional organizations can participate.
The objective is to prevent fraud without making civic participation inaccessible to ordinary citizens.
XI. Protect Civic Space While Protecting Security
A democratic state has legitimate responsibilities concerning terrorism, violent insurgency and other serious security threats.
But national security requires institutional competence, not merely broad suspicion.
An allegation is not a conviction.
Association is not automatically proof of participation in wrongdoing.
Legitimate humanitarian, environmental, development and community organizations should not lose their civic legitimacy solely because of unsupported accusations.
At the same time, civic status cannot create immunity from investigation where credible evidence exists.
The correct principle is therefore neither unconditional trust nor indiscriminate suspicion.
It is evidence-based accountability under law.
A capable security state should be able to distinguish genuine threats from legitimate civic activity.
That is not weakness.
It is competence.
XII. Democracy Must Deliver, Not Merely Survive
This brings the argument back to Acemoglu.
Democratic legitimacy cannot depend indefinitely on the proposition that democracy is preferable to every alternative.
Citizens must also experience institutions as capable of producing meaningful results.
In his August 2026 discussion with Fareed Zakaria, Acemoglu emphasized the relationship between democratic legitimacy, institutional performance, political voice and broadly shared prosperity. He also identified technological transformation as a challenge because economic gains from digital technologies can be distributed unevenly while political institutions struggle to adapt.
This matters for the Philippines.
Citizens will not remain committed to democratic institutions simply because democratic theory says they should.
They must experience democracy as capable of solving problems.
Democratic legitimacy therefore has at least two dimensions:
voice and performance.
Citizens must be able to influence government.
Government must also be capable of governing.
A democracy that provides elections but consistently fails to deliver basic public goods risks losing legitimacy.
A government that delivers efficiently but suppresses political freedom cannot be considered a healthy liberal democracy.
The challenge is to build both dimensions simultaneously.
XIII. Technology and the New Distribution of Power
Artificial intelligence makes the problem more urgent.
AI can expand human capabilities in science, medicine, education, business and government.
But technological power can also become concentrated.
The relevant questions are therefore not merely:
How efficient is the technology?
They are:
Who controls it?
Who benefits from it?
Who bears its costs?
Who can challenge its decisions?
Who controls the infrastructure on which it depends?
These are institutional questions as much as technological ones.
The answer should not automatically be state ownership.
Nor should it be unconditional laissez-faire.
The objective should be contestable technological power: competition, transparency, interoperability where appropriate, privacy protections, accountability and meaningful human oversight.
The fundamental principle remains the same.
Technology should expand human agency rather than make citizens increasingly dependent upon unaccountable concentrations of technological power.
XIV. From Voter to Participant
Democracy is often reduced to the relationship between citizen and election:
voter → election day → spectator → next election.
A more participatory democracy creates meaningful opportunities between elections:
voter → participant → monitor → petitioner → evaluator → citizen.
Those mechanisms can include:
- public consultations;
- participatory budgeting;
- citizen petitions;
- public hearings;
- community monitoring;
- digital feedback systems;
- social audits; and
- carefully designed local deliberative mechanisms.
But participation itself can be captured.
A citizens’ council can become dominated by organized interests.
Participatory budgeting can become patronage.
Digital participation can amplify misinformation.
Referendums can be distorted by unequal access to information.
Therefore:
More participation is not automatically better democracy.
Participation must be informed, inclusive, transparent and accountable.
Citizen authority should expand together with the institutional capacity required to exercise it responsibly.
XV. Direct Democracy Is Not a Shortcut
The Philippines does not need to choose between representative and direct democracy.
Direct-democratic mechanisms can complement representative institutions.
But they should not become substitutes for functioning parties, representative institutions or constitutional safeguards.
If political information is weak and political power is highly concentrated, direct mechanisms can reproduce those same weaknesses.
A more sustainable direction is:
stronger parties → meaningful competition → accountable representation → reduced excessive concentration → clearer government → stronger civic institutions → institutionalized participation → carefully selected direct-democratic mechanisms.
This is not a rigid sequence in which nothing can proceed until everything before it is completed.
Reforms can occur simultaneously.
The principle is more important than the timetable:
greater citizen authority requires greater institutional capacity to exercise that authority responsibly.
XVI. The Central Democratic Principle: Contestability
All these reforms converge on one idea:
Power must remain contestable.
No political family should become permanently indispensable.
No party should become permanently unchallengeable.
No corporation should become so powerful that meaningful competition disappears.
No government agency should become immune from scrutiny.
No bureaucracy should exist indefinitely merely because it has accumulated a mandate.
No civil-society organization should be exempt from legitimate accountability.
No technology platform should acquire unchecked control over essential aspects of civic life.
Democracy survives when power can be challenged, scrutinized and, ultimately, replaced.
That is why political competition matters more than simply adding more democratic mechanisms.
The fundamental question is not:
How many institutions does a democracy possess?
It is:
Can citizens use those institutions to challenge power?
XVII. Eight Principles for a Philippine Reform Doctrine
The argument can therefore be reduced to eight principles.
1. Protect individual agency
Citizens must never become instruments of political or institutional power.
2. Make political competition meaningful
Political parties should provide genuine programs, recruitment and organizational alternatives.
3. Make party commitments consequential
Discourage opportunistic turncoatism while protecting legitimate political disagreement.
4. Reduce excessive concentration
Address political dynasties and political machines as problems of concentrated political opportunity rather than as defects of family identity itself.
5. Build a capable but limited state
Government should perform essential functions effectively without becoming unnecessarily intrusive or institutionally fragmented.
6. Make power accountable
Accountability should follow authority, resources and performance, regardless of whether power is exercised by government, business, civil society or political organizations.
7. Protect legitimate civic space
Civil society should remain independent while meeting appropriate standards of integrity and accountability.
8. Deepen participation
Citizens should have meaningful opportunities to influence government between elections, with direct-democratic mechanisms expanded carefully where institutional conditions support them.
These principles reinforce one another, but they should not be conflated.
Political-party reform is not administrative reform.
Dynasty regulation is not civil-society regulation.
Direct democracy is not a substitute for representative government.
State capacity is not synonymous with state expansion.
Individual liberty is not individual isolation.
Those distinctions are essential.
XVIII. Freedom and Institutions
The strongest synthesis of Rand and Acemoglu is therefore not that they agreed on politics.
They did not.
It is that their different perspectives illuminate complementary conditions of freedom.
Rand gives us the moral subject of democracy: the individual.
Acemoglu gives us the institutional question: who has power, how is it distributed, and what institutions make political and economic participation genuinely inclusive?
Neither proposition is sufficient by itself.
Individual freedom without capable institutions can leave citizens vulnerable to political machines, monopolies, corruption and private coercion.
Institutions without individual rights can become instruments of domination.
The objective is therefore neither radical individualism nor collectivism.
It is:
individual agency within inclusive, capable and constrained institutions.
XIX. Democratizing Political Competition
This is why democratic reform in the Philippines should begin not with the multiplication of mechanisms, but with the democratization of political competition itself.
A citizen should be able to enter politics without first possessing a surname, political machine or inherited network.
A voter should be able to evaluate competing programs rather than merely competing personalities.
A political party should mean more than a temporary coalition assembled around an election.
A public official should understand that electoral victory creates responsibility rather than ownership of office.
A political family should be able to participate in public life without being permitted to monopolize political opportunity.
A government agency should understand that its mandate exists to serve the public rather than protect its institutional territory.
A civil-society organization should be free to criticize government while remaining accountable when it handles public resources.
And citizens should possess mechanisms through which they can monitor and challenge power between elections.
This is what makes political competition substantive rather than merely procedural.
Conclusion: From the Free Individual to the Free Republic
Ayn Rand was right to insist that the individual must not disappear beneath the demands of the collective.
Daron Acemoglu adds a different but complementary insight: individuals cannot fully exercise their freedom when institutions permit political and economic power to become excessively concentrated or when democratic systems lose the capacity to deliver meaningful voice and broadly shared opportunity.
For the Philippines, the task is to bring these insights into a practical institutional framework.
We need political parties that mean something.
We need elections in which citizens can distinguish platforms and records from personalities and surnames.
We need safeguards against opportunistic party switching without suppressing legitimate dissent.
We need to address excessive political concentration without treating political families as inherently illegitimate.
We need a capable state without multiplying bureaucracy.
We need accountability that follows public authority and public resources rather than institutional stereotypes.
We need legitimate civil society protected both from corruption and unjustified political suspicion.
We need citizens who participate between elections.
And we need to approach direct democracy not as a shortcut around weak institutions, but as an additional instrument of a democracy whose institutions are becoming more capable, competitive and accountable.
The ultimate objective is neither a minimal state nor an omnipresent state.
It is neither radical individualism nor collectivism.
It is a free and capable republic.
Such a republic recognizes that citizens are not merely voters, taxpayers, workers or beneficiaries. They are human beings capable of thinking, choosing, creating, cooperating and holding power accountable.
But it also recognizes that freedom does not flourish in isolation.
People depend upon institutions.
They inherit knowledge.
They cooperate through markets and communities.
They require infrastructure and public goods.
They need laws that protect them from government coercion and private domination.
And they need political systems in which power can be challenged and transferred peacefully.
The deepest lesson is therefore simple:
Freedom requires both agency and institutions.
Without individual agency, institutions can become instruments of domination.
