ONE ASEAN: GET READY!

ONE ASEAN: GET READY!

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

Good evening! Magandang gabi!

The dark clouds of the electoral contests are now getting clearer in the Philippines. With our polls settled and our elected leaders about to begin their mandates, I’d now depart from election-related advocacies and move back to the international-global arenas.

I have written quite enormously about international political economy and subsidiary themes for over two (2) decades. Even my blogging has been consumed with peregrinations on the international arena. So let me go back to this arena, even as I now clarify that I am a strong advocate of One ASEAN.

As I’ve elucidated in my past writings (see 2007-08 articles), I perceive the ASEAN as the larger polity to which my own country will return in the future.

The Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, the whole of island Southeast particularly, were largely creations of Western powers. They used to be part of the Majapahit Empire, the world’s wealthiest region before Western colonization fragmented it.

Being a strong believer in ASEAN unity, I am willing to shed off my hard-line Filipino nationalism and don the cloak of pan-ASEAN patriotism. Majapahit was the original nation to me and to those who resonate with the same worldview, and eager am I to see my country return to the Empire.

The Empire no longer bears that name today. Rather, it goes by the name of ASEAN, short for Association of Southeast Asian Nations. But it bears the same geo-political and geo-economic contours of the Empire before it fragmented.

A benevolent Empire it was, as it used the fiat of trade cooperation to get membership into the polity. That is, to be able to become a part of the Empire, concur trade with its nexus and prinzeps. This was a much different track from the typical military occupation used by other regional and world powers to expand their territorial confines.

If we reflect back on what our state players are doing here today, where they’re concurring agreements and treaties using the most civil means conceivable to get to a higher level of unity, the same means actually revives the consensus methods used by our peoples in antiquity. Today, no matter how diverse our political, economic, and cultural systems are, we are talking to each other here, which is reflective of a ‘dialogues of civilizations’ approach.

From state-to-state and civil society-to-civil society talks, let us move on to direct people-to-people talks in the region. People-to-people interactions precede people-to-people cooperations. I strongly contend that people-to-people cooperation should eventually be the base for state-to-state and civil society-to-civil society cooperation and no less.

State-to-state talks are quite slow in results, even if market players joined state actors to buttress the former stakeholders’ positions. In some areas of talks, such as those involving territories, snags are observed.

People-to-people interactions and cooperation will do much to accelerate state-to-state talks that get snagged for one reason or another. The same cooperation can also accelerate the building of a pan-ASEAN identity which should precede any writing of a general treaty that will unify the region at least economically.

People-to-people interactions have already been taking place in the region for almost 2000 years in fact. Western colonization may have diminished the scales of interactions for a long while, but that era of imperialism is much behind us now.

As states, market players, and civil society players are preparing for larger talks ahead, let us noble peoples of the region go ahead and expand the levels of talks to build greater mutual confidence, appreciation of each other’s cultures, and trust. Along the way, we have fellow Asians and global citizens who will support our efforts as true friends.

In any way we can, let us get to know each other better. Let’s set aside utilitarian gains (e.g. get to know Asean pals who can become network marketing partners) and interact based on a true call of our hearts, of our souls.

That way, we contribute to building our preparedness for the grand future coming. We just can’t be caught flat-footed, not knowing what’s going on in our larger backyard because we allowed state players to monopolize the talks.

Fellow ASEANians, let’s get ready!

[Writ – Philippines, 11 May 2010. E. Argonza is adept at international political economy. He was a graduate student of former ASEAN Deputy Secretary General Wilfrido Villacorta, PhD. He has published various articles on the subject, as well as a book on global trade regime.]

EURO-AMERICAN BANKRUPT COMPANIES ARE LEPERS, ASIANS BE WARY!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Leper Companies, Inc. could very well describe the so many huge corporate entities in the West that are now expectantly waiting for some investors to breath fresh life into them. The compass of that search points to Asia as the source of the badly needed ‘smart money’.

What a mess indeed had Western economies turned into, as their respective enterprises have been crashing to bankruptcy levels after liberal policies have become granite rock in them since the Thatcher-Reagan era. De-industrialization, massive loss of jobs, and measly investments in S&T have made elephants out of huge companies such as the once mighty Bethlehem Steel.

“Bankruptcy! Bankruptcy!” would be an apt line in a classic opera production in New York and London, save that even classic opera groups of the West might even go the bankruptcy route. From manufacturing to culture industry, inclusive of Hollywood stalwarts, Western companies are going down the drain one after the other.

