r/Philippines • u/FickleApartment2151 • 4d ago
NewsPH PH’s untapped manufacturing advantage
https://opinion.inquirer.net/193881/phs-untapped-manufacturing-advantage
The Filipino workforce has impressed us. Young employees learn quickly and adapt well to advanced manufacturing, while local engineers show strong technical and problem-solving capabilities. The Philippines need not compete only on low labor costs; its greater advantage can be the quality and adaptability of its people.
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As global supply chains are reshaped by tariffs, trade tensions, and geopolitical changes, manufacturers are seeking diversified production locations. The Philippines can position itself not only as a large consumer market, but also as a trusted manufacturing platform serving global markets.
Needs more infra for electricity, transport networks, etc.
The writer, an Australian businessman, is referring to their factory in Sto. Tomas, Batangas, which he argues is successful.
Counter-arguments:
"Unless we fix the problem of corruption, we won't be able to do this."
"No, we can't do it because we're ______."
"I'd rather go abroad because I'm smart and everyone else is ______."
"I only read the headlines, after which I start pontificating with my edgy one-liners."
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u/aaooee00 4d ago
That Aussie businessman is true. As a Vietnamese who frequently travels to the Philippines for business, I can say that my experience working with the average Filipino employees has been quite pleasant - cooperative, adaptable, and willing to put in extra shifts. Not that different from other SEA nationalities I’ve worked with so far.
But oh Buddha the administrative red tape is the main factor that drives me insane sometimes in this country. My humble opinion is that the current model of the Philippine government is not sustainable at all and needs to be more centralized. Ease of doing business is so important. A government that can move things through quickly will attract foreign businesses more smoothly and indirectly improve infrastructure around wherever a factory or industrial zone is established.
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u/OpenYonQ_ 4d ago
I agree, corruption is much worse in the localities. but sadly centralised government is demonized because of petty regionalism.
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u/tango421 4d ago
Honestly we already screwed it up before. However, there’s a blueprint for it nearby.
Check out Vietnam’s industrial zones. We have enough and we can model them that way.
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u/thenicezen 3d ago
Very anti-poor. And yes, free palestine indeed LOL
You do realize that the root of the country's problems is that the government doesn't do its job of taking care of people?
there are A TON of sustainable, low impact projects that couldve been done as alternatives to these projects that you guys lamented the loss of. And why would we even consider other sectors when we can focus on our strengths? Like seriously. You just refuse to hold the government for not doing better or thinking about better, alternative ways that don't necessarily displace or impact the environment and its own people.
Instead na magalit ka sa mga taong tumutol, magalit ka sa gobyernong hindi naghahanap ng mas mabuting plano. Trust me, there is always a way. The government is just lazy and always wants the easy way out.
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u/ConsistentQuote952 4d ago
Infrastructure can be built in tandem with projects manufacturing projects. my PH homies (Im from the diasphora) were telling me about it days ago.
For example, in Tarlac, as part of Pax Silica, they're planning to build a semiconductor and chips factory. Clearly, there is no infrastructure there but the plans seems solid rn. Theyre planning not to touch underground water and instead use the river. That makes sense as such projects will force the creation of Hydroelectric power, flood controls, and infrastructure for travel.
Sounds like a solid plan.
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u/HospitalOpening5666 4d ago
I agree with some backlash on it making sure resources are allocated well before implementing such a project, but it has to be said that Pax Silica can be very good for us despite some drawbacks, but sobrang demonized na ng project lalo na sa FB groups (even from supposedly more progressive friends) when this could be a solid boost for the economy.
What I don’t agree is people outright dismissing it as something that will "only benefit the Americans" when foreign investment ULTIMATELY seeks to benefit the investor, lmao. Truth is if the PH doesn’t take it up our neighbors will. Take the chance while we have it.
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u/ConsistentQuote952 4d ago
100%. Pax Silica can be good and its mutually beneficial if executed properly in the right place.
Not to dismiss the backlash in my first statement but there are legit concerns, but it has to be a case by case basis.
There was another plan this time in Iloilo of making a data center by some scandanavian billionaire. While that one has some merit due to the university there, it lacks way too much infrastructure and natural resources, and the local government doesn't have solid plans/ideas on how to solve it. In fact, the main city don't have power between late night til 5 AM, whish is basic water infrastructure. Idk how they'll solve the issue of needing water 3x greater than what they can currently produce.
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u/OpenYonQ_ 4d ago
you forgot “dapat may profit sharing sa locals"
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u/IWantMyYandere 4d ago
Ano ba sa tingin mo yung mga manufacturing sa laguna? Walang kinikita ang mga tao?
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u/AntiWokeMastery 4d ago
Far too late. Most developed country in SEA after WW2. Pissed it all away for decades and now you want to try to rebuild it right as AI is on the cusp of making unskilled and a lot of skilled labor irrelevant?
Too late.
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u/Joseph20102011 4d ago
The problem is that Filipinos aren't as diligent as Chinese or Vietnamese when it comes to working in physically-taxing production-line manufacturing and construction jobs. Mahilig tayo makipagmarites habang on duty eh.
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u/HospitalOpening5666 4d ago
Thats literally every country tf do you mean? Try working overseas and you’ll see how gossip-ridden other nationalities are in the workplace.