Without capable and inclusive institutions, individual freedom becomes vulnerable to concentrated political, economic and technological power.
For the Philippines, democratization should therefore not be measured by how many new democratic mechanisms are created.
It should be measured by whether power becomes more contestable, institutions become more capable, political competition becomes more meaningful and citizens become more capable of exercising judgment and influence.
The citizen should not merely be given more opportunities to vote.
The citizen should increasingly possess the capacity to shape, monitor, challenge and, when necessary, replace the institutions that govern public life.
That is the real movement from representative democracy toward a more participatory republic.
And that is why the first task is not simply to expand direct democracy.
It is to democratize political competition itself.
Not more government machinery.
Not another superbody.
Not permanent political turf.
Not institutional scapegoating.
But:
stronger parties, wider competition, less excessive concentration, clearer government, accountable institutions, legitimate civil society, protected civic space and citizens capable of exercising greater democratic authority.
That is how the free individual becomes possible within a free republic.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Notes as I read:
Superb article. What astounds me is how simple these ideas are, yet powerful people in the Philippines “simply can’t get there.”
OT but continuing my effort to show the Philippines as moving forward, this policy directive is another “good” initiative by President Marcos. I hope it makes a difference and helps energize Pax Silica. Philippine processing of ores. And get China da fluck out of Philippine mining, if I may add a personal opinion here.
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1282597
Related, this train route will be the backbone commuter rail line serving the Pax Silica industrial region.
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1282621
Thanks Joe.
Nice. The way we reimpport what we export must end.
Yes there were online duscussions Solar and Rainwater collection.
Thanks so much for all your insughts Joe.
Some thoughts here:
I don’t find it necessary to include Ayn Rand at all — Objectivism was a weird utopian sex cult revolving around a mentally unhinged Rand and was discredited within a decade. Objectivism was only taken up in a twisted form by some American industrial tycoons later as a way to basically celebrate themselves as John Galts and still exists as a fringe ideology. Rather, it is liberal constitutionalism that protects the individual’s potential; the spirit and intent of the 1987 Constitution guarantees just that.
I too have been watching Dr. Daron Acemoglu’s rounds on American and international media promoting his new book What Happened to Liberal Democracy? Remaking a Politics of Shared Prosperity (2016), which I have pre-ordered. In Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012), Acemoglu argues that inclusive institutions provide the strength behind successful developed countries. Acemoglu’s theory on how a developing country gets from extractive institutions (e.g. rent seeking) to inclusive institutions is when an exogenous (external) critical junctures forces the equilibrium to change by moving power away from the status quo. Some examples of exogenous shock are: losing or becoming devasted by war, plague events, or technological shock. Clearly the Philippines has experienced more than a few of these since 1898.
A critical limitation of Acemoglu’s theory in Why Nations Fail is what happens when extractive institutions maintain stable equilibrium — basically “he who writes the rules have no reason to reduce their own power.” In The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (2019), Acemoglu attempts to explain the gap in his original theory by describing liberty as an ongoing contest between state capacity and a mobilized civic society. Perhaps workable over many decades if one starts on that project now, but certainly not something achievable within a decade or so. Even worse, extractive structures have only increased in the Philippines since 1987, with political dynasties now controlling 87% of provinces, 83% of congressional districts, and 75% of cities as of 2025, while the anti-dynasty law has been “debated” for nearly 40 years.
Dr. Stefan Dercon’s Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose (2022) is partly an academic reply to Acemoglu’s theories. Specifically Dercon provides an alternative model to break out of the extractive equilibrium by way of a coalition of elites large enough which recognizes it is more beneficial to “gamble” on development as providing more rewards than extractive rent-seeking. The limitation of Dercon’s theory is it assumes enough elites are already dissatisfied with rent-seeking and have enough pressure or ambition to make the gamble in the first place.
But what if Philippine elites are quite happy with rent-seeking? After all absent a large enough coordinated elite coalition, the type of rent-seeking in the Philippines is low-risk and easy to transfer intergenerationally: land, import licenses, government franchise licenses, government contracts, local monopolies. Dozens of accountability scandals since 1987 and the Supreme Court striking down pork-barrel only led to more political dynasties forming and existing political dynasties expanding their rents while new ways to extract greater public rents wrapped in even more legalese were created to replace pork-barrel. The Philippines elite rent-seeking is basically distributed across a collection of hundreds of fragmented political and business clans with shifting temporary alliances. Such a system is not conducive to creating durable elite coalitions that would take a risk to abandon rents in order to gain even greater rewards.
The more plausible solution, it seems to me, is to use existing or create new legally or politically insulated spaces that don’t require every political dynasty or every tycoon family’s buy-in. Such an enclave would only require enough independence to run on different rules than the surrounding system — rule of law, transparent procurement, predictable regulation — and then let its results do the recruiting. The Philippines already has two types of chartered structures, operating under consistent legal and customs regimes, that are insulated from political dynasty patronage channels connecting Congress and LGUs: PEZA and BCDA. The M4GG coalition on the other hand, are reformist and technocratic mayors whose electoral survival against the former incumbent dynastic rivals create impetus for their public commitment to a shared agenda of demonstrated transparency and accountability.
A strategy of enclave-bargain-expansion may lower the bar for success in a difficult arena of Philippines politics by a whole lot. Enclaving replaces “a majority of Philippine elites must agree to bargain simultaneously” which is faced with great difficulty in a fragmented environment — with “one credible enclave or coalition has to succeed and be visibly worth joining.”
Success means expansion can then happen through one or more of three ways:
Many thanks on Rand. Of course your additional.inputs on Acemoglu.
You’re welcome Karl!
Dug deeper.
Ayn Rand: Between Radical Individualism and Its Critics
Ayn Rand remains one of the most controversial figures in modern political and moral thought. Her philosophy of Objectivism, developed through works such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, places reason, individual rights, rational self-interest, and productive achievement at the center of human life. Yet the same ideas that make Rand influential have also made her deeply unpopular in much of academic philosophy.
The strongest criticisms concern her ethics and philosophical method. Critics argue that Rand’s rational egoism gives insufficient weight to empathy, cooperation, social obligations, and the moral importance of helping others. Her sharp opposition to altruism is also criticized for treating altruism primarily as self-sacrifice, while ordinary human cooperation often involves mutual benefit rather than the destruction of one’s own interests.
Philosophers have also challenged aspects of Rand’s reasoning, including her attempt to connect facts about human existence with conclusions about how people ought to live. Her treatment of thinkers such as Kant and Plato has likewise been criticized as overly simplified. Because much of Objectivism was presented through novels, lectures, and essays rather than sustained engagement with contemporary academic philosophy, many scholars regard her work as philosophically insufficiently rigorous.
Her political philosophy attracts another set of objections. Rand’s defense of laissez-faire capitalism and limited government offers a powerful warning against state coercion, political privilege, and collectivism. But critics argue that an almost entirely market-centered system does not adequately address market failures, monopoly power, public goods, inequality, or circumstances in which individual freedom depends upon collective institutions.
Nevertheless, dismissing Rand entirely would be a mistake. Her defense of individual liberty remains intellectually significant, particularly in light of the authoritarian regimes she opposed. She insisted that individuals should not be treated merely as instruments of the state or society. Her emphasis on independent judgment, intellectual responsibility, productive work, and opposition to political corruption continues to resonate with entrepreneurs, libertarians, and readers concerned about excessive government power.
Rand’s celebration of productive achievement is perhaps one of her most distinctive contributions. She rejected the idea that wealth created through innovation and productive effort should be morally suspect simply because it is unequal. At the same time, her distinction between wealth created through production and wealth obtained through political privilege remains useful even for people who reject her broader philosophy.
The most productive way to read Rand, therefore, may be neither as an infallible prophet nor as a thinker to be dismissed outright. Her strongest contribution is her insistence that individual human beings possess agency, dignity, and responsibility. Her weaknesses lie in treating society too much as a contest between independent individuals and in giving insufficient attention to cooperation, institutions, interdependence, and the social conditions that make individual freedom possible.
Rand’s enduring importance may ultimately lie in the questions she forces us to confront: How much should individuals sacrifice for society? When does social responsibility become coercion? What obligations do we have to one another? Can capitalism protect freedom without permitting domination by concentrated private power? And how can individual achievement coexist with solidarity?
Objectivism provides controversial answers to these questions. But its greatest value may be that it keeps the questions alive. Rather than accepting Rand wholesale or rejecting her wholesale, a mature intellectual approach is to preserve her strongest defense of reason, liberty, responsibility, and productive achievement while subjecting her more extreme conclusions to philosophical and empirical scrutiny.
Yes, but Ayn Rand’s main fear which was totalitarian collectivism (from her experience with Bolshevism) were solved by immigrating to get US, a country in which liberal constitutionalism and the shared social contract allowed the freedom with which to develop her views on radical individualism in the first place. So she was seeking an answer for a problem that didn’t exist anymore to the degree she imagined. Then she made a sex cult around herself (which was the main reason other intellectuals finally felt the need to discredit her). Objectivism is a naive ideology that assumes via radical individualism people will rationally choose to be good and share the social burden. Well, human nature has something to say about that.
Since the accusations are heavy sorry if I dig in further for the last time. Of course, not changing your mind or stand and not apologisting (hehe).
