Earlier this week, those of us who live in the US may have watched the PBS Nightly Business Report's feature on the Philippines and its economic prospects.

It was a three part series, and if I recall correctly, each part focused on one of three issues:

1. peace and order (bad for business)
2. population growth rate (highest in Asia!) outstrips a moderate GDP growth rate (average or slightly below for Asia)
3. a socio-economic structure that resembles the robber baron era of early American capitalism.... a few big family conglomerates owning everything (therefore producing a largely risk averse domestic business climate with high barriers of entry for would be entrpreneurs)

In other words... awful bad, pitifully bad, and damned bad.

What makes it worse is that the ostensible solution is a dictatorship. Only this type of government can crack down on miscreants and terrorists, force the people and Church to accept contraception (like in China's one child policy), and (God help us) institute some mild wealth redistribution. And this assumes the dictator is benevolent, a heroic assumption in any case.

So what do you think, gentlemen? Is the solution worse than the problem?

Actually the idea of it is not really bad. But giving away your freedom for the betterment of the country is really hard for most people. I really think that dictatorship is the only solution for the country’s sake. I wouldn’t say permanent but just to let the country prosper economically. It would really help if the church doesn’t interfere with the state. Studying the US government really taught me a different side of politics. If only the people would try to understand to take a different solution.

I would think that on the surface, a dictatorship (in the mould of former Singapore premier Lee Kuan Yew) would be the most logical solution. Consider the following facts:

1. Filipinos in their native land are the source of anarchy. From the highest echelons of government to the poorest of the poor, nobody obeys laws. There is the notion that the law applies to all but me. Carry that out 84 million times (RP population), what do we get? - anarchy. Solution? Iron-fisted dictatorial system to bring everyone in line? Maybe, but consider as well that in other lands, whether they are migrants or visitors, Filipinos obey laws. Majority of these lands are NOT under a dictatorship.

2. The present budget deficit and national debt are exponentially ballooning. This results from misdirected government policies, a poor tax colleciton effort and above all, methinks - CORRUPTION. Solution? Iron-fisted dictatorial system to dictate once and for all policy, increase revenue and curb corruption? Yeah right... Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Just look at how the Marcos era shafted us into the doghouse. I think the problem is we are run by beaurocracy and not by meritocracy. Just look at the present crop of clowns to be sitting in Malacanang, congress, even down to the barangay level. I will be willing to bet half the national debt that 90% of those imbiciles don't even know their job description. Imagine people actually ENCOURAGING Jinggoy to read the rules of the senate? If we extrapolate from that remark from his mom (also a senator), he ran for the office without the slightest idea of what he was getting into.
Let us also ask ourselves this question now that it is academic who will sit in the Palace for the next 6 years. Did we really cast our vote for the one we deemed most qualified for the position or did we cast it to avoid another moron in the palace? The vote of the intelligensia is not much different from the way the great unwashed votes, only it is sugarcoated by rationalizations. Remeber a couple of decades back in the US when bumper stickers proclaiming "Don't blame me, I voted for Perot!" abound? So who will WE blame?

3. A dictatorship only promotes the oligarchy (robber baron era). Remeber the sugar cartels during the Marcos era? Practically destroyed the Negrense economy. And who can forget the San Miguel and Cocobank of PacMan? We, whether we like it or not, are still intrinsically feudal. Unless there is a drastic change in the way we view government (and ourselves - serfs, landlords, etc), this will just be a vicious cycle of cronyism - whether we are in a dictatorship or a "democracy" or a "federation" or whatever else you want to call it.

He who does not learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. Remember...