Insatiably greedy financiers are of course waiting in the wings to dip their hands into those crashing industries, waiting for the moment to buy them at dirt cheap prices. They did that after the 2^nd world war, a war that the global oligarchy created, when they bought so many European factories at rummage sale. Their war chest had been reinforced by slash funds past $3 Trillions circa 2007 yet, so they’re ready for the ‘ukay-ukay’ transactions any time (‘ukay-ukay’ is Filipino term for re-sale of used clothes at cheap dirt prices).

The same financier oligarchs did the rummage buying spree on former Soviet bloc economies’ flattened factories groups, with mafia groups joining the fray for purchase of the rummage sales. At one instance in the early 90s, Russia’s mafia groups owned and controlled 80% of the rummage industries, thus prompting patriotic KGB chekka to replace then incumbent president Yeltsin, a puppet of the financier oligarchs, with Putin.

Asia has been the undisputed driver of the global economy more so when both USA and Europe began burning economically as early as 2007. Logically, the compass of SOS for fresh investments and loans would be Asia notably the China-Korea-ASEAN-India corridor.

The involvement of the Indian group Mittal in purchasing Alcelor of Europe is classic case of Asian buys. Bookkeeping accounts seemed to have served Mittal right then, with the merger not exactly draining down the stock value of Mittal in the bourses. Mittal-Alcelor came to be born as the largest steel producer, churning out a total volume of 100 tons of steel every year (toppling Korea’s POSCO as top producer).

That was then. The times have quite changed in an era when changes happen so rapidly. Western enterprises, notably those of the USA’s and EU’s, are magnets for perceptions of being leper corporations. Getting associated with them could burn down an Asian company’s own par value, and whether the trend could be reversible is something that is tantamount to launching a Herculean PR campaign to reduce negative perceptions owing to buy-ins/mergers.

Enormous window dressings have to be applied to the accounts of the leper companies too so as to sweeten their toxically sour values and make them more palatable to Asian investors. Whether Asia’s negotiating agents are naïve to the window dressings is something worth researching.

Caucasians still have that perception—conscious and/or unconscious—of Asians as “monkeys with no tails” (subhumans) who can be lured into traps without the latter noticing it. Western financier oligarchs led by the likes of the UK-Netherlands royal houses and Rothschild empire will brook no quarters in condescending on Asians who they regard as cattle or eaters worth controlling, subordinating as Mandingos, and short-changing in business transactions.

Such a perception hasn’t changed. Look at how the Indian executives of Mittal et al are perceived in Europe today not just by the oligarchs but by the White executives in their payroll. Why don’t you examine case studies in Western business schools and find out for yourself whether Asian groups are worth studying at all in the West. It’s the same old Victorian perception of racial hubris and arrogance at work!

That may just be what western ‘corporate social responsibility’ is all about: to continue derisively condescending at former Asian colonies by dangling carrots to poor communities in Asian backyards. In exchange, Asian ‘smart money’ moves to the West to ensure that leper companies keep on churning out more funds, with 1% of the profits later to allocated for ‘corporate social responsibility’.

Is that what we can regard as an impeccable fair exchange?

[Philippines, 13 August 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,

UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com,

COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,

BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,

ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

WILL ZAIBATSU OFFENSIVE BE ACCOMPANIED BY NEW JAPANESE MILITARISM?

Erle Frayne Argonza

In a previous article, this writer articulated the success of the Japanese Zaibatsu offensive. As one ought to realize, the success of the Zaibatsu offensive came at the expense of other markets, notably the North’s. Intellectually bankrupt as they are, the policy makers and technocrats of the North never foresaw the catastrophic consequences of predatory policies more so those concerning finance that came from their Japanese partners.

Today, Zaibatsus are well prepositioned across the globe, and it doesn’t matter anymore whether their headquarters will still be based in Japan. They have already fanned out beyond their boundaries, thanks to gullible states and market players in host countries that aren’t equipped to read the psyche of their Japanese partners. Japanese market presenters carry the mien of humble partners who bow in deep respect before you during business meetings, so who could ever suspect the rather cold-blooded nature of such gestures.

What the world must observe with greater focus these days, when global fascism is rising, is the resurgence of Japanese militarism. It may come in the form of ultra-nationalism, or ultra-conservatism, and may have nothing of the ‘Hail Emperor’ mantra of the previous Empire. But seeing the rise of predatory Zaibatsus, focused observers can never miss out on the possibility that the economic offensive may be accompanied, at some juncture of global economic crisis, by a very resurgent militarism.

