Is the Philippines doomed to fail?

The question should be why does the Philippines consistently fail its own people? The reasons are numerous and intractable, but four big ones come to mind. 1) Abysmally low wages and salaries with a lack of employment security and benefits, 2) a poor public education system designed to maintain the status quo, not educate towards advancement or the 21st century, 3) ridiculous road blocks to foreign investment and competition, and 4) a lack of home grown industries (industrial capacity and diversity) and provincial economic development. SM is among the biggest mall operators in the world, and Jollibee is taking on the big US fast food chains, but where are the VinFasts of the Philippines? The entire game is rigged to favor the oligarch class and the political status quo. The sad part is that these folks are killing their own future opportunities. The elite are unwilling to take risks and invest in industry as well as just commercial activities. At the rate the world economy is changing now, the Philippines will be left in the dust if they don't get their act together. They can't even manage traffic or provide consistently competent public services. They fail to realize the value of a strong consumer base to developing and maintaining a strong economy and innovation from the bottom up. There's no excuse for it. The Philippines is not a poor country. Unfortunately it is a country of mostly poor and poorly educated people. Currently the Philippines is the 39th largest economy by GDP and is projected to rise to number 19 by 2050. Yet by PPP the Philippines ranks 128th. That's more than quite a difference. It's actually criminal. Unfortunately, as long as Filipinos continue to fall for the lies and vote the way they do things are unlikely to change rapidly enough. I won't say that the Philippines has not made some significant progress, but from the perspective of the average citizens the results amount to table scraps. Because of the lack of appropriate education and a culture of deference to the established hierarchy, most Filipinos continue to happily live as if it were over 100 years ago despite having cell phones and Facebook, and their own behavior contributes to the failed system as much as the oligarchy and system itself. At some point if the Philippines wants to be a modern, developed nation they need to start acting like one at every level of society, government, and business despite the growing pains along the way. Change can be confusing, difficult, and even painful at times, but things that don't change or change quickly enough are doomed to fail. That's the law of the concrete jungle. The Philippines needs to get with the program.

Andrew Prevost

Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines