Lech Walesa: Societies need order based on values

By Felipe Salvosa II

Democracies won’t work unless people participate actively in it and hold politicians to their promises, Polish democracy icon Lech Walesa said yesterday as he continued a weeklong series of talks in the country.

Mr. Walesa, the 1983 Nobel Prize winner whose labor movement Solidarity started the chain of events that led to the fall of communism, also said faith plays an important role in democracy, citing the Catholic Church’s symbiotic relationship with Polish society.

“The world cannot have unemployment … We will lose it, everybody will lose. He’s (the unemployed) not paying taxes, he’s not buying the produce. And he might make revolution … And if the people who have the capital will not start creating work then we will have revolution,” said Mr. Walesa, speaking through an interpreter after accepting an honorary professorship from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila.

Photo from Lech Walesa's blog

Mahathir Mohamad: 'Limits' to democracy key to Malaysia's economic success

By Felipe Salvosa II

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad touted his multi-racial country’s economic success in a university lecture yesterday, saying Malaysia’s phenomenal growth was hinged on pro-business policies accompanied by “limits” to democracy.

Mahathir also blasted the excesses of Western financial markets and said European society, which is reeling from Greece’s sovereign debt crisis, has been living beyond its means by maintaining generous compensation schemes, huge bonuses, and short working hours.

“We applaud democracy but democracy works only when people understand the limitations of democracy,” Mahathir said during a special convocation of the Pontifical University of Santo Tomas.

Photo by Sherwin Vardeleon

Addicted to migration?

By Felipe Salvosa II

It’s a quiet morning at the local arcade. The beauty parlor has just opened, but people are starting to fill it up. Not all of them are paying clients, though -- some have come to chat about the latest goings-on, probably on their way to the neighborhood courier/money transfer outlet or to the shop where there’s mobile phone “load.” Upstairs, the eatery selling lugaw, palabok, empanadas, budget rice meals, and a variety of viands is also starting to get busy, catering to people on their way to work.

This scene could be somewhere in Metro Manila, but it’s also in Blacktown in Western Sydney, home of the largest Filipino community in Australia. Where European settlers once took over from the aborigines, Filipinos are consolidating their own diaspora, which globally has reached some nine million.

Pinoy take-out at Blacktown City in western Sydney. Numbering 35,000, Pinoys are the biggest minority.

A 'demographic window' of opportunity

By Felipe Salvosa II

Is a large population a boon or a bane?

The debate has been going on for centuries. In the Philippines, it flares up whenever lawmakers take up bills proposing to control population growth.

In recent months, however, the government’s top economic managers -- echoed by a number of private-sector analysts -- have cited the advantages of the country’s demographic profile, changing the tone of the population debate.

In March 2012, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Amando M. Tetangco, Jr. told the Philippine Investment Forum that the Philippines would be the last major economy in Asia to enter the “demographic sweet spot,” and this would happen by 2015. In May, Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima said a huge working population was expected to accelerate economic growth.

The BSP chief pointed to the Philippines’ young population, which, at a median age of 22.2, is even younger than neighboring countries like Malaysia (25), Indonesia (27.8), and Vietnam (28.2).

A 'new philosophy' for Ayala Corp. (2009)

By Felipe Salvosa II

A "new philosophy" may limit the kind of businesses Ayala Corp. will go into in the future, top executives yesterday said as they vowed to pursue a "triple bottom line" of economic, social, and environmental performance.
 
But Ayala is not entirely closed to diversifying into industries with a poor environmental track record such as mining and power, its chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala told journalists, as there's a "better way" of harnessing natural resources for public benefit.
 
Ayala released its first "sustainability" report yesterday -- the first conglomerate in the country to do so -- in what will be a biennial exercise of measuring the group’s impact on the community and the environment to encourage "good corporate behavior" among its business units.

The Ayala Board (www.ayala.com.ph)

OFWs fuel urban-rural gap (2007)

By Felipe Salvosa II

Money from overseas workers is fueling the divide between urban and rural areas with remittances tending to benefit the country’s affluent regions, leaving poorer regions behind and worsening inequality, according to a study.

And while overseas Filipino workers’ (OFW) remittances have contributed significantly to the economy’s growth, the study by the University of Santo Tomas (UST) confirmed the worrisome phenomenon of agricultural workers leaving the farms to join industries in more developed regions and wait for the opportunity to become OFWs themselves. 