Ayn Rand, the Objectivist Cult Controversy, and NXIVM
Ayn Rand was never accurately described as the leader of a “sex cult,” although her personal life and the Objectivist movement she created generated serious controversies about ideological control, conformity, and sexuality. The distinction matters because two separate histories are often conflated: the cult-like reputation of Rand’s inner circle and the later emergence of NXIVM, a genuine criminal organization built by Keith Raniere.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Rand surrounded herself with a devoted group of followers whom she called “the Collective.” Members included Nathaniel Branden and Alan Greenspan. Critics argued that the movement demanded unusually strong intellectual and personal loyalty. Dissent from Rand could result in ostracism or expulsion, while followers were sometimes expected to accept her judgments on subjects extending beyond philosophy and politics.
Rand’s relationship with Nathaniel Branden further complicated this image. Beginning in 1954, Rand and the much younger Branden entered into a sexual relationship with the knowledge and consent of their spouses. The affair was incorporated into the unusual moral and personal framework of Rand’s circle. When the relationship eventually ended, the conflict between Rand and Branden contributed to the dramatic 1968 collapse of their association and a major split within the Objectivist movement.
None of this makes Rand’s movement a “sex cult” in the conventional sense. The more defensible characterization is that it was an intensely personal and highly controlled ideological circle whose practices have been described as cult-like.
The later NXIVM scandal is different. Keith Raniere selectively incorporated ideas resembling Randian concepts such as rational self-interest into his own system, alongside influences from other movements and doctrines. NXIVM subsequently developed into a coercive organization in which women were sexually exploited and abused. Raniere’s use of Randian ideas therefore provides a historical connection between Objectivism and NXIVM, but not evidence that Rand herself created or operated a sex cult.
The historical lesson is therefore one of distinction rather than sensationalism. Rand’s movement can legitimately be criticized for dogmatism, personal loyalty, and authoritarian social dynamics without falsely turning it into something it was not. NXIVM was a separate organization whose criminal practices belong to the history of Keith Raniere—not to Ayn Rand.
A cult doesn’t necessarily need to be criminal.
These are the markers of a cult:
1.) Absolute Authority
2.) No Accountability
3.) Zero Tolerance for Questions
4.) Us vs. Them Mentality
5.) Shaming and Guilt
6.) Financial and/or Personal Demands
7.) Fear of Leaving
The Objectivist Collective around Ayn Rand exhibited all of these markers. Ayn Rand was despised and mocked by American conservatives even back in her day, most notably by the father of modern American conservatism William F. Buckley who thought of Rand as a sexual degenerate and viewed the Rand with as much derision as he viewed the (also crazy) Birchers (John Birch Society). Objectivism was only resurrected later by right wing billionaires, so it’s not at all surprising all the technofascists like Musk idolize Rand and see themselves as John Galts. IMHO Rand has nothing to offer, and her ideology had clear fallacies since the start. And that’s coming from someone like me, who read Rand and still have all her books, and spent a good part of my youth in the American conservative and libertarian movement in Southern California which is the primary birthplace of the Tea Party and later MAGA.
I think your essay doesn’t lose anything by dropping Rand. In fact I think dropping Rand will make your essay stronger since Objectivism doesn’t actually allow for radical individualism in practice since radical selfishness would rationally win. Individualism is protected and cultivated by liberal constitutionalism. So replacing the one off inclusion of Rand with liberal constitutionalism still works, and works better IMHO.
You mean a sex cult could simply be comselting adults swinging and partying through a dating app? Or a cult of personality lile CM Punk.
No. It has been documented over the decade Rand was somewhat influential on the fringe that her followers were in a high-control environment centered around Rand. To the extent she dictated it was “rational” for them to engage in extramarital affairs, dependent sexual relationships, and she ordered certain followers to get into relationships with other followers. Rand’s image was largely rehabilitated by resentful billionaires starting in the 1970s, as I said to celebrate the same billionaires who formed Randian institutes as a means to celebrate their own John Galt-mess. Conveniently they left out the sexual cult stuff. Objectivism is inherently a selfish movement that cynically uses “rationality” to excuse their bad behavior. Am quite familiar with all this back history. As I said the Republican Party of California, specifically the Orange County chapter, that I spent my youth in indoctrinated young people into this. CA GOP, and especially OC GOP, are the intellectuals behind MAGA. At one time I was quite close to the Claremont Institute, which celebrates Rand. Claremont Institute alumni were one of main architects of the violent attempt to overthrow the US government on January 6, 2021.
But how can you drop the most clearcut and known prototype of the morality of individualism? Her inclusion doesn’t mean you have to like her. It means you have to understand that there is such a thing as the morality of the individual. And Karl sets the stage well by using her.
By Rand’s own example, the celebration of the individual above all prefers immorality. This is because she rejects any social structures that define morality itself. But her personal degeneracy was only a minor part of her ideology. The main parts which I think are quite dangerous is a rejection of any shared social contract at all, and the idealized naivety that reason alone would push humans towards forming a rational utopian society where people don’t contribute anything unless they want to. She didn’t believe in government. Nor did she believe in civic society. She may have been personally harmless but her ideas have a large contribution to what is breaking down the American civic order. But people just focus on her “radical individualism,” which is a wrong understanding of Rand. Without a state operating upon shared social contract to regulate undesirable stuff, does power not naturally gravitate towards the rich and powerful who then don’t feel a need to give back to society? Rand despised even the excessive Guilded Age barons turned philanthropists because she thought altruism was bad. Musk and his fellow tech bro ilk are the personification of using “reason” to justify why their “contribution” to society is to make more money for themselves at the expense of everyone else. Which is based on their love of Rand by their own admission. In Atlas Shrugged, John Galt basically threw a hissy fit and maliciously withdrew his talents to try to crash society because he didn’t feel appreciated enough by the masses. Doesn’t that sound familiar to Musk et al? Besides she was a bad writer and her ideology contains countless fallacies. But that didn’t matter for the cult around her at the time nor does it matter for those who use Rand as a justification as well.
And as I said, it was the liberal constitutionalism she was protected by in the US where she fled to from collectivized communist Russia that allowed her to become an individual again in the first place. Liberal constitutionalism works when consistently applied. So isn’t it weird that her following was called The Collective? Rand’s ideas aren’t what most people think her ideas are.
But Rand is not the point. Her view on individualism is used by Karl in the article to open the debate, not close it. So from a literary standpoint, it makes perfect sense to use her. I think your discussion of her draws the conversation away from where it should be, that the Philippines stifles individual growth (freedom) and needs to empower it.
If we want to discuss literature or personalities or cults, those are three separate topics. Opinion and personal backgrounds come into play. I found Atlas Shrugged to be pedantic, which is the dry style she uses. It fits with her mental discipline “philosophy”. Steinbeck, Twain, Grisham, Crichton, all different, all flawed by some perspectives.
By the way, this “bad” writer sold a hell of a lot of books. Per Gemini:
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged has sold over 10 million copies worldwide since its publication in 1957.
Sales Milestones
– Initial Run: The book spent 22 consecutive weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list in 1957.
– By 1984: Total sales surpassed 5 million copies.
– Modern Resurgence: Sales spiked significantly after the 2008 financial crisis, moving over 500,000 copies in 2009 alone.
– Recent Totals: Publisher and institute data put total cumulative sales at 10 million
Would it surprise you to find out that the ultra-conservative circles I was part of as a youth handed out Ayn Rand’s books for free? And that bulk buys by the conservative think tanks set up to counter the New Deal and Great Society routinely do this to capture the culture they so desperately wanted to be part of going back in the 1950s and 1960s? I find it weird that Rand is going to be the hill to die on when I simply pointed out that the essay’s argument could be made much stronger by replacing the reference to Rand.
You are the one rallying against the simple reference to her as an opening to the discussion. You built the hill. I’m the one who shrugged, lol.
22 weeks on the NY Times best seller list? Methinks you are trying to deny reality because it doesn’t fit your premise.
https://newrepublic.com/article/69239/wealthcare-0
Again, Rand’s philosophy and lifestyle is not the point. The point is she is well known and makes an excellent lead-in to an article about individual freedoms. Why you keep arguing Rand? I’m defending a writer’s right to write whatever the hell he wants as long as it’s readable, civil, and makes good points. I’m as obsessed about a writer’s freedom to write as you are obsessed about what a jerk Rand was. So you keep arguing Rand and want Karl to eject her, and I’ll keep writing, no no no, she works for Karl. Not your call.
My original comment on this essay contained only a few sentences about how Rand might not help the essay’s important and valid points. It was not me who chose to go on defending Rand over many comments rather than my much more substantial commentary on Acemoglu and Dercon. My Rand comment was the shortest paragraph out of 8 paragraphs of my initial comment where I laid out my reasoning clearly; the other longer 7 paragraphs don’t mention Rand at all.
So why not discuss the other 7 paragraphs instead with the same intensity? Are we not allowed to disagree here as long as we present valid, defensible points? You guys are acting as if I’m tearing down the whole essay when I’m in fact arguing that the essay, which I agree with and said clearly as such multiple times, stands much stronger without the singular reference to Rand that misapplied her understanding of individualism.
Because my job as editor of the blog is to defend contributors who give their work to us. You can say “I hate Rand”, no problem. You can say “I would represent individual freedoms by citing X rather than Rand”, no problem. But you cannot suggest a writer eliminate content or re-write his text. That is outside a commenter’s purview. As for what I choose to comment on, that is my business, not yours.
Where did I demand that the text be re-written? Please don’t put words in my mouth. I simply made a suggestion that Rand might not work and why the individualism described therein is actually liberal constitutional supported individualism which Rand did not support, while endorsing the rest of the article text. All counter comments were about the inclusion of Rand HERSELF rather than any discussion about her actual IDEAS as her ideas relate to the article.
That’s a different reality than mine, but the horse is dead and my stick is broken.
You know me. I dislike incorrectness which makes a worthwhile argument weaker. And within the essay Rand’s ACTUAL position on individualism was not even used despite the top-line reference to Rand. The individualism the essay actually argues for is the individualism protected by liberal constitutionalism which is the OPPOSITE of Rand’s position — Rand did not believe in the state or civic society having a role at all in her fever-dream of a rational utopia. And the essay would be far stronger by KEEPING THE REST as-is while dropping Rand, whose actual version of individualism isn’t even used at all in the essay. That is all.
It doesn’t matter. It’s a literary device, a writer’s chosen tool for opening the story in a way people comprehend. It works. If you want the story written differently then write yours. I assure you I will not suggest you write it differently, unless you swear or make sexual references. As an editor of no fame whatsoever, I’m happy with Karl’s set up.
Well, modest fame and absolutely no fortune.
Then we are just going to have to disagree on this. Just surprised that my simple, explained, suggestion on a one liner was taken as some sort of massive critique against the rest of the essay’s core material which I have already said I agree with.
If you re-read my original comment, that’s what I said also. Rand detracts from the essay’s overall argument, and replacing Randian individualism with the individualism enabled by liberal constitutionalism is by far a stronger and cohesive argument without needing to change anything else in the essay. And no, the way Karl used individualism within the essay has nothing to do with Rand’s view, and I’d argue is anti-Randian, which is why Rand can be dropped. So is the Philippine Constitution, no matter how flawed the actual application of that high-minded document is, so useless that the tools which the Constitution provides must be replaced simply because the tools are currently not being used as the Constitution intended? The Philippine Constitution, just like the US Constitution, is the constitutional and legal basis for protecting Filipino individualism and potential — it’s right there in the words of the Constitution itself.
I find the insistence on keeping Rand when her ideology isn’t useful to be a bit strange and weakens the essay’s overall argument. There is a reason why the only institutional champions of Rand are on the American (and now global) far-right. That is an indicator of how useful her ideology of “radical individualism” is to liberalism. Objectivism is illiberal and anti-freedom masquerading as “freedom of self.” Rand simply replaced coercion by the state with private coercion.
Disagree, because it set me up perfectly to comprehend the discussion.
I agree with Joey on the non-necessity of bringing up Ayn Rand. I like his recommendations as to doable solutions in response to Karl’s diagnoses on what the Philippines needs to accomplish as he states lengthily in his essay. Just putting in my vote. I don’t think I need to explain further because I agree with Joey’s explanations on why he thinks the mention of Rand doesn’t help in bringing out Karl’s points. On individual morality, I think we Pinoys get enough of that from the Catholic Church.
Ok my friends, Mea Culpa notandum rite notatum.
Vivimus et discimus vivere est discere
I think the Catholic Church teaches institutional morality, a form of constraint on an individual’s ability to make responsible personal choices, like going fishing rather than to a building, or praying for an individual’s health directly rather than needing the intercession of an extraterrestrial being.
“I think the Catholic Church teaches institutional morality, a form of constraint on an individual’s ability to make responsible personal choices, like going fishing rather than to a building, or praying for an individual’s health directly rather than needing the intercession of an extraterrestrial being.” – JoeAm
Thanks for sharing, JoeAm. Our local Catholic Parish priest shared with a group of us something at one point (it was in a bible study). He said that you cannot question a person’s relationship with God. He said that is a one on one thing. Considering all the rules and dogma in Catholicism, I was surprised to hear him say that. In fact my reaction was a smile and a comment to those around me at the time: “I wonder which Seminary he went to?!” hehehe
He was born and raised in Nigeria, but is now a citizen of the US.
Good for him. Big brain.
Thanks Karl. I viewed her as a big brained eccentric, which led to her out-of-step personal liaisons. Out of step means grating on moral norms. My first ex-wife was big brained. It’s contagious. She let me out of a lot of boxes, the confinements of tradition.
Yes confinements of tradition
Nolan’s The Odyssey got the too woke bashing and also the not at all Homeric.
All anti establishments and disruptors have their share of bashers and followers calling each other blind.
On too woke, I honestly think a black Snow White defied imagination.
In the pre 80s they are extra ordnary weirdos amd geniuses in the 80s nerds then out of the box then back to extra ordinary and so on.
Exactly right. I temper my views and writings because most find out-of-the box ideas offensive. Poor Don Quixote (Cervantes). He spent a thousand pages arguing that fiction is worth writing and reading. Tradition at the time was offended at all the “lies” found in novels.
I enjoyed reading Rand. She was an extremist who sold books by cultivating a brand. She lived what she preached seems to me.
I think so too.
That is a new concept for me. Enclaves isolated from dynastic barons, of which there are three right now, Mayors for Good Governance included because these LGU heads put principle and competence above personal relationships. What other enclaves can emerge? Citizens for good voting. Unions. Big corporations. OFWs. The BPO industry. They are not regulatory structures but they all put principle over personality. Hmmm.
I’ve been developing the idea of enclave-bargain-expansion with continual refinement for the better part of this year as a follow-up to my M4GG analysis based on Leni Robredo’s “No Saviors” comment. My line of thinking is to utilize Filipino cultural habits, which are sometimes looked down upon by the educated elite, for “good” rather than “bad” — cultural habits are simply expressions of a culture’s tendencies and have both a positive and a negative side. Specifically I am attempting to see if the cultural habit of bypassing could be applied towards positive ends.
Enclaving also insulates the activity within an enclave from political dynasty meddling or rent extraction — the reason why dynasties and special interest groups fight so hard against new progress they cannot extract rent concessions from. The fight over Pax Silica, sometimes cynically using various marginalized communities, is essentially about different special interests being upset they can’t gain rents from New Clark City which is within a BCDA enclave.
See my prior analysis:
Charting the Capability State — A analysis of the enclave-bargain-expansion proposal
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/a14eef65-bbb3-4c7c-bd2f-de10d7d10ab3
The Only Route Open — A narrative piece in layman’s terms on how enclave-bargain-expansion can work
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/1c9dc7ac-14e3-4f5c-a5bb-38d5fae5a8da
Make the carrot visible — How cultural habits can lose their moralistic framing in order to regain innate positive aspects while reducing negative anti-progress aspects
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/b7fe1c9a-703f-47f2-98d5-c02ef6981ae8
No Savior — A short overview on the emerging coalitions that must form following Leni Robredo’s assertion that the Philippines must move away from savior politics
https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/f6070512-52d5-45ad-b9fb-911c8fcac4ec
I would consider citizens or trade union movements to be part of civic society, which can certainly be strengthened. Big conglomerates are still businesses so they make decisions that are in the interest of private capital, which sometimes aligns with the public good and should be praised, but let’s not mistake that private interest as a replacement for the public interest. OFWs are more like a loose community that serves as a strong electoral bloc — unfortunately due to their distance OFWs are strongly susceptible to memetic warfare on social media, which caused many to be pro-DDS. BPO is an example of a bypass developing organically, just like the heavy Philippine participation in seafarer positions in commercial shipping was also an organic bypass — both were only made “official” after the fact by Congressional resolution or Presidential order long after being established. BPO did heavily utilize enclaving by expanding within PEZA enclaves after “going official” though.
Sounds like a book, or doctoral thesis. Definitely ground-breaking stuff.
Yeah typically I only use AI to organize and tighten up the drafts I already manually wrote. And to provide illustrations or charts.
One limitation of enclaving is what developmental economists call pockets of effectiveness, which is where enclaves are allowed to develop without much interference by political forces outside of the enclave — until the enclave’s rules-based success starts to undermine the rent-seeker’s political effectiveness. So it’s no wonder that Philippine political dynasties are trying to actively undermine Pax Silica or M4GG.
I am not dismissing farmers concern that they will lose their lands and livelihood to pax silica. I think, farmers should be heard, not dismissed outright. their concerns addressed and given alternative livelihood like maybe a job in pax silica even if it is only cleaning the floor.
Yes, agree. I think the farmers’ plight is being used cynically by special interests as I said before. The farmers are either squatters or had been given permission by BCDA to temporarily use the land — permission that can be revoked with proper notice. Either way, the farmers have no right to continue using the land if they are told they must leave. At the same time, you’re right, the farmers should receive assistance to move to another plot if they wish to continue farming, be made eligible for work within Pax Silica if that’s what they choose instead, and have help to move to a comparable home even if they are a squatter before.
they are not squatters but stakeholders and have been so long before pax silica was even thought of. and as such, they ought to be treated cordially.
AI Overview
No, Filipino farmers and indigenous Aeta residents whose lands and livelihoods are affected by the proposed Pax Silica project in New Clark City, Tarlac, are not legally considered squatters.
Land Status and Rights
Displacement Concerns: Advocacy groups and lawmakers point out that labeling or treating long-standing rural cultivators as unauthorized occupants overlooks their social justice and land rights
Ancestral and Tilled Lands: Many of the affected families and Aeta communities have cultivated or lived on these agricultural and ancestral domains for generations.
Government Ownership vs. Occupancy: The state-run Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) maintains that the land designated for the economic zone is government-owned property within the military reservation. However, long-term occupation, traditional stewardship, and local agrarian claims mean that residents are recognized stakeholders rather than illegal squatters.
Yes, but from my understanding the term “stakeholder” is just a euphemism for “tolerated occupant” which is yet another euphemism for squatter. These farmers started squatting only recently in the 1990s. While the Aeta have never been able to provide evidence of their ancestral claims. The fair resolution is to provide alternative land, livelihood, and/or housing for the affected people even if they are squatters. The land in New Clark is wholly and unequivocally owned by the Philippines government through BCDA.
I’m quite lefty and sympathize with the farmers and Aeta but I do wonder, with the need for Pax Silica to move quickly, will the Philippines be left behind once again due to throwing sand in the legal gears? Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia are all eagerly waiting to assume the preeminent role in the anti-China industrial bloc of which Pax Silica is a major piece of. Let’s not forget that the Marcos Jr. and JM Romualdez only successfully argued recently earlier this year that given the Philippines being the longest standing ally in Asia, it should be the Philippines that should take the leading role in Pax Silica manufacturing, a leading role which Marcos Jr.’s diplomacy took away from Vietnam which was the original designee.
I loathed the term squatters you applied to our farmers, is all. they have supplied us with food for decades, and calling them squatters now is utterly deameaning to them, in my view. as squatters, you’ve made them a much easier target to kick out, to be treated as nuisance, etc. and cast aside.
they are much like native americans who also cannot produce western land titles. they both have communal stewardship of the land rather than treat land as individual private property. native american lest have reserves to go to, our aetas have none.
pax silica is not the problem, it is the term squatter given to our farmers that I resented, so unkind. I think, even president marcos would not call them squatters.
In the city I stay with “squatters” on most of my visits. I eat the same food as “squatters.” There I cook for the family with the same uling and the kahoy I collected and made myself as my “squatter” hosts do. Most of my hosts would admit they are squatters. They are also fed entitlement that they somehow own the land if they just squat there long enough, becoming very angry when the titled owner asserts their rights as owner. In this case of the BCDA land, the owner is the government. The term doesn’t sound that nice even if it is both true in the actual and legal sense, which is why there are multiple layers of euphemism. I am not asserting that such people should be thrown away to starve or lose their livelihood. They should receive social assistance in order to regain what is lost when they are required to move. The assistance is often shaky and not fulfilled by the politicians and officials who promised it, so those with the elected responsibility to help should provide the help properly and be held accountable for their responsibilities.
As for the Aeta, I also sympathize with how indigenous Filipinos are marginalized minorities. I have stayed with and lived alongside the Aeta as well as other indigenous Lumad groups. They are also free to assert their claims, if they can, and they have been trying unsuccessfully multiple times for the better part of the 3 decades since the early 1990s. The Philippines is famous for documentation and paperwork. Surely there is some sort of record that exists since the Spanish times that can support a claim. In most cases though, the winning claim even if it has no basis is the claim that has the most political support and backing. The Aeta too, should be given full assistance with alternative land and livelihood if they cannot prove their claims.
In an organized state, the rights of the individual must be balanced with the rights of the public. The Philippines government already owns very little public land in comparison to let’s say the US. Some of that Philippine public land is in the form of PEZA and BCDA lands. Philippine government wholly-owned land is one of the few ways the government can build structures more insulated from LGU and business conglomerate interference. Also in the Philippines there is the famous red tape and lawfare, paid for by special interests that have money to hire an army of attorneys and CPAs. Isn’t it interesting then that in New Clark, which is a wholly-owned government land that in theory should not have as much red tape, special interests are throwing as much red tape as possible by asserting this or that? What have those special interests done for farmers or indigenous before this, I’d argue hardly anything meaningful. There is a rich history of marginalized Filipinos and Filipino indigenous being cynically used by the far left, political dynasties, and businesses to push their own agendas then predictably abandoned after the special interests gains concessions for themselves. I had already done an analysis of the possible groups behind each interest group objecting to Pax Silica. In any case, the Philippines would probably lose the Pax Silica opportunity. More for Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, I suppose, who will be the real winners if the Philippines can’t cut red tape.
https://www.philstar.com/business/2026/08/28/2552418/how-policy-choices-left-philippines-behind-taiwan-global-chip-race?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Not just policy choices in Taiwan case, but critically there was heavy state bureaucracy-led semiconductor industry development. South Korea started around the same time too. Big focus on climbing the value chain by sequential incrementalism. It took nearly 50 years for both countries, not so much different from my summary of South Korean auto industry that also took 50 years to get to market dominance. In the Philippines, everything is wished to be done all at once, on someone else’s dime and effort. Progress depends on the will of the President, while Taiwan and South Korea depend on even bureaucratic application. Other countries swallowed their pride and took up opportunities, taking help at first then quietly building on their own. Sending technicians and engineers overseas to California, Texas, Germany, Netherlands to learn know-how that is brought home and integrated into the industrial plan. The Philippine result is being stuck on the lowest margin and lowest rung of the value chain: assembly, testing, packaging. Special interest and political dynasties need to take their cut first and then some before they allow anything to proceed.
Pax Silica can change that, to leapfrog multiple rungs of the value chain all paid for by US, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Netherlands. Will the Philippines take up the opportunity, or will there be another UP report on how the Philippines was left behind again 50 years from now?
My impression is that the Marcos Government has been very aggressive in pursuing Pax Silica success. I asked Gemini to confirm this with specifics.
Yes, the Philippines is aggressively pursuing success under the Pax Silica initiative. After officially joining the alliance as its 13th member, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and various state agencies have pivoted a massive portion of the country’s long-term economic and industrial strategy toward capturing this global opportunity.
Pax Silica (Latin for “Silicon Peace”) is a U.S.-led global economic security coalition launched to build a secure, resilient supply chain for semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, and critical minerals while reducing reliance on China.
The Philippine government is aggressively seeking to leverage its unique position through several specific actions:
1. Developing a Massive “AI-Native” Industrial Hub
The center of the country’s strategy is the proposed 4,000-acre (1,620-hectare) Economic Security Zone inside New Clark City in Tarlac. Managed by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), this massive development is being marketed as the first-ever AI-native industrial acceleration hub under Pax Silica. The government estimates it could attract $40 billion to $70 billion in foreign investments and create up to 200,000 high-quality tech jobs over the next decade.
2. Capitalizing on the Luzon Economic Corridor
The Philippines is leveraging the Luzon Economic Corridor, a major logistics network linking Subic, Clark, Manila, and Batangas. Backed heavily by the U.S. and Japan, the government is using this infrastructure to offer a “geographically safe” supply chain destination for next-generation technology manufacturing.
3. Aggressive Infrastructure Upgrades Ahead of Demand
To accommodate the tech giants, the country is pushing for massive infrastructure updates. Think tanks like the Stratbase ADR Institute and government agencies are calling for immediate fast-tracking of:
– High-capacity fiber networks and hyperscale data centers.
– Expanded energy grids, aiming to secure up to 3 gigawatts (GW) of power via solar, battery storage, and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
– Massive water infrastructure capable of providing over 130 million liters of water daily for advanced chip manufacturing.
4. Marketing a “China-Free” Supply Chain Alternative
The Philippines holds a unique geopolitical advantage: unlike most of its Southeast Asian neighbors, its industrial and security frameworks are heavily aligned with Western and allied defense systems. The government is marketing itself to the Pentagon and Western tech firms as a secure, “allied-provenance” partner whose supply chains do not pass through Chinese inputs.
Yes, my criticism isn’t against Marcos Jr.’s effort. It is actually an amazing feat of diplomacy that under Marcos Jr.’s direction, Amb. JM Romualdez was able to convince the White House that the Philippines should take the primary partner position where the Philippines had no chance before. That position had Vietnam as the primary candidate until the Philippine diplomatic efforts. Amb. JM Romualdez basically argued to the US-led anti-China coalition that the Philippines could get her ducks in a row quickly by having Pax Silica happen on BCDA land and convinced the other partners, not just the US.
Pax Silica is a huge opportunity to leapfrog in technological know how that can later develop domestic industry, climb multiple rungs of value chain with allied help, and provide jobs to many Filipinos. I am deeply concerned the usual special interests are throwing sand in the gears to get rent concessions, erecting red tape where they don’t have the legal right to do so as BCDA property is owned by the government. The rent extraction efforts are anti-Filipino and anti-patriotic, not to mention ultimately self-defeating, putting at real risk this big opportunity that might pass by to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Right, that is the economic culture and is why the nation has a hard time getting large investments outside the special economic zones. Pax Silica does not yet have investments, and the agreement with the US will come in November according to reports I’ve read. So it is too early to call. But in my 21 years here, I’ve not seen a national government initiative as significant as this. They’re ordering additional train sets to support tracks not yet laid, fer crimminy out loud. And I think the US will nudge members of Pax Silica to make this work.
Pax Silica is the biggest economic effort in the Philippines I’ve ever seen too. I hope it works out. I would rather have the future of high tech manufacturing friendshored, helping both the US and allies rather than remaining in China.