Japan was very badly isolated during and after the 2^nd World War, and till the early 1970s its moves at extending cooperation came with enormous suspicion, more so from the Asians whose countries were “burned down to the ground” by invading Japanese military forces. There surely was a colossal repackaging of Japan’s image, from wartime arrogance to new era peace-loving and humble advocate. To prove their sincerity, they even crafted their new constitution such that offensive forces were banned and only defensive military forces allowed.

No one ever heard of Japan getting involved in the arms race for many decades, and till these days the mindsets of somnambulistic folks tend to regard the Japan of the present as the peacenik country of post-war yesteryears. Even my old folks, who suffered miserably from the cruelties of Japanese forces during the war, have come to forgive Japan, though they still harbor the pains during moments of reminiscing.

The peacenik image is a product of its own context, this one must be reminded about. Japan was in high growth for many decades, than it matured onwards till it reached consumer society proportions around the 1980s. Then came the ‘globalization’ voodoo economics, and the rest was history.

That was then. The situation now is different. The global economy is crashing down, the plunge still hasn’t ceased, and the EU-USA experts just couldn’t learn from Japan’s ‘bailout’ mistakes. As the economy falters, anxieties arise within a country, and tensions across borders will increase. Superstition and groupthought (fascism) are rising, and before long we will see the fireworks of another world war ensued in the hottest spots of the globe.

EU-USA (West) and Japan (East), which comprise the pillars of the global economy, are now on the decline. If we study the behavior of their peoples well, whenever they experience severe crises, they undertake wars as  strategy to release or canalize collective anxieties. They identify a Bogey Man (e.g. Nazi’s identified the Jews, North Americans identified the Southern slave owners during the US civil war,…), and then transfer their internal anxieties and defects on the Bogey Man, and war ensues.

Such economic pillars just seem unable to manage their decline without taking down others. This is classic binary mindset, destructive and demonic. Such mindset is responsible for using nuclear arms, regarding the casualties  on their perceived enemies thereafter as mere statistics. And East Asia better prepare for the eventuality that this mindset will become dominant again in Japan in the short run.  

Demented minds in Japan have two (2) bogey men today: (a) North Koreans  and (b) Chinese. As this is happening, events have already shown the preparedness of Japan to mobilize its troops for missions outside the borders (e.g. Iraq war). Japan also possesses the technical capabilities to produce weapons of mass destruction such as nukes and probably the Tesla Earthquake Machine or TEM.  

Intelligence reports have it that Japan is capable of constructing WMDs and manufacturing new series military vehicles (e.g. aircraft carriers) in just less than a year upon call to action. We wouldn’t be surprised if we receive further intelligence information that such WMDs and vehicles are in fact already in place, needing supplementation in quantities and troop mobilizations.

It need not be overstressed that Zaibatsus are awash with money to fund militaristic or Banzai offensives for sustained periods. They already demonstrated this, during the Gulf War and Iraq War, when their coffers coughed up large sums by the tens of billions of dollars to pay the bills for the offensives while the USA provided the main attack hardware and human ‘warm bodies’ (like they were the Hessian Troops of the global oligarchs).

If ever that the USA-EU would fall into a state of totalitarian governance (police state, fascism), and Japan would follow along that direction, then chances are high that the North Atlantic Alliance (USA-EU) and Japan would form a new Axis Powers alliance. The North Atlantic powers would constitute the Western flank, while Japan would comprise the Eastern flank of the alliance.

It will be déjà vu for sure. If indeed such is the direction. Peace advocates still have time to scuttle new treaties up north that could redound to concentrating enormous powers in central governments that are undisguised fascist police states. There is still time, but time is now short.

Before long, Japanese slogans of Banzai! will be heard again across the Pacific. Just by hearing it, or reading it on the papers and TV, many middle class Asians will die of heart attacks. Let us just hope that it will only be a slogan of marginalized mad people in Japan and nothing more.

[Writ 15 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila.]

ZAIBATSU GLOBALIZATION ‘VOODOO ECONOMICS’ BOWING OUT

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

 

Let me share to you at this moment some notes regarding the ‘globalization’ experiment and the flawed policies that sustained it. There has been much ballyhoo about the global economy’s integration, over the last three (3) decades, as having been carved out supposedly by the Anglo-Saxon policy architects, using Thatcher & Reagan as the face for the ‘neo-liberal’ policy regime they installed.

