By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
For the last 2 decades or so, the Philippine officialdom is agog for the term, modernization. We need to modernize this, and modernize that! Rightly so, of course.
At the moment, we have renewed with much vigor the modernization of our armed forces due in large part to the West Philippine Sea issue. This call actually started in earnest more than 20 years ago. Our officials sold so many property courtesy especially of former present Fidel Ramos, purportedly to fund such modernization. A lot of money flowed in from the liquidation of government assets such as the Fort Bonifacio, now called Bonifacio Global City or simply BGC.
Despite the overflowing money, our AFP was still holding on to decrepit ships, almost unserviceable airplanes, and little stockpile of other armaments. Therefore, we were still considered as having one of the weakest armed forces in the whole of Asia. We are still thought as such, that’s why we are being bullied from time to time by others.
Why, our ships were donations from uncle Sam, but they were even WWII vintage type. Decommissioned from their own armed forces! In short they were almost useless. And we grin from ear to ear as we received them? Pity Juan de la Cruz. If we were not able to buy war machines for defensive purposes due to their prohibitive cost, at least some of the money could have been used for research purposes to develop some of our own weapons. But none so used. Where did the billions and billions of pesos go?
We have to salute our former President Digong for procuring brand new ships, airplanes, missiles, etc without selling any government property. At least such modernization is also being pursued by the present government of PBBM. That’s one modernization attempt that almost gone awry.
The Jeepney modernization program is another. We take pride in the fact that the surplus jeeps used by the Americans were converted by so called imaginative, inventive, and creative minds of Filipinos into the iconic jeepneys that became the kings of the local roads. We raved about that, although they were spewing poison that polluted the air. [I remember walking about one kilometer from my high school premises in Proj. 3, Q.C going to Cubao, and returning home, my pug nose became a free lodging place of thick black soot. There was no face mask then. It was terrible.]
But what happened more than 70 years after the war? Our beloved jeepney was already considered a bane in our streets. A scourge to the environment, and to human health. The colorful jeepneys were already replaced by rickety, unsightly, and rusty units. Not all of them, of course as others are still gaily decorated and highly serviceable. The jeepney did not transform into a modern, better fit vehicle for mass transport. In Korea where similar surplus jeeps were also left behind by the Americans, it became a symbol and challenged them to develop their own car. Thirty or forty years after the war, they have rolled out their Korea-made cars by local carmakers. Seems they were more inventive, creative, and imaginative than us?
The situation was used by our lawmakers to push for modernization of the jeepney. Modernization means to us, just replacing the existing ones with better products that others can export to us? It became a source of employment for others instead of us; an utter lack of imagination on our part. Any modernization that we will implement should always be accompanied by creation of new jobs for us. That is to say, the local manufacturing support must be in place.
We also embarked on other modernization programs such as the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization program, farm mechanization and modernization program, and education modernization program. These were instituted thru the crafting of relevant laws.
A cursory reading of such laws will easily show that it does not contain an honest to goodness manufacturing of needed equipment or machineries to prop up the modernization. Being so, such modernization is doomed to last only for a short time.
Once, I seek the position of a regional director in one of the line agencies in CAR. Six or seven of us were shortlisted from more than a dozen applicants, and we were made to present our plans. On my part, I presented 7 major plans. Two of them were focused on helping local inventors to develop their inventions, and rain water harvesting. I was congratulated by the then chief of search committee, even coming to me to shake my hands just after my presentation. The thing on the inventions is actually geared towards the manufacturing sector. But no luck. There were, I guess much better applicant than me.
As to the education sector, where are we now, even just vis-à-vis our ASEAN neighbors? Just asking.
Manufacturing is big in our ASEAN region among the bigger economies, that’s why they can modernize better and faster than us. For example, Indonesia is now manufacturing its own airplane, big ships, automobiles, and even armaments. Its manufacturing sector is employing more than 20 million workers, and it accounted for 70% of its total export in 2021; it is the biggest contributor to its Gross Domestic Product at 20%. On the other hand, Thailand has developed, among others its own electric cars, and is already exporting them. It is a leading exporter of cars in the Asia-Pacific region.
For its part, Malaysia has long built its own car, Proton, that it already exported to the Philippines even before the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Vietnam is now a heavy manufacturer of its own machineries and equipment, especially related to electricals and electronics. The U.S is their number 1 market. They are producing, since 2010, a 500Kv transformer that we are not producing.
And how about us? For one, our manufacturing sector is not attuned to our jeepney, agriculture, and AFP modernization programs. We are not taking advantage of job creations in our modernization programs. We can bring our OFWs home if we pay real attention to our manufacturing sector as we modernize things.
With the presence of an export processing zone, CAR can contribute and show the way if others will not. Maybe another manufacturing zone in CAR, dedicated for Philippine-made machineries and equipment should be established.
But first, let us cleanse ourselves with the thought that anything imported is better than anything local.**
