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Given the present global economic system, nations that thrive
financially provide the world products of higher quality more
cheaply and efficiently than any other country does. This means that
the Philippines must locate those areas in which it can produce
goods competitively.
I conceive three prime areas wherein we can be
successful and excel and it behooves the government to support
corporations that concentrate on and develop them.
The first area that comes to mind concerns
service industries. We are a nation known to provide quality health
care and attention; the competence, care and concern our nurses
provide their patients in hospitals worldwide are legendary. We
should also do so in the Philippines.
Sadly however, the service we provide at home
pales in comparison. Filipinos who have been at the hospital or even
customers treated by sales ladies in department stores can attest to
the inefficiency. It seems to be the case that Filipinos, as
immigrants, excel. They know how to adapt and take advantage of the
new environment so as to advance their situation. When at home,
however, it is back to the same old bad habits, realizing that
efficiency and good service are inadequately rewarded.
Retirement and nursing homes, with an
alternative-medicine component, thus come to mind. We can attract
Filipino balikbayans or even Japanese, Korean or Chinese retirees,
desirous of spending their last days in comfortable surroundings, to
live in these homes. The homes can be in a total-community setting,
with a shopping mall, a golf course, a beach and the like, where the
community members will have all their basic needs and leisure
activities addressed.
The community need not cater only to permanent
retirees. They can also serve as week-end retreats available to
those eager for a golfing week-end in the sand and sun.
I do not have much optimism about the associated
industry of tourism, and thus will not include it among the prime
areas for development. This is not to say that it does not need
improvement, for it does. We are woefully behind South East Asian
countries in selling the beauty of our country. Far fewer tourists
frequent our shores and about half of them consist of balikbayans
anyway. So there is room for much improvement. The beach-going
backpackers are not exactly ideal clientele. We should aim higher
for the more sophisticated traveler, who is capable of spending
more.
The next area lies in our rapidly growing
business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. Although there has
been a great advance, we are still lagging behind India. A step in
the right direction is that we are progressing towards higher-end
activities, leaving the lower-end BPO services to be provided by
Vietnam, for example.
But there is still much to conquer. In the legal
process outsourcing industry (LPO), which incidentally I am
involved in and am trying to develop in a project sponsored by the
Chief Justice Enrique M. Fernando Foundation called Excellence in
Magistracy and Fidelity to Law Research Project (EMF Law Research
Project), India is way ahead of us. But we have the technical
expertise to encroach upon their territory and even surpass them.
Hopefully, by this time next year, we will have more to brag about
with respect to the growth of our LPOs.
Finally, there are medicinal plants. Our forests
thrive with them. We must learn to locate those plants that foreign
drug corporations are eager to purchase as ingredients in the drugs
and herbal medicine they produce and then establish farms that will
grow these plants for them.
This need not depend on the technological
development of our medical industry. We merely have to rely on
multinational drug companies which know which plants are ingredients
of potent and healthy drugs. Perhaps later on, we will develop the
medical and chemical expertise to manufacture our own drugs. Right
now it is only feasible to market them.
I too intend to be involved in such an industry.
The ecovillages that the Enrique Q. Fernando Foundation are
instituting under the project called ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
FURTHERANCE (EQF) Project, will focus on herbal plants as a source
of livelihood for the community.
Government support is needed in all these prime
areas. This is what government must contribute to our economy. It
need not directly be involved in production; it must only identify
those areas in which Filipinos can be competitive and make it easier
for the entrepreneurs involved to excel in those industries by
providing financial and tax incentives, locating foreign markets,
financing research, affording information and knowledge, and
improving local skills in these endeavors.
totoqfernando@hotmail.com
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