Old Wisdom from an Old Friend

I am not calling him an Old Friend because he's old; rather, because our friendship is old. And during the many years after lost contact, i would occasionally hear vague kwentos about him being terribly ill, which would always i would be saddened. Part of the kwento i heard rather early in that period was that he had transerred residence -- of my old friend very sick; as i've also been on and off, and i don't know where to find him and we might never see each other again.

Last week, in the library of the school where i teach, i came upon a page of the Inquirer that carried a letter to the editor from him. It identified him as the spokesman of a Movement for Truth in History, and two content words in that organizational name resonated well with as many among my favorite advocacies, as co-founding secretary-general of the Consumers and Communicators for Truthful Information (CCTI) and Kamalaysayan Solidarity on Sense of History. The signature part of the letter even carried his e-mail address! Wow!

Nahanap ko na uli si Kuya Maning Almario!

Of course it made me so glad to have gotten the info on how to reconnect with our indefatigable floor leader of the annual assemblies of the National Press Club of decades ago. And it gladenned me more to read his letter, showing me the clearest indicator that his Old Wisdom still shines clearly through his writing. It is definitely great wisdom to assert, sans any equivocation, not even a tinge of apologetic qualification, the incontrovertible truth that the Philippines has to have our own industrialization in order to stop and reverse our accelerating plunge to economic abyss. Kuya Maning asserts the truth that has remained valid despite the moderately-successful drive of deception to discredit nationalism and patriotism especially in economics.

Most of us Filipinos who do have big reasons to groan and complain about worsening woes in our economic lives as individuals and as families, sad to say, stop at groaning and complaining, and even harbor, or worse, spread the confusion that our economic predicament has been caused by high-level corruption and the groans and complaints get mixed with invectives thrown at the most visible enemies of the people, adding the wish that they be replaced in the corridors of power by opposition politicians (who would likely continue with suicidal and pro-foreign economic policies). All serious advocates of economic upliftment with the defense of what is still left of our patrmony ought to read Almario's letter, And because it might be difficult to look for a copy of PDI's July 15, 2009 issue, i encode hereunder this letter from my Old 'Friend, Atty. Manuel F. Almario. I hope my former student Dr. Ernesto R. Gonzales, Ph.D., who heads the National Economic Protectionism Association (NEPA, now approaching its 75th founding anniversarythis November) and all members, past members, and future members of that consistently-nationalist economic organization, would intently read Atty. Almario's letter and find ways to get is disseminated among as many other people as possible. Here's the letter:

Industrialization as key to development

None of the presidential candidates for the 2010 elections has mentioned industrialization as a plank of his or her program of government. This is tragic. No countyy in the world has become prosperous without industrialization without industrialization. Under an agricultural economy, our people will be condemned to perpetual poverty. This is the lesson of history.

"In Europe and North America, countries had gone through a process, lasting in some cases more than a century, in which most workers had left agriculture (and rural areas) and became industrial ... This structural change was seen as the key element in rising incomes and national power." ["The end of the Third World: Newly Industrializing Countries and the Decline of Ideology" by Nigel Harris]

In his book, "The Reign of Greed," Dr. Jose Rizal, through the main protagonist, Don Simoun, gave a trenchant piece of advice on how the Phiippines could prosper. During a party thrown by a wealthy Chinese , a group of merchants who had been complaining just how bad business was,asked Simoun, a well-travelled gentleman, for his opinion on how the Philippines could prosper. "My opinion?" Simoun huffed. "Study how other nations prosper, and then do as they do." (Translation by Charles E. Derbyshire.)

Rizal, who had been to Europe, the United States and Japan, knew that these countries were "advanced" precisely because they were industrialized.
japan, a latecomer, rose to the ranks of the advanced countries by studying how Europe and the United States prospered, and by copying them. The newly industrialized countried countries (NICs) like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and China, all folllowed the Japanese path.

The constitution of the La Liga Filipina which Rizal founded provided that the "The introduction of machines and industries new or necessary in the country, shall be favored." This policy was followed by the Commonwealth government under President Quezon, and implemented by Quirino, Magsaysay and Garcia, until it was scrapped by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's father, President Diosdado Macapagal, in favor of free trade, liberalization and privatization, dictated by the Washington Consensus and the IMF-World Bank.

Under the theoretical model devised by these Western institutions, our country fell to the bottom of the heap. Under the regime of industrialization, exchange controls and protectionism adopted by the industrialized countries in similar stages of development, the Philippines advanced second only to Japan in economic growth in Asia.
We shoud learn to measure development by the results.

--MANUEL F. ALMARIO
Spokesman, Movement for Truth in History (Rizal's MOTH)
mfalmario@yahoo.com