Joey,
All you say is my wish for PH too. Start reviewing past mistakes and redo everything continously. But we also have brain drain to consider. How can we stop brain drain if there is piracy and poaching? Exemples Gracias.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/harvard-and-mit-scholars-head-north-as-mark-carney-offers-millions
As “bad” as Trump’s attacks on academia are, these are untenured professors who are following the research money. Just a fraction of US professors. IIRC about 40% of Canadian graduating PhDs go to the US. The research budget of a state university in a random “poor” US state can sometimes be higher than the entire national research budget of a small EU country. In any case, many thanks to Canada for paying research salaries of PhDs who will eventually take their knowledge back to the US anyway.
Thanks again for filling my knowledge gap, i wish our brsin drain siphons back to PH
Policy and consistency really matter. The Balik Scientist program as it is structured is largely a failure:
1.) Preference for short term contracts rather than institution building
2.) Patriotic returning diaspora experts don’t have structural support
3.) As a consequence most Balik alumni simply leave again
Romania, which Irineo often uses as an example of successful diaspora engagement, does the opposite of the above. So does Vietnam since the 1990s. Romania goes further by creating a circular network similar to Taiwan, South Korea where experts go back and forth from abroad and home, each time injecting new knowledge to the new teams of locally developed experts they cultivate. Vietnam is starting to do that too.
Looked up numbers-wise since 1975, 744 Balik Scientist participants, 700-730 left, 15-44 stayed, for 94-98% leaving vs 2-6% staying.
For Romania’s diaspora returnee program since 1989, 1.5-2 million returnees, 700,000-1,000,000 leaving, 1,000,000 stayed, for 35-50% leaving vs 50-65% staying.
Philippines population: 117.7 million
Romania population: 18.8 million.
So comparative between population means 0.0006% Filipino diaspora experts came back as relates to Philippine population to participate in Balik Scientist vs 7.8-10.5% of Romanian diaspora experts coming back for the Romanian program as relates to Romanian population. Of those who permanently stayed to help build institutions, 0.00003% as percent of Philippine population vs 5.2% as percent of Romanian population. Since 1990 GDP per capita grew 5.5x for Philippines, 15.5x for Romania.
Fixed formatting.
For your reading Karl:
thanks Joey (I deleted the unformatted version BTW) – this is highly informative for me as well. I did know that Romania had tax incentives for IT experts – IIRC not just their own but anyone in the EU, I was made an offer in the late noughties which I almost did not refuse. The other details I did not know.
Wondering BTW how Indonesia does it, as I heard their Embassies have liaison programms with their students abroad.
I also wonder how the penchant of Pinoy gatekeepers to make their own rules, or Pinoys in PH be welcoming to foreigners and balikbayans but beware once you try to stick around, or the attitude that “they are all rich anyway” (and therefore “exploitative”) which is not just among the Philippine Far Left – how much all that still is reality, because the trust issues many have that play a role in their not returning do often have a real foundation.
Indonesia and Vietnam have similar embassy liaison programs for their students abroad. It’s part of those countries’ technical scholarship loops where top high school TVET students receive scholarships to study abroad conditioned on returning after either graduating or having technical work experience abroad. The students are monitored academically, given support services, are are linked up with senior graduates from previous batches. When the students return as experienced graduates, they are given help with placement into state-backed industrial champions. Alumni form an expert network to complete and perpetuate the loop and advise the next generation of students abroad. AFAIK the Indonesian version of the expert network is a bit more decentralized (but preferring domestic technology, processing, heavy industry) using something called the Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (LPDP — Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education) while the Vietnamese version is centralized and highly strategic (prioritizing global technology, both vertical and horizontal industries like VinFast and Intel Vietnam) utilizing the Vietnam National Innovation Center (NIC). Most of the Philippines overseas embassy support bandwidth is for OFW welfare which is all good and needed, but doesn’t provide “upgrade” paths.
Aside: Note here Vietnam’s switch to using English as the preferred language of expertise and professional communication. There was a recognizance that basic English to receive and understand an order was not enough to move into high-value industries like engineering, design, semiconductors, AI, and other STEM fields, so the National Foreign Languages Project 2020 was launched in 2008. Under that policy since 2008 English is taught in elementary school while students must choose an elective non-Vietnamese non-English language to learn starting in elementary school as well; mathematics and sciences are taught entirely in English. Recently Vietnam re-classified English from a foreign language to a compulsory second language, placed on the same level as Vietnamese. The vast majority of Vietnamese GenZ speak and comprehend English more competently than Filipino GenZ, in my first-hand estimation. Most Vietnamese GenZ are also proficient in some other language too: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German, French, Russian, and so on with less of a pronounced accent than a typical Filipino GenZ speaks English. The mandate effectively has a young Vietnamese student learn 3 languages (2 compulsory, 1 elective) from kindergarten on. Anyone who has noticed the many Filipino English teacher-influencers working in Vietnam on pinoy socmed, of which there are many, well, that’s the reason.
I think the general unfriendliness some returnees or even visitors feel “when the pasalubong and money run out is real; I’ve observed it, and it was even expected of me too once I “became Filipino” in some eyes. The real reason though is likely simpler… Balik Scientist is essentially an academic stipend to work at a Philippine university, and a short-term stipend at that. Romania, Vietnam, Indonesia attracted diaspora experts back home with a combination of real financial and tax incentives, heavy and advanced industry that have high paying jobs that make a diaspora person consider “moving back home.” I’ll use an example of many aquaintances who went abroad to work in Taiwanese, Japanese, South Korean factories who said something along the lines of “If the broker/middleman offers ₱70-90K to work in a factory abroad, but there’s factory work closer to my home paying ₱63-54K, I’d rather work closer to home.” That works out to be around 70% of an abroad salary for a potential OFW to choose to work at the local factory. Potential returning diaspora experts would likely wish to be compensated along the same lines as well. One cannot feed his/her family with patriotism and love of country alone.
Re Romania tax incentives:
Yes, that program started in the early 2000s. 0% Romanian income tax and other lucrative perks. I had a nice offer from Bitdefender, the Romanian cybersecurity firm, in the mid-to-late 2000s but took on a role in the Middle East instead. Around that time I was considering a role in the UK, with the British firm offering a laughably small compensation package that was a fraction of American engineering and technical salaries — “brain drain” was originally coined by the UK Royal Society to describe the exodus of engineering and technical workers from the UK mainly due to uncompetitive salaries starting in the early 1960s.
I am also wondering about the more enterpreneurial Balikbayans and Fil-Ams etc who come home to found a business – how many of them tend to fall prey to shakedown artists who in addition manage to have public sympathy as it’s always the foreigners etc. who are considered “greedy” and “hambog” anyway.
Though I have heard of a few good hotels under Fil-Am ownership, I think on Palawan, so maybe M4GG places etc. are “safer”. I once met BTW a German SAP expert with a three person firm in Germany – himself, his wife and an office person (accounting etc.) who had 15 people doing programming for them in their Hanoi office. Now I doubt that such a firm could pull off something similar in the Philippines, at least not for long and not profitably, unless things have changed.
This is just my anecdotal observation, but it seems to me from what I’ve seen is that those affected by this predatory behavior are mostly small entrepreneurs, both balikbayans and foreigners. Often the scammer is a family member or acquaintance rather than a stranger. Essentially the scam is some variation of taking advantage of trust. Those bringing more capital to make bigger business joint ventures would definitely have an army of attorneys and the protection of local political interests. Of course small business being the engine of innovation in expanding economies, it’s not great that the aforementioned scams depress potential new small entrepreneurship.
In general foreigners are still treated (at least superficially) with deference, which may have something to do with expected generosity (generosity not always involves money or gifts though). In nearly all cases where a foreigner got brigaded with condemnation on social media that I’ve seen appear to be when the foreigner failed to be generous. Bad behavior, rudeness, acting superior can often be overlooked as long as the expectation of generosity is fulfilled.
Years ago I decided not to hire Philippine-based programmers for their penchant for showing up to work late or drunk, then arguing with me about it. Then more recently I’ve talked with CS agents on the phone about some customer problem I had, and when they admitted they were a technology or engineering graduate shocked to find out they knew this or that concept I quizzed them on. So despite the Philippines education system not being where it should be, enough potentially qualified graduates are being produced… who don’t have jobs in their field and don’t yet have opportunities abroad… so they work as call center agents. Same old story of the Philippines: the available resources are not used before expiration date, usually due to paper-heavy process or allocation disinterest, only to need to have a totally new paper-heavy process to dispose of the now-unusable resources.
Many many thanks!
FROM BRAIN DRAIN TO BRAIN GAIN
Why the Philippines Must Become a Place Worth Returning To
By Karl M. Garcia
The Philippines has spent decades asking its people to come home.
It should instead ask a more difficult question:
WHY WOULD THEY?
For generations, the Philippines has exported nurses, engineers, scientists, teachers, technicians, maritime professionals, entrepreneurs and other highly skilled workers because the global economy offers opportunities that the domestic economy often cannot.
The usual policy response has been to appeal to patriotism.
Programs such as the Balik Scientist Program attempt to bring Filipino scientists and experts back to contribute to national development. The program remains valuable, and DOST reports 744 Balik Scientists from 1975 to 2026.
But the deeper problem is not the willingness of Filipinos abroad to help.
It is whether the Philippines has built the institutions, industries, laboratories, companies, salaries, infrastructure, research systems and career opportunities capable of absorbing their capabilities.
That is the difference between:
BRAIN RETURN
and:
BRAIN GAIN.
