South Korea's Culture Of Excellence Is Because It's FDI Friendly, Philippines' Lack Of It Is Because Of Protectionism

 

It's no doubt that Start-Up has become the number one trending K-Drama this week. I remembered writing some time about Filipino K-Pop fans and the K-Dramas that enter into Netflix's top ten. I was simply inspired to finally write about South Korea's culture of achievement in sciences and technology - something that Benign0 of Get Real Philippines (GRP) either doesn't get it or refuses to get as to WHY the Philippines doesn't have it. While watching Start-Up - I wonder if Filipino fans of the show are too busy on their fandom of Suzy Bae or the love story than the whole idea of a start-up. I just felt like writing about South Korea's culture of achievement in sciences and technology - something that wouldn't be possible if the Japanese didn't introduce newer stuff for many to evolve like rice cookers and DVD technology. Though, my favorite example is always the rice cooker because unlike the Betamax and VHS - rice cooker is still evolving while the other two are as dead as rotary phones.

What causes South Korea to actually have that culture of excellence in sciences and technology? It's all linked to the free flow of foreign direct investments or FDI. As Correct Philippines loves to say it - Benign0 doesn't get FDI at all! Benign0 still displays the attitude of pessimism or saying that Filipinos better off trying to self-industrialize. I find it weird because isn't Benign0 supposedly going against Filipino communist groups? South Korea has a culture of achievement in sciences and technology in contrast to North Korea also because of free-flowing FDI in a capitalist, democratic market. Even both China and Vietnam as COMMUNIST countries have that sense of achievement because of FDI in a free market. China and Vietnam may consider themselves socialists BUT they consider it as either you contribute or you don't get any share. 

Let's consider the history of Samsung and why it's that global brand compared to North Korea's Koryolink. Foreign investors are viewed in two ways - opportunities and threats. In business, the very first analysis always goes to SWOT which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. For the pessimist, foreign investors are always a threat. For the optimist, foreign investors are an opportunity. They exist as both competition and opportunity. Samsung didn't just view foreign companies like Sony and Toshiba as threats - they also viewed suppliers of raw materials as opportunities. It would be that excellent supply chain as a result that their local supply chain is frequently in competition against FDI supply chain. Any good businessman will take the opportunity to avail the services of the competitors of their service providers and suppliers for their business. It would mean that if your service providers and suppliers have competition - businesses have a better chance in getting a supply chain. They can secure as many supply chains as possible to make sure that they have less shortages. If Supplier A doesn't have that part then you can go for the rest. This will force Supplier A to make sure that he or she has those supplies or be defeated by the rest.

You can also think of how South Korea is rather aggressive in the international market scene. They don't stop with just making products for South Koreans alone. Instead, they decided to market their concepts here and there. They allowed foreign competition to compete in their soil (that's as long as FDIs will pay their income taxes and follow South Korean by-laws) and they decided to take the competition to other places. South Korean companies that survive against foreign competition can have the confidence that they'll have chances to survive doing business in other countries. The Philippines' protectionist environment has long caused Filipinos to be rather pampered. If Jollibee didn't survive against the rise of Wendy's and McDonald's then I don't think it'd have the confidence to march into other countries. Instead, Jollibee has that confidence it can do good in other countries because it survived foreign competition in its native soil. 

Only if the Philippines would just dump that stupid "Filipino first" policy set in stone by Carlos P. Garcia and Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. can it truly have an excellence in business and sciences. What Filipinos need now is stop whining about competition, face it head on, and show the world that they're truly capable of being great and not just brag how great they are.