The study, "Workers’ Remittances and Economic Growth in the Philippines" authored by economist Alvin P. Ang of the UST Social Research Center, found that the more OFWs sent per region, the lower the percentage of workers in the farm sector.

Washington SyCip: Fighting the good fight

By Felipe Salvosa II

AT 90 years old, Washington Z. SyCip, legendary founder of the monolithic audit firm SGV & Co. and one of the pioneers of the Asian Institute of Management, is still up and about.

Mr. SyCip is wearing a new hat as the Philippine government’s private sector adviser for the 45^th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank, which opens this week in Manila.

Despite his age (Mr. SyCip has met all Philippine presidents except Emilio Aguinaldo), the accountant and accounting professor who served as a cryptographer in Calcutta during World War 2 has not fallen into the trap of cynicism. Mr. SyCip still believes Asia is the future and the Philippines has bright prospects ahead.

“It’s not the age. It’s how you feel,” Mr. SyCip told BusinessWorld in a Saturday morning interview at the SGV headquarters in Makati.

Photo from Wikipedia

Jeffrey Sachs: Philippines 'very complicated'

By Felipe Salvosa II

There are simply too many babies being born in the Philippines, making it “very hard” for poverty-reduction efforts to make even a dent, according to one of the world’s most influential economists.

Fertility rates are “too high” and something should be done to bring down the number of babies born per household to an average of two instead of the current three to promote economic growth and achieve “social inclusion,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Photo from Wikipedia

Nouriel Roubini: Philippines ‘an economic success’

By Felipe Salvosa II

Economist Nouriel Roubini, who foresaw the US recession that stemmed from a busted housing market, yesterday turned cheerleader for the Philippines, heaping praises on the country’s fiscal and monetary policies and declaring the erstwhile sick man of Asia “an economic success.”
 
Mr. Roubini, in Manila for the Philippine Investment Summit 2013, said the country was ready to be fully integrated into the regional economy under the planned ASEAN Economic Community.
 
“The economic fundamentals of the country have vastly improved. And you see the results in terms of overall growth, low inflation, low fiscal deficits, low stock of public debt, positive external balance, low external debt, the performance of equity markets and bond markets and of the currency,” he told an exclusive press roundtable.
 
“It’s already reflected markedly in the economic success of the country and therefore this country is competitive. It’s flexible, it has a diversified economy, can compete in a wide variety of sectors. [I]ntegration and opening, the furthering of it, can only be beneficial to the country over time.”

Photo from First Metro

Sovereign credit ratings

By Felipe Salvosa II

The Philippines has finally reached “investment grade” status. The recent decisions by Fitch Ratings, Standard & Poor’s (S&P), and Moody’s to upgrade the country’s sovereign credit rating grabbed news headlines. What does this mean for the government, the economy, and business? More importantly, what is in store for the ordinary Filipino struggling to make a living?

In a nutshell, credit ratings represent assessments by credit rating agencies (CRAs) on the risk that a borrower (in our case, a sovereign nation, the Republic of the Philippines) would default on its debts. Governments and firms need to get a credit rating to raise funds from bonds, and ratings influence borrowing costs. 

Table from the Reuters blog

Financial regulators also look at credit ratings to enforce capital standards. Investors, meanwhile, depend on credit ratings to determine which financial instruments are safe bets. For instance, big US pension funds invest only in investment-grade securities to protect their retirees.

Full article at the PIDS website.

The ASEAN Economic Community

By Felipe Salvosa II

In two years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will reach a milestone—perhaps the most significant since the establishment of ASEAN itself nearly half a century ago. The 10-member regional group will become an “ASEAN Community” by 2015, standing on three pillars: the ASEAN Political and Security Community, the ASEAN Economic Community or AEC, and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.

As it is, ASEAN is already an economic powerhouse, with a combined economic output of $2.2 trillion and a population in excess of 600 million people. Together with neighbors China, Japan, and South Korea, regional trade accounts for a quarter of world trade.

AEC will be the culmination of years of efforts to integrate the regional economy. The goal is to transform ASEAN into a single market and production base. ASEAN is envisioned as a regional economy with efficient production networks and high quality cross-border services such as air travel and healthcare run by a mobile and skilled workforce. Under the AEC vision, goods, investments, and capital flow freely, but growth is inclusive, with small and medium enterprises thriving despite competition.

Full article at the PIDS website.

The other National Library

By Felipe Salvosa II



Is it possible for the Filipino nation to trace its emergence to one library? 