 

Little do peoples across the globe, including experts who are so mired in their own parochial perspectives, know that the liberalization of country economies has a great deal to do with the Zaibatsu offensive. The West should better accept the facts: that their technocrats and policy shapers have run out of fresh ideas since the 1970s onwards (i.e. mentally bankrupt), a gap that they filled up by looking up to Japan and the NICs (newly industrializing countries) for copycat purposes.

 

Reaganomics, as neo-liberal policies of ‘privatization’ was dubbed (Thatcher of the UK preceded Reagan by a year), is as voodoo as one can get, seductive as any enchanting mantra-resonating principle can be, and was indeed potent in erasing the vestiges of the Regulated Economics doctrines that preceded the era. In the emerging markets, they were dubbed as ‘structural adjustment policies’ or SAPs, were imposed by the IMF-World Bank Group on debtor nations, and can be summed up as follows:

 

·        Core principles: Privatization, Liberalization, Deregulation

·        Subsidiary Principles: Tax reforms, trade liberalization, free floating exchange rates, diminished state subsidies for welfare, increased utility prices (revenue generation)

·        Governance Principle: Decentralization (local government autonomy)

 

Such policy reform measures, as far as developing countries or DCs were concerned, came in as very harsh, cruel ‘austerity measures’ imposed by the IMF. We citizens from the ‘margins’ can never forget these measures, the pauperization that they effected, the dislocation of marginal producers, the decline of health services and rise of morbidity rates, and so on. In the Philippines, our very own capital goods industries were either delayed or un-implementable (such as integrated steel), as the money allocated for their purposes simply dried as dictated by the World Bank.

 

But there’s another set of policy architecture that wasn’t Anglo-Saxon, and didn’t receive their inspiration from the classicists (Smith, Ricardo) and the monetarists (Friedman, Hayek). This set of liberalization policies came from Zaibatsu country, and were crafted by Japanese technocrats. Not only policies, but also institutions were addressed by them, giving rise to the globalized economy that we have today.

Chief among those technocrats was Kenichi Ohmae, who in the 1980s was a think-tank executive. Further down the line were many other technocrats, who were organically linked to the Zaibatsus (landlord-industrialist-financier oligarchs), taking up cudgels for Ohmae.

Globalization, as one better realize, was never meant as any ‘win/win’ formula for nation-states in the arena of international trade as the liberal thinkers came to defend it later. It was outright a strategy to pre-position Zaibatsu corporate interests outside of Japan, notably the U.S. and European markets.  

At that time of conceptualization, Zaibatsus have already efficaciously penetrated the Asian markets, and had leveraged their investments’ entry via aid and technical knowledge diffusion (including sponsoring Developing Country scholars in Japanese universities & special institutes). The old doctrine of ‘Asia Co-prosperity sphere’ was finally won, without firing a shot this time (unlike Imperial Japan era expansionism).

In the 1980s, the clamor for mooring investments and trade in the Western markets became ever stronger. The offensive tactic adapted was rather two-pronged, which made the new voodoo mantra even more potent:

·        On the micro-level, permeate other markets with new concepts such as ‘Theory Z’ (decentralized authority, see W. Ouichi), total quality management or TQM, new tools for strategic planning, mergers and de-mergers. Till these days, the tools are considered sacrosanct in all sectors of society, including the Catholic Church that now uses ‘bottom-up’ planning added to strategic planning (my observations done in 2001-02 in a California diocese).

 

·        On the macro-level, blend  the Reagan-Thatcher ‘structural adjustments’ with the ‘globalization’ doctrine. The Zaibatsu technocrats fanned out across the globe, some of whom were positioned inside international bodies, and sweetened liberalization via a supposedly ‘win/win’ growth strategy for participating countries. This brilliant blending, which Western thinkers didn’t perceive at all as any subtle tactic by a predatory class (Zaibatsu), soon caught up fire and became buzz word for nigh three decades.  

Before long, the Japan Inc. was being bandied across the globe as worth any country’s emulation. Southeast Asia and Korea went for it. Even the former presidents of the USA admired the Japanese Inc. doctrine of renewed private initiatives and shift from macro- to micro-economics as stabilization and growth measure. Bill Clinton of the USA spoke so fondly of ‘globalization’ like some captive fan of an economic icon, and moved to negotiate the NAFTA.

Little do unsuspecting, gullible peoples across the planet, more so the policy experts of the West, realize that the Japanese voodoo economics was largely intended to permit Zaibatsu investments to breed and morph inside their economies. Using merger and buy-in tactics, the Zaibatsu agents made it appear that their sponsors came in for benign purposes or so. If there is any group in the world today that is enjoying its last laugh, it is the Japanese militarists of the past, who finally saw the success of their nation’s offensives and the decline of the West via ‘organized chaos’.