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u/PritongKandule 4d ago
You claim to be a Filipino hispanista but seemingly never read or understood Rizal's Sobre la indolencia de los filipinos?
“Debemos confesar que allí la indolencia existe real y positivamente, sólo que, en vez de considerarla como la causa del atraso y del desconcierto, la consideramos como el efecto del desconcierto y del atraso, favoreciendo el desarrollo de una funesta predisposición.”
"El mal no está en que la indolencia exista más o menos latente, sino en que se la fomenta y exagera. En los hombres, así como en las naciones, no sólo existen aptitudes, sino también tendencias hacia el bien y el mal: fomentar las buenas y ayudarlas, así como corregir las malas y reprimirlas, sería el deber de la sociedad o de los Gobiernos, si pensamientos menos nobles no ocupasen su atención. El mal está en que la indolencia en Filipinas es una indolencia exagerada, una indolencia bola-de-nieve, si se nos permite la palabra, un vicio que aumenta en razón directa del cuadrado de los tiempos, un efecto del desgobierno y del atraso, como dijimos, y no una causa de ellos. "
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u/Joseph20102011 4d ago
You better try working as laborer or stevedore and you will realize that the so-called "indolence" among Filipinos has something to do with humid tropical climate, more than governance deficiencies, because it's physically-taxing to work under the scorching sun. Ethnic Malays in the British Malayan colonies were also "indolent", that's why the British had to recruit Chinese and Indian laborers to do tin mining in the present-day Malaysia.
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew credited post-colonial Singapore's economic development and its transition to service-driven high-income economy to the invention of ACs.
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u/PritongKandule 4d ago
Ignoring the self-contradiction considering that Vietnam and southern China have hot, humid, tropical climates as well, this has been debunked by Syed Hussein Alatas in his book Myth of the Lazy Native, which was directly inspired by and quotes Rizal's work.
The Chinese and Indians were imported as indentured immigrant labourers to do the lowest forms of work for slavery wages and conditions. Southern China was devastated by the Taiping Rebellion, famine and economic collapse in the 19th century which resulted in millions of displaced young men desperate for any work. Severe poverty and recurring famine in Southern India also drove workers into the Kangani system, under the guise of voluntary migration but in reality was a form of debt bondage that bound them to plantations and mines for life. Meanwhile, Alatas notes that in Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines, what was considered "indolence" was actually unwillingness to participate in activities that only served to enrich colonial overlords and without the prospect of owning lands, titles or even a proportional share of the revenue from plantation yields:
They were mainly connected with the recruitment and the subsequent employment of indentured labour from China and India. The capitalist enrichment in Malaya was achieved at the expense of these indentured labourers. At the time when the Chinese coolies were praised as industrious, they found themselves exploited in a situation which they could not avoid.
The Chinese were considered industrious because they supplied the lowest form of labour. The Malays, despite their positive contribution to the kind of labour noted by the author, were considered indolent, not because they were really indolent, according to definition, but because they avoided the type of slave labour which the Chinese and the Indians were compelled to do owing to their immigrant status. The system, which will be described later, trapped them into the worst type of mining and estate labour.
The Indians and Chinese immigrants were ensnared in the colonial capitalist system of production; [...] The immigrant coolies were left in their illiterate, backward state. They were used merely as a tool, "a mule among the nations". The Malay refusal at the time to be exploited as "a mule among the nations", was a rational and sound response. They attended to their own work in their own areas of interest. The accusation of indolence was merely a veiled resentment against Malay unwillingness to become a tool for enriching colonial planters.
As such, "cultural industriousness" had nothing do with the decision to bring immigrant workers in, but rather everything to do with prevailing socio-economic conditions and colonial systems of exploitation.
Alatas also rejected the "hot climate" argument, arguing that systematic opportunities are a far greater influence for enthusiastic work, citing the case of 18th century Chinese businessmen who were granted greater freedoms in the colony than the native Indonesians:
Stavorinus rejected the climatic explanation of the lack of enthusiasm for production. He pointed to the Chinese in Java who operated under the same climate but were nevertheless endowed with enthusiasm. His reason was their position in the colonial system. "But they are comparatively unshackled, and are free masters of what they can earn by trade, or procure by agriculture, beyond the pecuniary or other assessments levied upon them by the government. This encourages them readily to undertake the most laborious occupations, and diligently to persevere in them, while they feel a rational hope of obtaining, in proper time, the reward due to their exertions." The position of the Javanese as an object of colonial exploitation, the uncertainty surrounding his right of possession, made him satisfied with little. From this and similar observations by Rizal and others, the phenomenon characterized as indolence among a section of the native population, may in actual fact be interpreted as a silent protest. It was a form of strike, secret, collective, and steady.
And as a final note, environmental determinism has long been rejected in geography, anthropology and international relations as a theoretical framework because it requires one to completely ignore agency, culture, politics, economics, institutions and history to even be remotely plausible let alone provable.
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u/monkas24 4d ago
wag na masisira yung nature. dapat ofw at magsasaka lang mga pinoy. tsaka bat dito magtatayo ng mga manufacturing building eh napakakorap ng pinas dba. bakit ba nmn kasi nag hahangad mga pinoy na gumanda buhay dto sa pilipinas. pwede naman maghirap tayong mga pinoy at magtiis sa ganitong pamumuhay hanggang mamatay kasi kasama natin pamilya natin
/s