Bobby Alexander Cypocalypse's posts with tag: economy
 The Current Events section of Peyups.com gave rise to the prominence of a specific forum member, known for his "affront" towards the core of Philippine culture, rattling the status quo of what we are, in the context of that elusive quest for Philippine economic prosperity. He's known primarily by his username, Benigno (also the webmaster of www.getrealphilippines.com) and for the last couple of peyups.com meetings I've attended, he's been the subject of discussion among us, easily giving the likes of Revo and Discostu a run for their money. So what is it about him that catches every peyups.com members' attention? It's simple--his piercing views about the essence of being a Filpino, the things in us that can't make us....take-off to economic nirvana.
The Cypocalypse also has a knack for a making criticisms and Benigno perfectly fits the definition of one, though I would no longer expound my perspective on the righteousness of his agenda.
Like what I've stated a few months ago in an earlier blog, the key to economic prosperity divides the Filipinos into two forces--those who understand at hand the issue and those who have no freakin' idea at all. The sad reality is, the latter is so big compared to the former. Modesty aside, Benigno and I are among the two who belong to the former. Though personally, discussing issues as complex and as sensitive as that is not among my most legitimate fortes. Benigno can take the glory for himself but I'd rather be a silent observer on the issue. I still think I contribute something to the country even in the smallest ways.
In my circle of friends in peyups.com, those that understand the picture almost always come from the corporate (working) sector--they understand the picture because it's a part of their daily lives to understand the issue. It makes me more at ease interacting with them because, at least, when it comes to that issue, we're wired pretty much the same.
I don't claim to be among the most efficient yuppie though. I'm a critic of capitalism almost as I am a critic of communism and honestly speaking, I see a lot of soulless-ness in capitalism to make me a perfect capitalist slave (in fact, I may be far from it). Corporate people may then view me as a slacker from a comparative perspective but I can deal with that. My opinions are not anchored on alliances or affiliations. I have a pretty much independent way of thinking.
Though much like Benigno, for the past couple of years, I kept thinking of the issue and I myself have been wondering on the more feasible steps we can take to get things done. For one, I know that culture is a starting point. Yes, culture. It all starts there. Culture define our ethics, and before tangible measures can be done, ethics should be the primary consideration to look at.
When an applicant applies for a job interview, the interviewer is already assessing the applicant's ethical standpoint by making him answer questions. Ethics overrides, everything. A mediocre applicant with good working ethics can be trained. An intelligent slacker can hardly be trained. It makes a lot of difference.
We can view culture then, as a collective ethical standpoint of the Filipinos as a nation. If what we are as a people don't have the formula for economic takeoff, what do we do then? Do we change things? Where do we start?
It's hard to fight for a cause something as big as this because changing the status quo of what we are as a nation is the ultimate attack on our soul as a people--the ultimate nail to the coffin that doesn't look good on a lot of angles, but to only a few who see the bigger picture of things.
I kept on wondering about this myself. How do we start? Some atheists I know have showed dismay over the catholic church for holding us back, and as a spiritual deviant myself, I would imagine an attempt to diffuse the Catholic influence by infusing different ideas into the mainstream would be a good starting point. Ridiculously hard to execute but a logical choice for a starting point. What do we infuse then? Pragmatism? Rationalism? Empiricism? Dichotomy of religious rights over civil rights? Personally, I leave that to the powers-at-be. I can still contribute to the bigger picture in my own right.
 A few months ago, the Cypocalypse was having dinner in Mongkok (Katipunan Avenue) with some members of my fellow Unitarian Universalists. I was sitting right beside our American member (the name is Doug) so I chatted with him the most.
The whole group was talking about politics and there were a couple of statements stated by Doug that got my attention. He said that the concept of corruption is subjective and the Philippines has moved above its Third World status, and is now placed at a "Second World"
I thought that his two statements were smart because both of them are essentially true. Corruption is indeed a subjective concept and the Philippines' status is not as bad as the average Filipino thinks. You can actually check the meaning of "Newly Industrialized Countries" to verify what Doug means by "Second World." For a change, I encountered an American who has a more optimistic outlook than what an average Filipino has. How touching.
If there's one thing that the average person should know about the hobbyist crowd, it's the fact that we represent the "spending" crowd demographics. It's expensive to buy a comic book, or an action figure, let alone both. From a financial perspective, we're a major driving force in the Philippine economy. Basically, this applies to any "spending" individual, making us avatars of a capitalist economy.