Around 1994, the magic of the Japan Inc. began to cramble. Recession came, and before long many banks and investment houses were catching fire. That was the origin of the bankrupt and immoral Bush-Paulson ‘bailout’, which began with the ‘crisis management’ tactic in Japan to save ailing banks and financial institutions. Eventually, Zaibatsu technocrats were forced to revive the Western tool of ‘interest rates’ intervention, to the extent of bringing down interest rates to zero percent and sustaining it there for many years.

There also came that moment, in the late 1990s through 2006, when Zaibatsu financiers suddenly were so awash with funds (liquidities), at a time when Western economies reached low growths. The ‘yen initiative’ package was therefore conceptualized as another last-ditch voodoo tactic, which was implemented by loaning out large funds at zero or low interest, which Western financiers than re-loaned at profitable interest rates. Many such funds reached the USA& EU realty subprime mortgage markets, to recall. Again, note the seemingly benign nature of the financial gesture.

Just as when the realty markets were beginning to sneeze in America, the last voodoo measure was pulled out. The ‘crisis management’ was already folded up earlier, as Japan’s economic growth was propelled up anew by the Asian markets notably China’s. Just as when USA & EU needed the Zaibatsu loans very badly, and ditto for portfolio investments, they were pulled out, thus ensuring the crash of both economies.

Japananese voodoo economics is now bowing out, as the compass of policy initiatives at present is pointing to the reconstruction of macro-economic, New Deal type measures intended to attack problems both on short-term (bail out on productive sectors) and long-term basis (induce physical economy rather than predatory finance). But the withdrawal of the voodoo regime is not being done without witnessing its catastrophic results.

That’s surely tragic for the West or North. I wonder how Zaibatsus & technocrats perceive peoples outside their borders: whether they regard the latter as human beings worth co-partnering with, or as hungry lizards that must subsist on crumbs of investments & finance from Japan that have been buttressed by enormous tons of gold acquired through production and plunder of occupied lands, across the 2,000 years of Japan’s existence from kingdom to nation.

Honestly, I don’t know the answer. But if the Zaibatsus are receiving flaks from outside their borders, it wouldn’t be a surprise. There are no more borders for Zaibatsus by the way, just an entire planet with seamless web, cocooned in all corners by their corporate money.  

[Writ 14 November 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]  

PHILIPPINE ECONOMICS: BOP SURPLUS, INVESTMENT-HEALTHY

Erle Frayne  Argonza y Delago

 

The Philippine macro-economic fundamentals remain alright, bright and positive.  So says the official report from the central bank. I myself opine in the affirmative regarding RP’s economic health.

 

The Philippines has been hit lately by inflationary waves in rice and petrol. These alone were sufficient to slow down growth a bit. But the factors behind these problems in grains and oil go beyond the domestic, they’re global and have to do more with the manipulations of financial speculators in the overseas markets. As a result, the overall inflation rate moved up.

 

The exact figures released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas are: US $499 million for the month of April (08), and a total of $2.13 billion for the first four months of the year. Hefty sums! Not bad!

 

The fiscal situation is the one that is now being threatened by the volatilities in the rice and oil prices, or should we say spot markets overseas. The news about rice price being subsidized should the crisis worsen is surely a bad one, as it will crash down the ‘balanced budget’ target supposedly achievable at the end of the year.

 

Yet even that seemingly shaky fiscal situation isn’t sufficient a force to dampen the overall macro-economic health. The BOP surplus indicates the positive compass of the economy for the rest of the year, rendering this country a lucrative haven for investments from both domestic and overseas investors.

 

So, fellows out there, the Philippines is much in tune with the Asian growth trend amid the latest rounds of inflation and the problems in oil and grains. The prophets of gloom & doom better find something else to do, such as to bash the corrupt oligarchs, as the economy is within the right compass of growth.

 

[19 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

OPEN UP MARKETS

 

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

[Writ 23 March 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

 

As one can observe from my previous articles, New Nationalism supports a continuous entry of investments to the domestic market from overseas. This article articulates the specific contention about the matter.

 

Autarchy is bad policy and practice to begin with. If it worked for the Habsburg Empire for a while, it worked only because there were draconian measures employed to make them work, and that the territory of the Empire was large enough for autarchy (also autarkie). This empire is long gone, autarchy is ridiculously obsolete, but Old Nationalists abound who still tend to be autarchic in their discourse. They are among our living dinosaurs, come to think of it.

