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One of the biggest myths being perpetuated by our elders today is the lack of good opportunities left in our country and the need for our youth to fly to other countries in order to have a better shot at life. Brings to mind people jumping off the sinking titanic, he he.
Because of this, the Philippines have become a vast human factory churning out batches of nurses, engineers, domestic helpers, caregivers, etc while our economy has grown used to its dependence on remittances.
Add to this our local call center agents, medical transcriptionists, digital animation artists, etc working for foreign companies and you'll get a picture of the kind of country our President is so proud of..
A nation of workers toiling their asses off year in and year out for foreign companies and now being laid off left and right due to the current global financial crisis.
So now we're back to square one caught with our pants down by the financial crisis rocking the world, wondering what the hell happened to the golden days of immigration and overseas employment.
On the other hand..
Ever noticed the growing number of Indians riding around in scooters with umbrellas on their laps? How about the growing number of Chinese retailers who cant speak a word of Filipino hawking their wares in divisoria?
For them, the Philippines is a land paved with gold or to be more specific, paved with Filipinos willing to make them rich.
After all, in a land of workers, capitalists don't have much competition right?
Consider the following examples:
1. We send thousands upon thousands of sons, daughters, mothers and fathers to work their asses off in foreign countries. These people then send in their money monthly to sustain their dependents here.
What do we do?
Yup! We spend it all! To pay our bills, to improve the house, to buy a car, to get the newest gadgets, to pay for plastic surgery, to purchase signature clothes and lastly, to educate our sons and daughters so that they can follow our footsteps.
If this is indeed the rat race life, then the Philippines must be one hell of a rat lab where Pinoys earn to spend and capitalists sell and get rich.
2. We've all heard of songs lamenting the fate of our poor farmers and longing for the day where the farmers will rise up and take what's rightfully theirs. Well here's what I've seen with my own eyes..
Farming is basically 1/3 back breaking work and 2/3 mind numbing boredom as the farmers wait for the plants to grow. Now instead of putting this 2/3 sitting with their thumbs up their asses time to good use however, (working as a part time carpenter, plumber, market retailer, etc), most Pinoy farmers seems very much content to while away their time drinking brandy or beer, playing jueteng or lotto or gossiping about this neighbor and that.
Moreover, because by harvest time, they have accumulated much debt, pinoy farmers seem to prefer selling their produce for pennies to chinese middlemen rather than stock them and wait for the price to improve, or process them and sell them for more.
Instead, these people live a life of collecting debts (beer, gambling, etc) during the growing season and more beer, gambling, etc during harvests.
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The Chinese, on the other hand, buys the produce for pennies, stocks or processes them and sell them for substantially more (sometimes to the same people, he he) when the harvest celebrations die down.
3. Supermarket vendors aren't much better in this aspect. I mean, what is the sense of selling your goods for a 10-15% mark-up and then using your hard earned profit to pay for a 10-20% interest loan??!
Most of these people just can't seem to resist buying cellphones, house furniture or fiesta goods on installment, paying for their children's tuition through exorbitant loans and loaning start-up capital through micro financing. Moreover, most don't even save what little profit they have leftover so that they can free themselves from this vicious cycle - opting instead to splurge it on fiestas, bdays and xmas celebrations.
Indian microfinancers must be thanking their gods for creating people like us, he he.
4. They market, get the contract and outsource the work to us. We chat our throats dry servicing foreign clients, type our thumbs raw making medical reports for doctors half a world away, strain our eyes making garments or electrical circuits for foreign companies and get paid on an hourly basis.
We look for other jobs when dissatisfied with our salaries, they think of new ways to profit, look for more clients and employees to increase their margins. They wait for their ROI's, we wait for our 13th month pay, they think more than they work and earn even when asleep, we work like automatons and spend like crazy on vacations.
I could go on and on but I think you see the picture. The problem with our economy isn't the lack of opportunities but the lack of a mindset capable of seeing and taking advantage of them.
We're trapped in a mode of thinking where money has to be earned by working for other people rather than money being created through wise investing, innovating solutions, or creating businesses around needs.
Our country has more natural resources than Japan, is more strategically placed for commerce than Singapore, had more decades of peace and order than Vietnam or Korea and has more English speaking people than India. Why then are these countries much more prosperous than ours?
I think the answer lies in the basic difference of how we perceive money. They invest, we spend. They look for business opportunities, we look for high paying jobs. They create and innovate, we manage and supervise. They make their money work for them, we burn ourselves out working for it.
The Philippines isn't poor in opportunities. It's we ourselves that's lacking.
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