There's one factor here that most Filipino laymen tend to overlook--the concept of spending. Since I was born, there have been a bad connotation to the idea. Spending is bad, and we should save. Save? Yes, we do save, until we realize that there is never enough money and we need to make money again. So what have we forgotten here? Productivity. We don't know the art of making money.
It's hardly about saving money anyway, or at least the way I see it. It should be, in my opinion, a continuous quest for productivity. "There is never enough money", a businessman once told us in a congregation speech.
It's a symbiotic relationship between the entrepreneur and the buyer. The entrepreneur makes sure that the consumer buys his products. It's a case of money transfer that will determine the fate of a country's economy when viewed at a macro level. "Spending", and not "saving", is what drives the bigger picture of the economy.
In the eyes of us hobbyist, we recognize the need of the capitalist (for example, Toy Biz, or Marvel Comics, or even just that small comic book shop) to have money. We would even pay a few extra bucks for a certain product as long as it is good. This is what gives the capitalist the needed push for making better products--the promise of even more profit from the generous spending crowd. Of course, this will have a certain limit. It cannot be abused, because the discriminate buyer will not hesitate in stopping patronizing a product if it eventually becomes inferior. The buyer is the ultimate arbiter of the capitalist's fate. So they better treat us right.
The good product is the common ground of the buyer and the seller. And the quality of product is the determinant of the standard of living. And yes, the level of spending goes up with that. What is not understood, especially among Filpinos is the art of productivity that would justify the spending.
As of the moment, the Cypocalypse is only a buyer, and just like any hobbyist, it's among our fantasies to be the hobby shop owner or even more than that. Making that into a reality is a different matter and it's to-each-his-own in making that a reality. But we get the fundamentals of the system. The seller needs money and for that to happen, we need to buy. The seller can get even more money if he makes the product even better as long as the buyer still feels that the purchase is worth it. That is, the buyer has a certain degree of generosity.
The Philippine landscape is a different situation. The sellers want to get the money and the buyers want to keep their money, making this country a country of an underground economy where the the buyers ask for discounts and the sellers evade taxes, not to mention that the products aren't even that good. Call it a culture of improper or stagnant money circulation.
When my parents settled in the United States, mom was surprised by the virtual non-existence of the concept of savings, where it's even more conducive to purchase. You can get a lot of things as long as your credit rating is good, as if it's a culture that encourages everyone to buy. And we outsiders see that as materialism in the works. While the accusation has a certain degree of validity to it, the US culture cannot thrive if its citizens do not spend. The real estate crunch in the US, for example, is already taking its toll in he economy.
Growing up, it would always take a certain degree of convincing to mom to get me what I wanted (e.g., comic books and whatnot), and as a young adult, looking at things in retrospect, the comic book reading habit did have lots of benefits, more so than the disadvantages. It made me enjoy the virtue of reading and writing more so than those uptight academic books did. Certainly, I would continue the habit. It was never an issue of savings to begin with, but an issue of productivity--the art of making profit, making me start to think that savings can be an overrated virtue if there's no continuous input from productivity to sustain it. While the formula to maximizing it still eludes me, the best thing that I can do is to spend only within the bounds of what is allowable. But still, the perspective is still unchanged--spending is an economic virtue.
Looking back at my earlier years in UP, I asked an activist about his concept of productivity, and he said something like, "The government can leech of something from the likes of Lucio Tan". The statement registered in my subconscious and for quite a while, I was trying to figure out why there's something wrong with that.
If it's not the image of a martyr non-materialist politician that will save the country, it's the image of the rich being leeched off his money. That is, the person is already deemed as corrupt if he is rich, from a comparative standpoint. While in other cultures, there's a certain degree of tolerance in the amount of wealth the higher-ups can amass.
And then, one day, a realization came to me. I asked a relative in Laoag how much they're paying in their electricity consumption and he mentioned a figure insanely low, it has to be subsidized by the local government. And then I came to realize that the provincial government that subsides their constituency gets their budget from the national budget, and the national budget is coming from what it gets from the "spending" crowd and then....uhmm....I just realized that the spending crowd shoulder some layman's bill. Does that explain why Maynilad or Meralco is not even aggressive in cutting off illegal connections? Why jeopardize their safety when the burden can be passed to us? It then breeds the hate for those who chose to have a simpler life, doesn't it--those who risked less and saved?
| |
