Would You Listen To The Late Lee Kuan Yew Who Made Singapore Great Or Anti-Reform Idiots Who KNOW NOTHING About Making Money?

It may be way past the celebration of "Saint" Flor Contemplacion (and the silver anniversary of her martyrdom was ruined by COVID-19) but I can't resist writing this post. It's because with the battle for or against economic charter change - one must question who Filipinos should or will listen to. This would be whether or not they will listen to the wise words of the late Lee Kuan Yew (especially from his book, Third World to First) or would they listen to the anti-reform idiots who KNOW NOTHING about making legitimate money. Let's do an examination on who Filipinos must listen to. 

Lee Kuan Yew who made a country once WAY POORER than the Philippines now RICHER than the Philippines

I was thinking of a passage from the book From Third World to First by Lee which is in chapter 18 which also talked about the post-Marcos years. These words would still be VERY MEANINGFUL today in the quest for economic charter change:

Mrs. Aquino was sworn in as president amid jubilation. I had hopes that this honest, God-fearing woman would help regain confidence for the Philippines and get the country back on track. I visited her that June, three months after the event. She was a sincere, devout Catholic who wanted to do her best for her country by carrying out what she believed her husband would have done had he been alive, namely, restore democracy to the Philippines. Democracy would then solve their economic and social problems. At dinner, Mrs. Aquino seated the chairman of the constitutional commission, Chief Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, next to me. I asked the learned lady what lessons her commission had learned from the experience of the last 40 years since independence in 1946 would guide her in drafting the constitution. She answered without hesitation, “We will not have any reservations or limitations on our democracy. We must make sure that no dictator can ever emerge to subvert the constitution.” Was there no incompatibility of the American-type separation of powers with the culture and habits of the Filipino people that had caused problems for the presidents before Marcos? Apparently none.

Endless attempted coups added to Mrs. Aquino’s problems. The army and the constabulary had been politicized. Before the ASEAN summit in December 1987, a coup was threatened. Without President Suharto’s firm support the summit would have been postponed and confidence in Aquino’s government undermined. The Philippine government agreed that the responsibility for security should be shared between them and the other ASEAN governments, in particular the Indonesian government. General Benny Moerdani, President Suharto’s trusted aide, took charge. He positioned an Indonesian warship in the middle of Manila Bay with helicopters and a commando team ready to rescue the ASEAN heads of government if there should be a coup attempt during the summit. I was included in their rescue plans. I wondered if such a rescue could work but decided to go along with the arrangements, hoping that the show of force would scare off the coup leaders. We were all confined to the Philippine Plaza Hotel by the seafront facing Manila Bay where we could see the Indonesian warship at anchor. The hotel was completely sealed off and guarded. The summit went off without any mishap. We all hoped that this show of united support for Mrs. Aquino’s government at a time when there were many attempts to destabilize it would calm the situation.

It made no difference. There were more coup attempts, discouraging investments badly needed to create jobs. This was a pity because they had so many able people, educated in the Philippines and the United States. Their workers were English-speaking, at least in Manila. There was no reason why the Philippines should not have been one of the more successful of the ASEAN countries. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the most developed, because America had been generous in rehabilitating the country after the war. Something was missing, a gel to hold society together. The people at the top, the elite mestizos, had the same detached attitude to the native peasants as the mestizos in their haciendas in Latin America had toward their peons. They were two different societies: Those at the top lived a life of extreme luxury and comfort while the peasants scraped a living, and in the Philippines, it was a hard living. They had no land but worked on sugar and coconut plantations. They had many children because the church discouraged birth control. The result was increasing poverty.

It was obvious that the Philippines would never take off unless there was substantial aid from the United States. George Shultz, the secretary of state, was sympathetic and wanted to help but made clear to me that the United States would be better able to do something if ASEAN showed support by making its contribution. The United States was reluctant to go it alone and adopt the Philippines as its special problem. Shultz wanted ASEAN to play a more prominent role to make it easier for the president to get the necessary votes in Congress. I persuaded Shultz to get the aid project off the ground in 1988, before President Reagan’s second term of office ended. He did. There were two meetings for a Multilateral Assistance Initiative (Philippines Assistance Programme): The first in Tokyo in 1989 brought US$3.5 billion in pledges, and the second in Hong Kong in 1991, under the Bush administration, yielded US$14 billion in pledges. But instability in the Philippines did not abate. This made donors hesitant and delayed the implementation of projects.

Mrs. Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, whom she had backed, was more practical and established greater stability. In November 1992, I visited him. In a speech to the 18th Philippine Business Conference, I said, “I do not believe democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy.” In private, President Ramos said he agreed with me that British parliamentary-type constitutions worked better because the majority party in the legislature was also the government. Publicly, Ramos had to differ.

