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Monday, March 20, 2006

Competitive advantage

We can succeed if we harness our competitive advantage, as a people. For example, in boxing, Pacman succeeded because he has a natural strong punch – that is his competitive advantage. Another is Fanny Serrano, he has a competitive advantage on parlor business, if you know what I mean. So simple, so? Yup, so simple but sometimes we blind ourselves or we refuse to see, or recognize our competitive advantage.

Overseas jobs

In terms of ratio to population, no country beats the Philippines on overseas workers. Fact is, we are the trend setter. China, Vietnam, Indonesia has a lot of catching up to do. The Chinese are recent arrivals in Saudi, trying to compete and probably out do us, but I am doubtful if they can, maybe in a hundred years. Well, actually they can, if we fail to train our people with proper skills, and if we fail to make sure that our people are well trained and continuously competitive, in nowadays, competitive international labor market. Our overseas workers remittances year on year is rising, 12 billion this year, and probably 50 billion 10 years from now, and 120 billion 20 years from now, and cumulatively trillion of dollars over the years. Diba? The government should have a long term; I mean foresight how to put these massive resources to good use. Steps have to be taken to ensure our competitiveness in the long term.

Brain drain..well you sure you want the millions of Pinoys to go home? Can we provide the jobs and the pay they want? My answer to this is, train our people. Drain of medical doctors? Setup regional medical schools, cheapen the education cost/tuition, and provide a massive numbers of scholarships. For every doctor that goes abroad, train/graduate two doctors. Guys, it’s a race against time; we should do it now, before it's too late. Because if not, while we export our doctors, we might import Indian or Bangladeshi doctors to treat our people – kayo, este tayo rin.

Currency

I am a little bit confused, when the peso weakens, people complain that "wala ng halaga pera natin"; when the peso strengthens, people complain its not good for export business. Ano ba talaga? Well, in my opinion, its like this, about two years ago we had a chronic massive budget deficit. Experts were speculating default, and the country's credit ratings were very low, which translates into higher interest rates whenever our government seeks loan abroad, compounding the country's massive debts. So? No default is good for the country, good credit rating is good for the country, and strong peso is good for the country. In my earlier post I predicted a 35 to 40 pesos to the dollar rate by end of 2006. This is due to various reasons, primarily because the dollars will weaken due to George poor management of the US economy, and because of GMA's good fiscal approach to the country's economy. Well, this situation will probably translate to a higher purchasing power to the general populace, alleviating poverty in masse to our people. Prices of commodities with imported content will cheapen, including gasoline; theoretically, diba? Let's extend this theoretical thing…what if the peso strengthens more reaching 2 pesos to the dollar? Well, hehehe, then we will be reading in the statistics economic description of our poor as, people living in less than 100 dollars a day, since 1 dollar today is 50 pesos, o…diba? Strong peso is good to the general populace, but bad to some uncompetitive exporters.

Export Manufacturing

What manufacturing sector of the country can compete with China, or Thailand? Electronics, so let focus on it. Those sector that we can't compete, let the Chinese manufacture them for us, anyway, we got the dollars to pay for them, diba? What happens when we compete and we do not have the competitive advantage? What will happen to Pacman if he try to compete with Fanny, or to Fanny if he compete with Pacman in the ring? Tell me. Competitive advantage po. Let go.

Tourism

These we have lots…and lots…of potential, massive advantage. Let us harness this industry, promote, promote, promote. I dare say, let the Chinese manufacture those toys, and lets welcome their rich into our beaches, resorts and casinos. Let our singers serenade them, and let them come here and empty their pockets, so we can have the Yuan's to pay for their toys, diba?

Services

Do I need to say more? Ala ka pa ngang sinasabi eh, hehe. Well, who beats the Philippines in call center business in South East Asia? None. That's because we have the competitive advantage of language and skills, thus far. To the government, protect and harness this advantage. Education po; and lets support the expansion of this emerging service industry.

Entertainment

Well, for me, Pinoys are the best singers in Asia. So why don’t we export our music to our neighboring countries, the way the Americans are exporting their music all over the world?

(itutuloy, got busy with something)