Welcome President Obama to the Philippines, we need more investments & trade, not just arms & alms

Welcome Pres. Obama, we need more investments & trade, not just arms & alms

I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency…They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. --- Barack Obama

            Welcome to the intellectually brilliant, eloquent and well-intentioned U.S. President Barack Obama to Asia’s most fun-loving country the Philippines. I urge Obama to please prioritize promoting more American investments, trade and tourism here, not just rosy speeches and effusive photo-ops, not just free U.S. military access to our archipelago, not just aid, not just more sales of military weapons.

It is sad that not many of our politicians realize that the true bulwark of national security and the best foundation for our democracy is a vibrant, self-reliant and globally-competitive Philippine economy, not just more new warplanes or ships.

Image above of President Barack Obama sourced from en.wikipedia.org

            President Obama’s desire for a strategic pivot (or “rebalance”, as the White House has seemingly renamed it after supposed panic and complaints from close allies in the Middle East and Europe) to Asia should hopefully be more vigorous economically, not just on the diplomatic, military and political aspects.

Help nudge our leaders to push economic democracy

I hope pro-poor President Obama can nudge our political leaders to push more decisive socio-economic reforms such as a Theodore Roosevelt-style anti-trust law and Senator Grace Poe’s Freedom of Information (FOI) bill. How can our economy be truly dynamic if it is agriculturally semi-feudal and industrially oligopolistic?

Also, on April 22---Earth Day, ecological champion Senator Loren Legarda and director Brillante Mendoza launched a riveting documentary on the destruction of the priceless marine biodiversity in our many coastal areas where millions of the rural poor live. I urge Obama to give technological and financial aid to our environmental projects, especially since logging, mining and other huge extraction of our natural resources grew under U.S. colonial rule and mostly by the multinationals.

Despite the gitzy malls and many new condominiums in our cities, we in Philippine society still have a long way to go economically. True, we’re politically an American-style constitutional democracy, but not yet an economic democracy.

In fact, it was a tragedy that U.S. colonizers had failed to implement agrarian reform and end feudalism in the Philippines the same way they did in postwar Japan under General Douglas MacArthur. I recall reading that MacArthur once even said that if he were a Filipino, he’d most likely have been a Huk rebel in the 1950s.

True, we’ve enjoyed investment-grade ratings upgrades and high economic growth rates, but the benefits have not yet trickled down fast enough. The small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) are still not yet very energized. I hope the civil libertarian Obama can nudge our leaders to push inclusive economic growth and help make the Philippines a true economic democracy with a broad-based middle-class.

U.S. once helped build up Philippine economy to No. 2 in Asia

Image above of USA and Philippine flags sourced from finestflags.com

Before at the residence of then U.S. Ambassador Kristie Kenney, I told her that in our ethnic Chinese family’s over two centuries here in the Philippines---including the Spanish colonial era, the brief interlude of Japanese military occupation and the post-war decades of independence---family elders say that the half-century American colonial period witnessed the rise of the Philippines into Asia’s second richest and most developed economy. Can the U.S. again more vigorously support the Philippine economy with preferential import tariffs, more investments and tourism?

            This need for stronger U.S. economic engagement with Asia should hopefully be uppermost in the agenda and priorities of Obama during his trip. We in the Philippines have received the least amount of economic aid, investments and trade from the U.S. compared to the three Asian countries Obama is visiting such as America’s former World War II foe Japan, South Korea and even Malaysia which used to be led by harsh U.S. critic ex-Prime Minister Mahathir.

More USA investments & trade with ex-foe Vietnam than ally Philippines

Image above of overlapping USA and Vietnam flags sourced from flamenkitaviajera.com

Even Vietnam, another war foe which even dealt the United States its first ever military defeat in history, has in recent years amazingly received more American investments, aid, trade and tourists than we here in the Philippines despite our “special relations”, our being the only former U.S. colony in Asia, our being staunchest U.S. ally since World War II, our fluency in American-style English as well as our having better U.S.-style legal and accounting systems here.

According to the U.S. Embassy in Manila: “The United States is among the Philippines’ top trading partners, and it traditionally has been the Philippines’ largest foreign investor… The stock of U.S. foreign direct investment in the Philippines exceeded $5 billion.”

In January this year, a firm identified with America’s prominent Rockefeller family announced a massive new investment in Vietnam. Rose Rock Group, a Rockefeller family-backed alternative investment management firm, said it shall help develop a $2.5 billion residential and hotel project in on the south-central coast of Vietnam.

This Vung Ro Bay development shall cover 200,000 square meters (2.15 million square feet) and to be developed with Vung Ro Petroleum Co. This huge undertaking will include 350 marina berths, hotels of over 760 rooms, 4,300 residential apartments, 100 townhouses and retail shops.

            On bilateral trade, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said: “The Philippines was the United States’ 33rd largest export market in 2012 and its 35th largest supplier. Goods exports totalled $8.1 billion; goods imports totalled $9.6 billion.” Two-way trade between theU.S. and the Philippines totalled US$17.6 billion. In comparison, bilateral trade volume between former enemies U.S. and Vietnam in the same year 2012 totalled US$ 24.890 billion dollars.

            President Barack Obama, let us substantially expand bilateral economic relations between the Philippines and the U.S. and help in our war against poverty.