He knew well the difficulties of trying to govern with strict American-style separation of powers. The senate had already defeated Mrs. Aquino’s proposal to retain the American bases. The Philippines had a rambunctious press but it did not check corruption. Individual press reporters could be bought, as could many judges. Something had gone seriously wrong. Millions of Filipino men and women had to leave their country for jobs abroad beneath their level of education. Filipino professionals whom we recruited to work in Singapore are as good as our own. Indeed, their architects, artists, and musicians are more artistic and creative than ours. Hundreds of thousands of them have left for Hawaii and for the American mainland. It is a problem the solution to which has not been made easier by the workings of a Philippine version of the American constitution.

The difference lies in the culture of the Filipino people. It is a soft, forgiving culture. Only in the Philippines could a leader like Ferdinand Marcos, who pillaged his country for over 20 years, still be considered for a national burial. Insignificant amounts of the loot have been recovered, yet his wife and children were allowed to return and engage in politics. They supported the winning presidential and congressional candidates with their considerable resources and reappeared in the political and social limelight after the 1998 election that returned President Joseph Estrada. General Fabian Ver, Marcos’s commander-in-chief who had been in charge of security when Aquino was assassinated, had fled the Philippines together with Marcos in 1986. When he died in Bangkok, the Estrada government gave the general military honors at his burial. One Filipino newspaper, Today, wrote on 22 November 1998, “Ver, Marcos and the rest of the official family plunged the country into two decades of lies, torture, and plunder. Over the next decade, Marcos’s cronies and immediate family would tiptoe back into the country, one by one – always to the public’s revulsion and disgust, though they showed that there was nothing that hidden money and thick hides could not withstand.” Some Filipinos write and speak with passion. If they could get their elite to share their sentiments and act, what could they not have achieved?

I decided to put the letters in bold because those need to be emphasized. It's very easy to quote from Lee when it comes to demonizing the despot, Marcos. However, what's often IGNORED is that the Marcos Years were the golden years for PROTECTIONISM. The result of the Marcos Years wasn't the only repression of the freedom of speech. It was also unpaid debts that helped massive inflation get worse. Lee emphasized the problems of the Cory Administration and talked about Fidel V. Ramos' desire for charter change. Yet, the naysayers prevented Ramos' desire for charter change. The same also happened during the term of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. I don't like Gloria (which made me temporarily idolize Noynoy Aquino) but I'd say that the call for constitutional reform was really needed. Yet, people kept giving false statements like "Gloria Forever" or that Ramos was planning to become another Marcos.

Concerning Cesar Virata, Lee described him as a LAME DUCK in these statements from Third World to First too which proved Ninoy's statement right about the Philippines NOT being a true parliamentary:

As soon as all our aides left, I went straight to the point, that no bank was going to lend him any money. They wanted to know who was going to succeed him if anything were to happen to him; all the bankers could see that he no longer looked healthy. Singapore banks had lent US$8 billion of the US$25 billion owing. The hard fact was they were not likely to get repayment for some 20 years. He countered that it would be only eight years. I said the bankers wanted to see a strong leader in the Philippines who could restore stability, and the Americans hoped the election in May would throw up someone who could be such a leader. I asked whom he would nominate for the election. He said Prime Minister Cesar Virata. I was blunt. Virata was a nonstarter, a first-class administrator but no political leader; further, his most politically astute colleague, defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile, was out of favour. Marcos was silent, then he admitted that succession was the nub of the problem. If he could find a successor, there would be a solution. As I left, he said, “You are a true friend.” I did not understand him. It was a strange meeting.

With medical care, Marcos dragged on. Cesar Virata met me in Singapore in January the following year. He was completely guileless, a political innocent. He said that Mrs. Imelda Marcos was likely to be nominated as the presidential candidate. I asked how that could be when there were other weighty candidates, including Juan Ponce Enrile and Blas Ople, the labor minister. Virata replied it had to do with “flow of money; she would have more money than other candidates to pay for the votes needed for nomination by the party and to win the election. He added that if she were the candidate, the opposition would put up Mrs. Cory Aquino and work up the people’s feelings. He said the economy was going down with no political stability.

