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Learning More About Glocalization


I'm getting tired of all the paranoia that keeps saying, "Foreigners will run us Filipinos dry!" Yet they're not worried that the oligarchs may bully and destroy the small businesses that Filipino businessmen are relying on to earn for a living. The average Filipino small-time businessman is forced to kneel before the sloppy services of the oligarchy. That's not right, isn't it? Now it's time to talk about the phenomenon called glocalization. Glocal is a combination of local and global.

Localization is defined in the business dictionary as, "The practice of adjusting a product's functional properties and characteristics to accommodate the language, cultural, political and legal differences of a foreign market or country." This is what multinational companies are doing when they operate in a scope of different cultures. McDonald's operates differently in different countries. Several Japanese entertainment companies allow their media to be localized into different forms in different countries like how many Anime or Manga get translated or adapted into TV drama for Koreans, Chinese and Taiwanese viewers or how Japanese media companies get their shows severely toned down so they can be well-received by an American audience. Cultural differences between countries can call for the need to localize one's product in order to do business.

Any glocal multinational corporation will be more than ready to become Filipino in the Philippines like they became Korean in South Korea or Taiwanese in Taiwan. This means that Filipino businessmen can get better business opportunities and better partners than they are with the oligarch mafia through a joint venture agreement. So why should people be too scared of removing the stupid 60/40 restriction and why should we be scared of multinational corporations doing business with 50% or higher ownership if there are reasonable laws for them to comply to and these rules are strictly enforced? That's why 60/40 must be removed in order to encourage more glocal multinational companies to invest in the Philippines.

Hopefully, the 60/40 will be removed by 2017 as part of the agenda for the Philippines to be more active with international marketing. This kind of project will allow both Filipino businessmen and foreigners to work at a minimum of 50/50 to provide more jobs for Filipinos. This will also mean that Filipinos will have their taste of better stuff than what the current Philippine business environment has to offer.

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