If, as a scientist once said, "A great library contains the diary of the human race," then the library of Asia’s oldest existing university, Santo Tomas, starts the firsthand account of how the Philippines came to being and who the Filipino really is.

It is but natural for the Dominican-run University of Santo Tomas (UST) to bring out the most valuable among its collection of 12,000 or so rare books in time for its 400th founding anniversary next year, but rather than exhibit them as curiosities like the Crown Jewels or even the Shroud of Turin, the "Pontifical" institution has decided to place the library, and itself in the process, in the context of the global forces that shaped history.

The result is Lumina Pandit: An Exhibit of Historical Treasures, the UST library’s multimillion-peso quadricentennial exhibition that speaks of "spreading the light."

400 years of history and rivalry

By Felipe Salvosa II

SANTO TOMAS is 400 years old.

Paeans and plaudits will surely be bestowed upon the “Pontifical” and the “Royal” university run by the Order of St. Dominic de Guzman, extolling its glorious history, boasting of its presidents, magistrates, clerics, and saints.

But the claim to antiquity aside, how did it manage to last this long, after two wars, three colonizers, and natural calamities?

The University of Santo Tomas was not, strictly speaking, the first university. The honor belongs to Universidad de San Ignacio, the college put up by the Jesuits on 1590. In Cebu, the order founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola opened the Colegio de San Ildefonso five years later. But the politics of the time led to the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from all Spanish dominion in 1768, allowing UST to claim today the distinction of “oldest existing university,” not only in the Philippines but in Asia.

October nostalgia

By Felipe Salvosa II 

Not too long ago, October was a high point in the religious and cultural life of Old Manila. High society and commonfolk trooped to the gothic temple of Santo Domingo in the Walled City to venerate a centuries-old Marian icon in return for favors granted -- protection from foreign invasion, calamities, even personal miracles like safe childbirth. Prominent business families like the Zobels, Sorianos, Roxases, Ayalas, and Ortigases led the nation in keeping the annual tradition.

The often repeated lamentation is that the festivities have since been forgotten, more noticeably by high society. Four centuries later, however, the religious and cultural tradition has not lost its luster, as evidenced by the multitude of devotees who continue to witness the lavish parade of 27 Dominican icons led by the Lady of the Rosary, La Naval de Manila. The haunting Spanish hymn, “Despedida a la Virgen,” is still the highlight of the novena.  To be sure, the La Naval feast has built a wider, solid following dominated by the resilient Filipino middle class.

It is also an informed devotion. The story is told over and over again: In 1646, two rickety trading ships, hurriedly fitted with artillery uprooted from the Cavite naval base, were able to defeat a formidable armada from Calvinist Holland (reputedly 18 galleons), which was bent on taking over the Catholic colony of Spain. The David vs. Goliath victory was attributed to La Naval. The then Spanish governor-general had pledged to march barefoot to Santo Domingo if granted victory. A choir sung the rosary nonstop as the sea battles raged.

Felipe Modesto Salvosa (1892-1969)

Note: This is the obituary by the Philippine scientific community marking the death of Dr. Felipe M. Salvosa in 1969. This blog is dedicated to his memory.

PAMBANSANG SANGGUNIAN SA PANANALIKSIK NG PILIPINAS 

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE PHILIPPINES

Punong Himpilan:

Pamantasan ng Pilipinas
Diliman, Rizal

Headquarters:

University of the Philippines

U.P. Post Office, Diliman, Rizal

TO ALL MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES OF THE
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE PHILIPPINES:

FELIPE MODESTO SALVOSA
1892 – 1969

It is with a feeling of sorrow and a deep sense of loss that the National Research Council of the Philippines records the death of one of its Regular Members, Dr. Felipe Modesto Salvosa, on April 21, 1969, barely 9 days before his 77th birthday. Intensely active in research work and deeply involved in the preparation of “An Annotated Checklist of Presently and Potentially Important Commercial Philippine forest Trees” until the end, his passing will be a keenly felt loss not only to his loved ones, but also to his colleagues and his country who stand to profit by his research efforts.

Born in Polillo, Quezon Province on April 30, 1892, the forest (sic) had always held a certain fascination for him. He studied forestry in the University of the Philippines and became a Ranger in 1918. Following his interests, he entered the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University and obtained his Bachelor of Science degree cum laude in 1928. He then transferred to Harvard University undertaking the study of trees and woody plants for his degree of Master of Science, major in Dendrology obtained in 1929. In the following year, the coveted Doctor of Science degree in Applied Biology, special field Dendrology, was conferred on him by the same university.