In short, Lee even admitted that Virata was just a prime minister in NAME ONLY. A real parliamentary system would make a presidential SYMBOLIC. The way Lee talked about Cory and Ramos seemed to suggest he felt this layout was more recommended. The late Corazon C. Aquino was no doubt the UNIFYING figure of the EDSA Revolution. People looked up to her as the widow of the informal opposition leader, Ninoy Aquino. Meanwhile, it was both Fidel V. Ramos and Juan Ponce-Enrile who masterminded the whole 1986 Revolution that toppled down a tyrant. There's no question that Filipinos looked up to Cory. However, Cory wasn't qualified to run the country as an administrator. However, Cory was qualified to be the symbolic Head of State. That's what the 1987 Constitution should've been - a PARLIAMENTARY constitution. Ramos was more qualified to call the shots than Cory. Unfortunately, Cory ended up mired in the scandal with the libel suit against Louis Beltran. It showed that letting an unexperienced housewife sit in power is NOT a good thing. Sure, she didn't have experience in stealing money but does she know how to take care of a nation as one who calls the shots? Nope, Cory was more qualified to receive credentials, to open the door, and to serve as an ambassador as the symbolic president. Ramos could've been and should've been the prime minister and the one to call the shots. Maybe, Ramos would've learned to handle the coups or there would be fewer coups because parliamentary systems encourage more open views - even if it's from dissidents like the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The CPP will have a voice but it'll have to prove itself worthy in the Parliament. Unfortunately, Cory was spineless to make such important decisions and was more fit to be a unifying figure than the real power. 

Lee even lamented the fact that Filipinos had to go abroad. Going abroad for work is NOT a form of conquest. If it were conquest then why haven't countries where OFWs go become "new Filipino states". Until now, I don't see Singapore as the new Filipino state. Until now, I don't see Hong Kong as an extension of Filipino territory. Until now, Malaysia still retains its sovereignty. The worse part of the OFW program is that Filipinos are torn apart from their families. Yet, some of its advocates keep saying that if you want dollars then make sacrifices. What's the use of making money when families are torn apart? Why not import the jobs from abroad like a mall owner or a commercial building owner will invite potential lessors? If foreign investors were foreign invaders (which they aren't) then why haven't the countries where Jollibee opened in becoming the new Filipino state? It's because we're in the age of trade relations. Foreign investors fly from one country to another to DO BUSINESS. When they do business - they are bound to that country's rules. It's like a tenant who looks for a space to rent. The tenant is bound to the landlord. Foreign investors can only continue investing IF they follow the rules. If not, they can consider themselves like tenants who don't pay rent or follow contracts. 

Besides, Lee didn't even self-industrialize Singapore. Instead, Lee invited foreign investors. Deng Xiaoping threw away Mao Zedong's economic system and created his own brand of communism that shunned Karl Marx. Instead, Dengism became called "communism with Chinese characteristics". Deng saw an entrepreneurial communist state that would redefine state production. Instead. Deng made the local Chinese businessmen invest. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members were made to face competition from foreign investors. Deng's meeting with Lee would also prove to be another change of fate for Communist China. Communist China's ideals are probably why Filipino communists hate it.

Just what do anti-reform pasaways even know about making money?

There's the cry for #AyudaHindiChaCha. There's the Ayuda Network which is obviously another communist front. There's Migraine International which is also another communist front. Other communist fronts are Bayad Muna, Alliance of Complaining Teachers, Kayabangan Partylist, Gagabriela, Anakpatis, Lazy Filipino Students, and the like. Just the mere fact that they keep begging for ayuda (help in Spanish, or handouts) instead of jobs is something. The fact that they're asking for PHP 10,000.00 ayuda is already a month's salary. Give them that PHP 10,000.00 ayuda per month and they will STOP WORKING. It's equivalent to a professional fee per month. If people get it then why bother to work? If people get PHP 10,000.00 whether they work or not then people might as well quit working, right? It reminded me if that were true then contributing to our family business is useless. Why would I need to contribute to our family business (which is the requirement for us to get our monthy PHP 10,000.00) be needed if the government pays me that amount even if I do nothing at all? In short, these people really DON'T KNOW ANYTHING about how to make money.

It just made me think about how they contradict themselves. For example, they keep complaining about COVID-19 debts but guess what - they're demanding FREE STUFF from the government. Do they think the government can just make money for free or print more money? If their solution is to print more money then bad news. Printing more money means you DEVALUE the money. Then that means PHP 10,000.00 today will be useless by tomorrow if everybody gets PHP 10,000.00. In short, people may need to get PHP 10,000,000 each because the money has been greatly devalued. A country with depreciated currency (such as Japan and South Korea) can only benefit from it if they have open free markets. Sure, yen and won are much smaller than the Philippine peso but those countries do better because they are free markets. Peso devaluation wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for 

This just reminded me of "activist" Gerry Cacanindin. His arrogance (above) is really showing that he KNOWS NOTHING about business. Doing almost everything above there is really going to require lots of money. Set up temporary hospitals? It requires TONS OF MONEY! Set up free mass testing? What about the salary of the health workers and the cost of operations? Massive sanitation drives? The cost of materials is also to be accounted for. Secure food supplies? Please, isn't that the DUTY of the private firms and that government should only be there to assist them? The pantries should be set up by private individuals. The government's involvement in the pantry is only to make sure that protocols like social distancing are followed or to stop cops who are harassing pantries. Suspend rent and mortgage payments? This Gerry guy KNOWS NOTHING about businesses. 

