Everytime I hear this and that initiative to “attract” foreign investment to the country and then

see these touted as “solutions” aimed at uplifting Filipinos from the clutches of poverty and the
setting of our economy on a “firm” path to prosperity, I find my eyes rolling up to the high
heavens as if to ask: Why? Why do the hopes and aspirations of the Filipino rest on the Foreign
Investment White Knight that we always look forward to seeing galloping in from the horizon?

The issue of why Filipinos remain trapped in Bangladeshi-levels of impoverishment in a region

of East Asian high achievement needs to be re-framed. Seeing that we are in the midst of a
media, social media, political, and religious circus surrounding the issue of reproductive health,
I thought I’d use the core of contention of this chatter — population control — as the context
for my argument on why foreign investment is not the fundamental cure for Filipino-style
poverty.

Time and again, I have asserted my seminal definition of poverty:

Poverty is the outcome of a habitual entering into commitments that one is inherently
incapable of honouring

Jumping off from the above, let us then start with this simple question:

Is the Filipino inherently capable of employing himself?

This refers to our ability as a people to create and grow capital indigenously. In a previous
article where I explored the concept of wealth, I highlighted how capital wealth is something
that ultimately originates from a people’s inherent creativity and inventiveness.

Wealth, in primitive times would have been attributed to simple things like a reduced chance of
being eaten by a predator, an improved ability to survive a fight with another tribesman, and
increased hunting performance among others. Over millennia, as the amount of humanity’s
collective wealth increased this way the nature of wealth changed. The nature of wealth
changed from merely surviving, to becoming more comfortable, healthier, smarter, more
organized, and longer-lived. In modern times, the nature of wealth in advanced societies is now
shifting from a form determined by control over physical resources to a form determined by
control over information.

Are Filipinos known for being creative, innovative, and inventive?

History has so far shown that Filipinos utterly lack any aptitude for creating and building capital
by inventing new technology, adopting foreign technology productively, harnessing natural
resources sustainably, or applying new innovative ways to improve productivity and production
capacity. The economic equation is simple: If we do not create the means to produce, we cannot
produce. And if we cannot produce, we cannot feed nor employ. Simple.

This brings us to the next question:

If we are inherently incapable of creating the means to produce and therefore inherently
incapable of producing enough, why do we keep multiplying?

Back in the Stone Age, there were natural means to keep humans (or any living organism for
that matter) from overcommitting themselves to unsustainable numbers. People simply starved
to death if there wasn’t enough food, or got killed when they weren’t clever enough to fend off
predators. Human tribes couldn’t go around begging for “foreign investment” from wealthier
tribes when their folk let slip one baby too many. Their numbers simply dropped to even the
score with what their inherent production prowesses and Mother Nature’s bounty could deliver.

Back then, population management was a lot more brutal or cruel. If unwanted kiddos did not
succumb to infanticide (desperate parents do desperate things, is what I heard), they succumbed
to disease or malnutrition or were eaten by the neighborhood sabre-toothed cat.

On the other hand, today, pre-meditated population management is within the reach of human
technology. Humans no longer need to die violently in Mother Nature’s hands in order to
balance the population budget. So doesn’t it make perfect sense to apply these technologies to
the noble and responsible cause of managing our numbers? You’d think so. Unfortunately,
some people beg to differ.

So here’s the thing…

Having shown that we lack the smarts to create the capital that we need to produce the goods
that are essential to sustaining Filipino life, we can now approach with a fresh perspective this
curious habit of ours of looking to foreign-originated capital for economic salvation.

I’m reminded of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I’m sure in between tapping on their mobile
phones during the church services they dress in their Sunday best to attend, most Filipinos will
have probably caught an earful of this story by now. The Prodigal Son is basically the story of
the Filipino — but without the happy Hollywood ending. Whereas the biblical version of the
story sees the Prodigal Son’s daddy killing the fattened calf to welcome him back, the Filipino,
unfortunately, sees no such ending in sight.

The astounding poverty we see today in the Philippines is evidence of how our commitments to
feed our lot vastly exceeded our inherent abilities to produce said feed. So now we go around
convincing ourselves of our entitlement to capital created elsewhere and continue to multiply
like cockroaches despite a lack of any means to assure ourselves that every new Filipino baby
born may one day go on to create wondrous sources of employment for his country.
Advanced societies produce people who go on to generate a surplus of economic output.

What we have instead is the Philippines — a massive factory churning out warm bodies whose
aspirations cannot seem to go beyond a means of living built on the back of all things foreign.

Every Filipino born presents a liability at birth and is most likely to go on and produce a deficit
economic output.

Are Filipinos a “blessed” people? Last I heard, “blessings” are supposed to be more of a bonus
earned after basic commitments are met. The thing with Filipinos is that we rely on blessings
and bonuses to enable us to meet these basic commitments. And this is why we are, today, a
people reduced to a laughable expertise — panhandling for foreign investment.