Just Because I'm For Foreign Direct Investments Doesn't Mean I'm For Nickelodeon's Plans For Palawan

Just hearing that Nickelodeon plans to build an underwater theme park in Coron, Palawan makes me cringe. Before you start shout, "See! That's were foreign direct investment will take us! They'll just exploit our country and our people!" All I can say to these whiners is "SHUT UP! Don't act like as if there aren't any abuses done by local businesses! I'm for foreign direct investment but I'm not for irresponsible acceptance which is as bad as protectionism! Both practices are bad for the country! It's all about balance! Get your facts straight!"

These economic neanderthals need to understand the limits of free trade unless they're just going to tell me to shut up because I'm just a "political analyst wannabe" or because I'm not an economist. Then it's time to ask, "Will you really listen to a real political analyst who has way more credentials when they will be the ones to speak to you?". Just because the Philippines will be open to foreign investors doesn't mean that there won't be any reasonable restrictions to follow. Foreign direct investors will be allowed to do business in the Philippines with 50% and above but there are still rules and regulations to follow. If a foreign direct investor's plans won't harm the welfare of the Philippines then by all means go ahead. If foreign direct investors are treating Filipinos well, paying taxes and complying with the rules of the Philippines then they can stay. It doesn't take a doctorate in economics in some faraway land to understand the basic principles.

I would like to address the self-proclaimed Filipino environmentalists. I commend them that they're against Nickelodeon's plans to build an underwater theme park in Palawan. But I should also address the B.S. that a lot of these Filipino environmentalists have. I could remember a lot of Earth Hour fun runs where they simply don't keep the place clean. Many of them just throw their trash away anywhere they please instead of throwing them in the proper place. Many of them don't even bother to check whether or not their vehicles are producing toxic smoke. Many of them love to defend the rights of squatters never mind that such people don't benefit the environment.  Don't tell me these activities aren't bad for the environment? They're also one of the biggest reasons why the Philippines suffers from so much pollution and not just irresponsible industrialization. If they want to hastily and unfairly generalize foreign investors as "environmental destroyers" they should ask themselves if they're actually saving the environment by their irresponsible habits that I just mentioned. 

Note the keyword "irresponsible industrialization" because industrialization may lead to either progress, survival or demise. This is also a message to every moderntard out there who thinks we should just accept modernization without question. It's good to have modernization. If it wasn't for it I wouldn't be able to write on Blogger, pay my bills and taxes easily, use the Internet, enjoy my Samsung tablet, travel at a faster rate and so on. What I'm against is not innovation itself but the reckless use of it. I could allow a proposal to endorse Coron, Palawan with HD digital videos or to put better boats to be used for tourism but to disturb the natural ecosystem would be too much. I could just imagine that Spongebob and Patrick (if they were real) would be protesting right now at Nickelodeon's plan to build an underwater theme park in Coron, Palawan. 

I'm against the plans not because I've stopped watching Nickelodeon years ago due to a lot of bad decisions they made (ex. overextending Spongebob) but because an underwater theme park may disturb the natural ecology. I can go ahead and favor having better boats used for touring around Palawan as long as they don't damage the environment. It's good to have technology but the ambition of making an underwater theme park may do more harm than good. To get to the bottom line (no pun intended) is that the problem isn't foreign direct investments but an irresponsible acceptance of them. I can accept Nickelodeon's plans if they want to build a theme park in a reasonable location in the Philippines but their plans for Coron, Palawan should be rejected. 

There may be many other ways to actually for both foreign investors and local investors to do business in Coron, Palawan. Building alliances to promote Coron, Palawan as it is would still be good. Better boats than the bangkas? Better life vests? Improve the tourism services? Have a maintenance drive to presrve's Coron's natural beauty? That would do. But not the underwater theme park. As of the moment, I'm opposed to the idea and I support Sec. Gina Lopez's idea of rejecting it. Some places are meant to maintain their natural beauty and destroying them would be bad for Philippine tourism.