Brain return means someone comes home.
Brain gain means the country becomes more capable because that person came home.
The distinction is fundamental.
—
I. THE HARDEST TEST OF PHILIPPINE DEVELOPMENT
Consider the world Filipinos are watching from abroad.
The United States has entered an increasingly aggressive immigration-enforcement period under Donald Trump. ICE arrests reached almost 50,000 in July 2026, while the administration has simultaneously tightened parts of the legal immigration system.
Filipinos in the United States have already expressed concern about the changing environment, including cases involving Filipino immigrants and even long-term residents.
The Middle East has also demonstrated how quickly geopolitical conflict can disrupt the lives of overseas Filipinos. Thousands have returned to the Philippines because of the 2026 regional crisis.
The Russia–Ukraine war demonstrated the same broader principle: geopolitical instability can suddenly transform migration from an economic decision into a security decision.
Yet here is the uncomfortable question:
IF WAR, IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWNS AND GEOPOLITICAL INSTABILITY STILL DO NOT MAKE THE PHILIPPINES THE OBVIOUS DESTINATION FOR HIGHLY SKILLED FILIPINOS, WHAT WILL?
The answer cannot be:
more patriotism.
It has to be:
A BETTER DOMESTIC ECOSYSTEM.
—
II. THE PHILIPPINES HAS A BRAIN-DRAIN PROBLEM—BUT ALSO A BRAIN-ABSORPTION PROBLEM
The conventional explanation is simple:
Filipinos leave because wages are higher abroad.
That is true, but incomplete.
People do not migrate only for salaries.
They migrate for:
career progression + research opportunities + professional autonomy + functioning institutions + technology + infrastructure + education for their children + healthcare + security + predictable rules + professional networks + quality of life.
Consequently, raising salaries alone will not reverse brain drain.
A scientist may accept a lower salary if the Philippines gives that scientist:
a world-class laboratory + research autonomy + competent technicians + reliable procurement + international collaborators + graduate students + intellectual freedom + long-term funding + a pathway from research to commercialization.
An engineer may return if there is:
advanced manufacturing + serious engineering work + competitive compensation + modern equipment + suppliers + R&D + management opportunities.
An entrepreneur may return if there is:
capital + customers + infrastructure + predictable regulation + skilled workers + intellectual-property protection.
The problem is therefore larger than migration policy.
It is:
DOMESTIC CAPABILITY POLICY.
—
III. THE LIMIT OF THE PROGRAMMATIC MODEL
The Balik Scientist Program illustrates the problem.
It is built around the individual:
find Filipino expert abroad → provide incentives → bring expert home → assign research or institutional engagement.
That can generate valuable knowledge transfer.
But a short-term expert engagement cannot substitute for a functioning ecosystem.
The question is not merely:
Can we bring Dr. X home for six months?
It is:
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER DR. X LEAVES?
Does the laboratory remain?
Does the research team remain?
Does the funding remain?
Do the graduate students continue?
Does the equipment remain operational?
Does procurement work?
Does the institution have the budget to maintain the technology?
Can the scientist build a company?
Can the research become a product?
Can the next generation of Filipino scientists take over?
If the answer is no, the country has conducted a visit.
It has not built an institution.
This is why the central criticism of the program should not be that it brings too few people home.
It is that:
THE SYSTEM HAS TOO LITTLE CAPACITY TO KEEP THEM.
The Balik Scientist Program has evolved and now allows engagements ranging from short-term to as long as three years, with expanded incentives.
That is an improvement.
But the structural question remains.
A three-year contract can still end.
A research grant can still end.
A laboratory can still deteriorate.
A scientist can still leave.
The objective must therefore move from:
TALENT REPATRIATION
to:
TALENT RETENTION + TALENT CIRCULATION + TALENT INSTITUTION-BUILDING.
—
IV. ROMANIA AND VIETNAM POINT TO A DIFFERENT MODEL
The important lesson from Romania and Vietnam is not that they discovered a magic diaspora program.
They changed the economic environment into which their people could return.
Romania’s post-1989 transformation and eventual EU integration fundamentally altered the country’s economic opportunity structure. Return migration has increasingly become part of a broader migration reversal, with outward migration slowing and return migration increasing.
Romania has also used fiscal incentives, grants and other measures to address brain drain and encourage return and entrepreneurship.
Vietnam followed a different but related trajectory.
Its transformation since the 1990s created increasingly sophisticated manufacturing, technology and export ecosystems.
The result is important:
The diaspora does not necessarily have to choose permanently between:
abroad
and
Vietnam.
It can move between both.
That is:
BRAIN CIRCULATION.
A Vietnamese expert can work abroad, return to establish a company, return overseas, collaborate with Vietnamese researchers, invest in a local startup, teach a graduate course, establish a laboratory and later return again.
The same principle helped Taiwan and South Korea build technological ecosystems.
The objective was never:
“Everyone must come home permanently.”
It was:
“WHEREVER YOU ARE, YOUR KNOWLEDGE CAN ACCUMULATE HERE.”
That is a much more sophisticated conception of national talent.
—
V. THE PHILIPPINES SHOULD STOP TREATING MIGRATION AS A BINARY CHOICE
The old model is:
LEAVE → LOSE
or:
RETURN → WIN
That is obsolete.
The modern model should be:
LEAVE → LEARN → CONNECT → INVEST → COLLABORATE → RETURN → CIRCULATE → BUILD.
A Filipino scientist in Boston can lead a Philippine research team.
A Filipino engineer in Tokyo can help design a Philippine manufacturing operation.
A Filipino executive in Singapore can mentor Philippine managers.
A Filipino entrepreneur in Silicon Valley can finance a Philippine startup.
A Filipino doctor abroad can train Philippine specialists remotely and periodically return.
A Filipino researcher in Europe can establish a joint laboratory in the Philippines.
A Filipino professional can remain abroad while becoming economically and intellectually embedded in the Philippines.
That is not brain drain.
That is:
BRAIN CIRCULATION.
And eventually, if the domestic ecosystem becomes sufficiently strong:
BRAIN GAIN.
—
VI. THE REAL COMPETITION IS NOT FOR PEOPLE—IT IS FOR ECOSYSTEMS
The Philippines should not ask:
How do we persuade Filipinos to sacrifice higher salaries abroad?
It should ask:
HOW DO WE MAKE THE PHILIPPINES COMPETITIVE ENOUGH THAT RETURNING IS NO LONGER A SACRIFICE?
That requires several things simultaneously.
1. COMPETITIVE COMPENSATION
Not necessarily equal to Silicon Valley.
But competitive enough when adjusted for:
career progression + living costs + family + professional autonomy + opportunity.
2. WORLD-CLASS INSTITUTIONS
A brilliant scientist cannot compensate indefinitely for a dysfunctional institution.
3. RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE
Scientists need:
laboratories + equipment + technicians + data + procurement + funding.
4. PRIVATE-SECTOR DEMAND
Researchers need companies capable of using research.
Engineers need industries capable of employing advanced skills.
Entrepreneurs need markets and capital.
5. TECHNOLOGY ECOSYSTEMS
The country must connect:
universities → laboratories → startups → venture capital → manufacturing → exports.
6. PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY
Exceptional people need the ability to make decisions without drowning in bureaucracy.
7. PREDICTABLE RULES
People building ten-year careers and companies cannot operate under constantly shifting administrative uncertainty.
8. FAMILY INFRASTRUCTURE
Returning professionals need:
schools + healthcare + housing + transportation + safety + quality public services.
Brain gain is ultimately a family decision as much as an individual one.
—
VII. THE PHILIPPINES SHOULD MEASURE THE COST OF BRAIN DRAIN DIFFERENTLY
The country routinely measures:
remittances + number of OFWs + deployment + employment.
It should also measure:
scientists lost + engineers lost + researchers lost + entrepreneurs lost + doctors lost + managers lost + years of professional experience accumulated abroad.
More importantly, it should measure:
CAPABILITY LOST PER MIGRANT.
A highly trained engineer who leaves is not simply one fewer worker.
That engineer may represent:
years of publicly and privately financed education + professional experience + international networks + technological knowledge + management capability + potential entrepreneurship.
The loss compounds.
But so can the gain.
If that engineer returns and trains 20 younger engineers, establishes a supplier, launches a company and creates a research partnership, the original returnee becomes a:
CAPABILITY MULTIPLIER.
That should be the objective of brain-gain policy.
—
VIII. FROM BALIK SCIENTIST TO BALIK CAPABILITY
The Philippines needs to think beyond the Balik Scientist Program.
It needs a national:
BALIK CAPABILITY STRATEGY.
It should include:
BALIK SCIENTIST
Research and scientific expertise.
BALIK ENGINEER
Advanced engineering and manufacturing.
BALIK ENTREPRENEUR
Diaspora investment and company formation.
BALIK EXECUTIVE
Management and organizational capability.
BALIK TECH
Software, AI, cybersecurity and advanced digital skills.
BALIK INDUSTRY
Manufacturing, logistics, maritime, energy and infrastructure expertise.
BALIK PROFESSIONAL
Medicine, law, finance, education and other high-value professions.
But the most important component should be:
BALIK NETWORK.
A Filipino abroad should not have to decide between:
career abroad
and
contribution to the Philippines.
The system should allow both.
—
IX. THE PHILIPPINES SHOULD BECOME A CIRCULAR TALENT ECONOMY
The ultimate goal is not mass repatriation.
