The Philippines are an investment destination only for crooks. I am not addressing only the foreign investors, asian or white, who "invest" in the Philippines, but most of the Philippines investors themselves, and that includes most of the official government policies, of the unofficial ones it is not necessary to discuss at all.
The "investors" come to the Philippines because it is easy to circumvent laws, to violate laws impunely and to compensate the lack of competitiveness of the economy with the oppression of the labor classes, who work in silence only because they fear hunger more.
25% of the population is out of the country and, sadly, because of the "organization" with which the government manages them (POEA et al.), they contribute to keep up the feudal labor system oppressing the country. The elites and the political classes are just a mirror of the failed promises of a ruling class that allegedly liberated them from the Spanish and the American oppressors only to replace them with its own oppression.
AI is on the lips of PHL policymakers since well before the "pandemic", and since them the level of their understanding of it is no different from the level of understanding of the RT-PCR test that they lauded and heralded as the "golden rule" of pandemic management.
It turned out that the pandemic management was a direct outcome of the US military engagement in the Philippines.
AI will be no different.
Why should it?
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Phl as an AI investment destination
You have to hand it to Finance Secretary Ralph Recto. Despite widespread findings that the country has the most stupid young people on earth (our 15-year-olds are last or next to last in global rankings in reading, math and science), Ralph recently led an investment delegation to Davos, Jan. 20-24, 2025, to sell the Philippines as an investment destination for artificial intelligence (AI).
Marvelous. A country with a severe shortage of natural intelligence selling itself as a destination for intelligence that is artificial, the brain that robots have. Basic to AI is natural intelligence, the capital you have when you are born. The same capital is improved upon by a process called education. Without proper education, a human will have no better natural intelligence than a monkey.
To have proper education, you need good teachers. (At present, 98 percent of teachers who teach science in public schools are incompetent; they don’t know science.) To have good teachers, you need to pay them well. (A public school teacher takes 15 years to get a 16 percent or P4,320 salary increase, or an average pay increase of P288 or one percent per year. At the bicam, a congressman or a senator takes only a few minutes to identify billions worth of pork barrel in the budget that he can pocket and nobody will call his attention for the plunder; no receipts.)
In history, plunder triggers outrage. In 18th century France, people guillotined their oppressive monarchy. In Russia in July 1918, the ruling Romanov dynasty were herded into a basement, shot and bayoneted to death.
To pay well good teachers, you need money. Give the money to the teachers. Do not steal it. Unfortunately, that is not happening.
The consequence is kids who cannot read, cannot write, cannot count beyond 20. Because the money intended to educate these kids is stolen big time, by politicians. These politicians belong to political dynasties. A political dynasty is a politician whose relatives include people, from grandfather to grandson, as well as in-laws in between. All of them occupy government positions with access to power and money. They abuse their power. They steal the money, systematically.
With the credentials as Special Envoy to the President, Ralph talked to 50 international public and private sector leaders in Davos. During breakfast, the Finance chief spotlighted the Philippines’ strategic advantages that position it as an ideal partner in building the economy of the future.
Recto was joined by House Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ma. Cristina A. Roque and Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Philippines to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Manuel Antonio J. Teehankee during the briefing.
Ralph and Martin talked to the likes of Marcus Wallenberg, chairman of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken; Philippe Amon, chairman and CEO of SICPA SA; Catarina Amon, CEO and founder of Classeek; Anthony Tan, CEO and co-founder of Grab; John Riady, Group CEO of Lippo Indonesia; Tony Fernandes, CEO of AirAsia and Calvin Choi, CEO of AMTD.
Also present were Jay Collins, vice chairman of Citi; Helena Lersch, VP for Public Policy of Tiktok; Amit Kalyani, vice chair and joint managing director of Kalyani Strategic Systems Limited and Albert Chang, Managing Partner of Southeast Asia, McKinsey & Co. and representatives from HCLSoftware, ING, Glencore International, BHP and Bitkub Capital Group Holdings.
Recto held one-on-one meetings with senior executives from leading companies, who expressed keen interest in collaborating with the Philippines to leverage AI for enhancing financial inclusion, strengthening the health care system, upskilling the Filipino workforce and more.
Leading US cryptocurrency company Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong showed strong interest in expanding its footprint in the Philippines, recognizing the country’s growing digital economy and the increasing adoption of blockchain technology.
Recto emphasized the Philippine government’s commitment to fostering innovation in the financial sector. He expressed the government’s willingness to provide a robust regulatory framework that supports cryptocurrency adoption while safeguarding consumer protection and financial stability.
Recto stressed the attractive fiscal and non-fiscal incentives under the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises to Maximize Opportunities for Reinvigorating the Economy (CREATE MORE) Act that ensure the long-term success of businesses and potentially position the country as a hub for AI innovation.
Ralph pointed out that the Philippine government has been expanding its digital infrastructure through the Philippine Digital Infrastructure Project, the National Broadband Program and the Common Tower Program to enhance digital connectivity nationwide – particularly in underserved areas.
The government has implemented regulations in the digital space to strengthen oversight of digital businesses, such as the Internet Transactions Act and the value-added tax on non-resident digital services.
To take advantage of its demographic sweet spot, the government is continuously upskilling the Filipino workforce through its Artificial Intelligence Strategy Roadmap.
Another keen investor was Revolut chairman Martin Gilbert. Revolut is a global financial technology leader and licensed digital bank in the UK and Europe.
Revolut has diverse global presence and innovative financial offerings that will empower Filipinos and small businesses with improved credit access and more competitive foreign exchange solutions.
ING chairman Karl Guha and CEO Steven van Rijswijk met with Secretary Recto to explore more partnership opportunities with the Philippines, particularly in leveraging AI in its ING hubs.
ING noted the Philippines’ strategic importance, including being a key hub for its operations with 6,000 of its 14,000 global workforce based in the country.
The leading European bank is set to launch soon its pioneering use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the Philippines, making it the next country after the Netherlands and Germany to host live GenAI applications.
HCLSoftware’s Chief Revenue Officer Rajiv Shesh and Chief Product Officer Kalyan Kumar sought potential collaboration in advancing the Philippines’ digital transformation agenda.
Good luck Ralph.
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