 

Just because capital investments come from the outside shouldn’t make them necessarily suspect or deleterious to the national interest. As already previously articulated, there should be ‘safety nets’ or institutional and policy mechanisms, such as fair trade –based regimes, that can mitigate the deleterious impact of globalization.

 

But before articulating on the other base mechanisms for such mitigation, it should be first accepted that overseas capital can serve the national interest. If domestic investment and savings rates are perennially low or insignificant, there should be greater reason to open up the market to external investors. As an observation, the Philippines has had a bad track record of attracting investments amid the massive opening up of the market via financial liberalization policies.

 

The same contention should hold water for other countries. The USA at this moment needs fresh funds to the amount of trillions of dollars per annum coming from overseas to be able to bring it back to macro-economic wellness. There is no way that the USA will be semi-insular, more so autarchic, when its economy had clearly crashed.

 

However, attracting foreign investments doesn’t mean a perpetuation of trade liberalization  policies pertaining to investments and cross-border monetary flows. It’s got to do more with strengthening institutions and keeping macro-economic fundamentals at their most positive levels indicative of economic health and wellness.

 

Look at Malaysia’s previous experience for instance. As a response to the devastating effects of the financial meltdown in 1997, the state immediately instituted financial, monetary and capital control policies. They worked precisely because governance institutions and macro-economic fundamentals (particularly fiscal health) made it worthy to invest in the country, as risk levels were tremendously brought down and volatility ebbed.

 

Recently the Malaysian state decided to take down altogether the capital control policies as macro-economic wellness and financial volatilities were put under control. This is a clear case for flexibility in development policies: know when to institute regulations and deregulations well, without necessarily impeding or degrading the national interest whatsoever. I salute the grand patriarch of Malaysian nationalism for the matter, the venerable Mahathir Mohammad.

 

The contention for foreign investments culled from the New Nationalism article is shown entirely below.

 

Continuously open the market to external investors.

 

National savings continue to hover at a pathetically low rate of seventeen percent (17%), which is significant but is way below the minimum of thirty percent (30%) to render it as ‘critical mass’, like that of our neighbors’. The problem cannot be addressed sufficiently than through a continuing inflow of capital from external investors. Note that in today’s global context, the term ‘foreign capital’ has already lost its meaning, as the boundary between ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ has been effectively erased. The cross-country partnering cum out-sourcing arrangements among diverse firms have become the norm of today’s business, rendering obsolete the previously sacrosanct notions of ‘domestic’ capital and ‘foreign’ direct investments. Not only that. Latest researches have verified that transnational corporations or TNCs now tend to create more values within their host countries and reinvest the profits locally than remit them back to their ‘home country’ (a term that has also begun to lost meaning).

 

This doesn’t mean though that such investors should be served ‘free lunch’, through very long regimes of tax havens or through spurious ‘strike-free zones’ (read: haven for wage freeze) which makes our laborers appear like wild jackals who need to be perpetually gagged. Some forms of valves (capital controls) should also be instituted, so that the capital investments and profits wouldn’t just flow out like hemorrhage the moment that the economy hits cyclical crisis. Surely, pro-active measures can be devised to let the said investors stay, more so for those that truly re-invest their ROI for their original and diversified business concerns, as well as to those that conduct dynamic R&D and truly transfer technology.

 

In today’s globalizing context, corporate ‘national champions’ have become obsolete. The  bygone era of ‘national champions’ can still be observed in the names of certain firms, such as in the names Philippine Airlines, Philippine Long Distance Telephone, or in Bank of America, American Express. Asset re-structuring is the norm, and large corporations are becoming rapidly globalized. Mergers and de-mergers are happening at rapidly ‘chaotic’ paces. The circumstances challenge investors/stockholders to quickly grasp the lesson of   ‘thriving on chaos’ or else their ventures would face bankruptcies and foreclosures as what befell many former large ventures, inclusive of former ‘national champions’.

 

The thought that “foreign capital might harm national interest” is simply passé and out-of-context, in as much as the term ‘foreign’ has lost its meaning save for the antiquarian Old Nationalists who regard foreign things as essentially dangerous (but are they not using foreign frameworks in their perceptions of foreign things?). Let the investors come in, recombine their assets with our domestic investors’, extend their stock participation beyond the forty percent (40%) constitutional limit. Note that “our very own” big corporations are participating in ‘foreign’ countries, and their levels of investment participation go beyond forty percent (40%). It is high time that we readjust our thinking about the matter.