It is:
MASSIVE KNOWLEDGE CIRCULATION.
Imagine a Filipino engineer spending:
10 years in Japan → 3 years building a Philippine manufacturing operation → 5 years abroad → 2 years teaching and developing a Philippine engineering team → investment in a Philippine technology company.
That person has not “failed to return.”
That person has contributed repeatedly.
The same principle applies to scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, executives and technicians.
The national metric should therefore become:
HOW MUCH KNOWLEDGE FLOWS THROUGH THE PHILIPPINES?
Not merely:
How many people permanently returned?
—
X. THE ULTIMATE TEST: WOULD THEY RETURN IF THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO?
This is perhaps the most revealing question.
If immigration conditions abroad became extremely difficult tomorrow, would Filipinos return because:
the Philippines has better laboratories?
better engineering jobs?
better companies?
better research funding?
better infrastructure?
better schools?
better healthcare?
better career opportunities?
better institutions?
If the answer is no, then the country has not solved brain drain.
It has merely waited for circumstances elsewhere to deteriorate.
That is not development strategy.
It is dependence on external failure.
The Philippines should never build its future on the hope that:
America becomes less attractive,
Europe becomes less attractive,
the Middle East becomes less attractive,
Asia becomes less attractive,
or
geopolitical instability drives Filipinos home.
We should want Filipinos to return because:
THE PHILIPPINES BECAME MORE ATTRACTIVE.
—
XI. THE NEW NATIONAL OBJECTIVE
The Philippines should therefore move through four stages.
STAGE 1 — STOP THE LOSS
Improve:
wages + research funding + institutions + professional opportunities + infrastructure.
STAGE 2 — ENABLE CIRCULATION
Make it easy for Filipinos abroad to:
teach + research + invest + mentor + consult + establish companies + collaborate remotely.
STAGE 3 — ATTRACT RETURN
Create domestic ecosystems where returning is a career upgrade rather than a patriotic sacrifice.
STAGE 4 — BECOME A TALENT MAGNET
Eventually, the Philippines should attract not only Filipinos from abroad but:
foreign scientists + engineers + entrepreneurs + researchers + investors + technical specialists.
At that point, the country has crossed the fundamental threshold:
FROM TALENT EXPORTER TO TALENT MAGNET.
—
XII. BRAIN GAIN IS A DEVELOPMENT TEST
Brain gain cannot be separated from the larger Philippine-readiness framework.
If the Philippines wants its diaspora to return, it must build:
reliable electricity
world-class connectivity
modern transportation
competitive industries
research institutions
advanced manufacturing
digital infrastructure
quality housing
good schools
effective healthcare
functional government
strong maritime industries
venture capital
technology-transfer institutions
predictable regulation
competitive cities
safe and resilient communities.
In other words:
BRAIN GAIN IS THE RESULT OF NATIONAL CAPABILITY.
A country does not become capable because its people return.
Its people return because the country is becoming capable.
That is the direction of causality policymakers must understand.
—
XIII. THE PHILIPPINE BRAIN-GAIN COMPACT
The country therefore needs a new social contract with its diaspora.
Not:
“Come home because you are Filipino.”
But:
“Come home because there is something here worth building.”
The government should provide:
institutions + infrastructure + incentives + research + predictable rules.
The private sector should provide:
jobs + investment + technology + management + commercialization.
Universities should provide:
research + talent + knowledge + innovation.
The diaspora should provide:
experience + networks + capital + technology + mentorship + entrepreneurship.
And together they should create:
CAPABILITY THAT DID NOT EXIST BEFORE.
—
XIV. THE PHILIPPINES MUST BECOME A PLACE WORTH RETURNING TO
This is the fundamental change.
For decades, the question was:
How do we stop Filipinos from leaving?
That question is too small.
People will continue to migrate.
Migration is not inherently failure.
The better question is:
HOW DO WE ENSURE THAT MIGRATION MAKES THE PHILIPPINES STRONGER?
A Filipino leaves.
The country gains:
experience.
A Filipino works abroad.
The country gains:
networks.
A Filipino builds a career abroad.
The country gains:
knowledge.
A Filipino invests at home.
The country gains:
capital.
A Filipino mentors people at home.
The country gains:
human capability.
A Filipino establishes a company at home.
The country gains:
jobs + technology + suppliers + intellectual property.
A Filipino eventually returns.
The country gains:
everything accumulated along the way.
That is:
BRAIN CIRCULATION.
And when enough of that circulation becomes embedded in domestic institutions:
BRAIN GAIN.
—
XV. THE FINAL TEST
The Philippines should not wait for the world to become less attractive.
It should make itself more attractive.
Not because America is deporting people.
Not because wars are disrupting foreign labor markets.
Not because another country has become politically unstable.
Not because Filipinos abroad suddenly feel guilty about leaving.
But because:
THE PHILIPPINES HAS BUILT SOMETHING WORTH COMING HOME TO.
The ultimate measure of development is therefore not:
How many Filipinos returned this year?
It is:
How many returned—and stayed?
How many returned—and built companies?
How many returned—and established laboratories?
How many returned—and trained the next generation?
How many returned—and created industries?
How many stayed abroad but became active participants in Philippine development?
And most importantly:
HOW MUCH MORE CAPABLE WAS THE PHILIPPINES BECAUSE THEY WERE CONNECTED TO IT?
That is the transition from:
brain drain → brain circulation → brain gain.
The objective is not to build a wall around Filipino talent.
It is to build a country that talent wants to connect to.
And ultimately:
MAKE THE PHILIPPINES A PLACE WORTH RETURNING TO.
NOT BECAUSE FILIPINOS HAVE NOWHERE ELSE TO GO.
BUT BECAUSE THERE IS NOWHERE ELSE THEY WOULD RATHER BUILD.
joeam, mayors for good governance might be an enclave but they are made up of mayors, therefore elected officials and received their salary from the public purse, and as such, they are subject to government’s rules and regulations. put a foot wrong and the government will come down on them like a humongous landslide. maybe it is just dumb luck that we have president marcos who does not oppose this kind of enclaving, but the next president in 2028 might not encourage it.
True. And I like the term ‘dumb luck’ ascribed to we who did not think Marcos would govern well. He fooled us for sure, running a good show.
OT: the Philippine government wants to push for local electric PUVs (jeepneys and tricycles)
It is one side of Joey’s EV plan I wrote about in below article (looks like a good “quick win”)
(Re Ayn Rand, I agree with Joey on her ideas, which are more like “how to be a complete jerk”)
I take no credit for individually concluding that reinvigorating the Philippines auto industry should target e-trikes and e-jeepneys first. E-trikes and e-jeepneys first was obvious so I’m glad DOST concluded on the same — the department is staffed with much more capable people than me who is just someone who has been around the auto industry in a professional capacity.
One thing about Marcos Jr., who I had strong feelings against originally due to his father’s legacy, seems to increasingly understand is that his first 3 years of trying to get other elites on board simply doesn’t work when elites seek rents first over progress so he is pushing ahead on the enclave model attracting business development in PEZA and now BCDA zones. And for that I’m mighty glad. Seems like the right direction to go as well, judging by the intense elite-driven pushback against stuff like Pax Silica since they can’t capture rents from enclaves.
you might have noticed that the elites have bought adjacent lands to pax silica site, already jacking up for prime position. elites are quite adaptable, if you cannot – – – – – – join them!
This would not surprise me!
Here is a case of proposed regulations that will stand as a threat to individual rights of licensed gun owners. It is proposed that PNP be allowed to enter homes of gun owners . . . because there were apparently two cases of improper securing of guns among the 800,000 gun owners. My opinion is that this is nutty regulations tending toward a police state. Licensing should mandate secure storage. Violators should be punished heavily if they fail to secure their weapons. Free the Filipino！
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2293504/dilg-wants-pnp-access-to-homes-of-legal-firearm-owners-for-inspections
Now it is my High school alma mater to ban even school scissors because of a hitlist found on one or two of its students. That is the cliff notes version.
Common sense and statistics have gone missing. Regulating away any extreme behavior is not possible, and the cost of trying is huge. PNP should be jailing Dela Rosa not mango thieves.
dilg will make it similar to fire inspection of building, where fire protection unit conducts inspection. in dilg’s case, notice of inspection will be issued to legit gun owners, to see whether gun owners have safe storage specific to firearms, checks will be made also of current gun licenses.
If they give notice of visits, gun owners will secure their weapons and the visit will be a waste of time.
have you seen the secure vault that gun owners used to secure their firearms? it looks to be made of heavy duty stainless steel, fireproof and some are even bolted to the wall and have secure lock with electronic alarm connected to smart phone. owners will be alerted if anyone opens the vault. maybe like the one the dutertes have in dabaw, seen it?
maybe guns inspection is not waste of time, dilg have checklist/criteria to tick, any gun owner failing the criteria, will have to show cause and risk having their license revoked.
gone will be those days when guns are hidden in the ceiling and under the roof where they could well be damage in case of fire.
Well that is true, traditional gun ownership here is pretty loose. You’re getting pretty close to getting me to agree with you. 🙂
I fell in love with the safety vault and wanted one for meself too, to hide me hard earned cash! but then, my silly friends told me, in case of massive flood and and if the vault is found far far away, I may have hard time proving ownership!
Not if you know the combination or have the key, LOL.