Rentals and mortgages (bank loans) are NEEDED to finance the economy. Suspend them? Please, landlords and banks also pay taxes too. If landlords don't get income then what income will be taxed on? Landlords will have to report a loss which means no money for the government. Paid mortgages keep the banks going. People need to pay their mortgage (if they have it) in order to keep the bank from running. That's why banks end up seizing properties (with legal consent) if ever the person can't pay the mortgage. It's because when a bank runs out of money then where will businesses get money to borrow? If banks get bankrupt then depositors will end up panicking over their money. After all, banks use the money of the depositors to finance businesses. That's why every investment has an interest. It's because the banks are borrowing money from the depositors. That's why it's ill-advised that depositors go to banks that make promises that are too good to be true (such as double your money in a short amount of time) or live extravagantly. A bank that doesn't use the money of depositors wisely won't last long. 

Yet, this guy sounds like everything he says is very easy. I wonder if he really bothers to understand those basics. If he's really working as a commercial artist then he should know how his employers earn their profit. Otherwise, he's just shooting his mouth off. It's not because he's a critic of the Duterte administration - it's his FAILURE to give working alternatives!

Inquirer

There are also those commie youth groups that demanded groceries to set up free pantries. I guess they don't even know anything about supply chain management. Where do community pantries get their wares? They buy them from groceries. Where do the groceries get their supplies? They buy it from the wholesalers. Where do the wholesalers get their supplies? Don't they get it from the manufacturers of wholesale? Raw materials are derived from those who make them such as farmers. The proof of their ignorance of the supply chain is when they ask for higher salaries and lower cost of goods or for cheaper rice but more expensive palay. Palay is part of the raw materials that make the rice grains. If the palay is cheaper then the rice is cheaper. If salaries are higher then finished products must sell higher to maintain that salary. I think palay needs to have higher costs if we expect farmers to get paid more and to have a new delivery system that will guarantee better quality of palay. Then again, what do you expect from people who are SPOILED BRATS who KNOW NOTHING about economics?

Why isn't it advisable for groceries to set up free pantries or give their wares for free? For one, the groceries need to make a profit to pay for their OPERATING EXPENSES. Cost of operations include salaries, utility bills, and accounts payable (such as those from SUPPLIERS). Instead, it's the groceries that should be selling to pantries. If they plan to set up pantries then they need to account for how much loss they're willing to bear to avoid the grocery from closing down. Though, it's more advisable that groceries shouldn't be the ones to set up pantries. Instead, it should be run by institutions like churches, charity centers, and the like. Those who run pantries buy from the groceries. In short, the groceries are still helping out pantries by SELLING to the pantries. The pantries buy from the groceries so the groceries can continue getting money for their operations. If the groceries gave everything for free then the pantry operations will stop. It's because the groceries will be forced to close down if it's running at a loss. Again, do those pasaways even take that into account? 

Need I mention some arrogant white people? There are some white people (not all) who pretend to be "experts of the Philippines". I think those guys don't know anything about earing money either. For one, that fat blob who looks like Peter Griffin is probably just living on social security paychecks, increasing his weight, and he has almost all the time to meddle in Philippine affairs. What do these arrogant white people know anyway? Are they running big-time companies that can offer jobs to the Philippines? I doubt it. All they probably do is derail conversations and send nonsense information. If these so-called experts were the likes of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet - they would be worth listening to. I think all they know is how to have a good time and exploit foreign women for their own sick pleasure. A bit of a warning that these arrogant white men tend to hate progressive East Asian democracies which they label as "tyrannies". Until now, they haven't provided ANY real explanation on how to generate jobs without foreign investment. The truth is their solutions are proven failures already based on basic economics!

So, why should we listen to these guys who KNOW NOTHING about making money? Until now, they haven't made the Philippines great. In all their years of being in power or not in power - did they even provide job opportunities? Did Migraine International really provide better job opportunities? Instead, the fact that they spread lied against foreign investment is proof of their UTTER IGNORANCE. In many years, what has the likes of Neri Colmenares, Toady Casino, Renato Reyes Jr., Carlos "Heneral Lunatic" Zarate, Antonio Tinio, and Sarah Elgago (to name a few) EVER contribute to the Philippines but NOISE POLLUTION? I doubt that Team Voltage 5 can TRULY use their noise to produce electricity to minimize the energy crisis. They can't even provide a real solution. Ayudas will NEVER end the crisis - only worsen it. 

________

It's time to rethink. Rethink! These guys really know nothing. Those pasaways who keep espousing protectionism are one of the reasons why the Philippines became a cesspool and NOT JUST Marcos. Arrogant white men probably just want to continue exploiting Filipinos for whatever activities they have. If they love protectionism then they shouldn't even protest about Marcos' burial right next near to Carlos "Failipino First" Garcia at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani. Lee Kuan Yew is a man that made Singapore go from third world to first - not those anti-reform idiots!