A
Voice from America
By Ernie D. Delfin
SOME
BUSINESS IDEAS THAT CAN HELP
THE PHILIPPINES PROGRESS
ECONOMICALLY
While the presidential candidates
are preoccupied in their early political campaigns and many Filipinos are engaged in heated debates on constitutional issues surrounding
the Davide impeachment or other hot political issues that are often accompanied
by grandstanding of many politicians in zarzuela-like atmosphere,
I would like to advance some
outside-the-box-ideas with a faint hope that our “honorable” congressmen and senators, the presidential candidates as well as
businessmen will consider
my business proposals when they
are in a more productive moods.
It’s indeed everybody’s knowledge that the Overseas Filipinos, the
so-called modern day heroes, now
numbering over 7 million people, remitting
over $7 billion a year back to the Philippines, an staggering foreign exchange that has kept the country afloat for many years now. With that much
money, however, how come the Philippines seemingly cannot show many
concrete or tangible signs of infrastructures that sustain
local businesses or livelihood projects
in many provinces where these Overseas Filipinos come from? The only structures visible are newly built bungalows for OFW
families that replaced old nipa huts.
Is it because almost all these monies are used primarily for consumer goods and practically nothing
invested for capitalized expenditures,
such as tools or machineries for
the production of goods and services?
If this observation is true,
national leaders must work overtime to change the application of these
$7 billion OFW remittances. The OFs
cannot afford to be doing those contractual foreign jobs the next 20 or 100 years! There are too much
social costs, spelled tragedy, associated with OFW children when one or two
parents are working abroad. We have to
develop industries and livelihood projects within our own country to bring back
our OFWs, the sooner the better!
I believe it is a wise idea to
allocate a small and reasonable
percentage of those OFW remittances into
some kind of a “mutual or cooperative fund” under a highly credible and
competent manager with the highest integrity wherein returning OFW (or their dependents) can
borrow, as members, some money from such
funds to capitalize any entrepreneurial
or livelihood projects whenever they decide to do so.
Another timely business idea
is to make and market the Philippines as a retirement paradise for Overseas Filipinos who want to go back to the Philippines to
retire, providing them a comparable standard of living that they have been used
to during their productive years. I am
thinking of a residential-business model like the Leisure World in Laguna
Niquel and Seal Beach in Southern California.
It is a thriving community of active professionals who are at least 55 years old, college graduates
and possess a prescribed minimum net worth or assets.
I believe that if businessmen with
the cooperation of the Philippine government can see this great potential, they
can easily convert a certain town or an
island resort into desirable retirement
community, that is peaceful, clean, with
adequate health care, shopping center, recreation facilities comparable
to those in the United States. If they
do, thousands of Filipinos in North
America people like me will definitely
consider going home for retirement. As the advertising billboard says, “Build it
nicely and offer very competitive prices
and people will come and spend.”
Corollary to a retirement
community, another business is a health care facility. Assisted living
businesses, I believe, can also flourish
in the Philippines as Filipinos are
already noted for their caring attitude throughout the world. The US spends billions of dollars in health
care, especially towards the last years
of life of any citizen, whether in an intermediate care facility or a
24/7 skilled nursing facility, also known as nursing home or convalescent hospital.
Beginning this decade, many
Filipinos who came to the U.S. in the seventies soon will be retiring and most
likely will also become residents of these health care facilities. Personally,
I would rather be in the Philippines than in a nursing home, if the socio-economic and peace and order situation
of the country will then improve. I dare say that there will be thousands of Filipino
Americans, like me, who lead productive
lives who will be thinking seriously
about these inevitable things in the next 10 to 25 years. This could be a very
lucrative business that can be in high
demand as long as the businessmen and the Philippine government can assure the
retirees relative freedom from hoodlums or kidnappers in a clean, pleasant and
attractive community that is comparable if not better than a Leisure World
community in California.
Extrapolate the potential of this
business and what it can do for a retirement community or a health care
facility, whether a intermediate care
facility or a nursing home or
convalescent hospital. A resident pays
say $900 a month that is equivalent to over 45,000 pesos (which is a mere third
or quarter of what he pays an assisted living facility in the USA!) for
his board and lodging, EXCLUDING hospital and doctor’s fees.
Multiply P45,000 by l00 residents
will produce over P4,500,000 a month. Multiply that by l,000 or even l0,000 residents! The Philippine facility can then afford to
hire more nurses and attendants
to make the nurses to patients’ ratio much lower than in any U.S.
facility. These businesses can employ thousands of our Filipino women so
that they do not have to leave the country
to become “Filipinas” (maids) in
Europe, the Middle East,
Singapore or Taiwan.
What does the
Philippines need to have in order to
engage in this lucrative business? A
health care facility built comparable
to, if not superior than a typical
facility in the United States coupled
with an effective marketing and
advertising campaign in North America.
This quasi government agency must
be headed by a truly competent person
who has the heart and understanding of this
high-in-demand industry. Retired
generals or plain cronies of politicians are not the right people to
handle this job.
The Philippines has already an
ample supply of medical and nursing graduates
who have the expertise that can
be tapped with higher salaries but still
much lower than the salary scales in America. There are already many existing and
successful businesses that can just be
replicated in the Philippines with some local modifications. The doctors, nurses who render these services are oftentimes Filipinos themselves. So Filipinos can do it in America,
Filipinos should be able to do it
also in the Philippines. Marketed properly, retiring Filipinos and
even their American friends can be lured
to come and experience the world known Filipino hospitality. As a bonus, residents or patients from
America can even get much more for their
health care dollars in the Philippines simply because of a much lower costs of
living. With his American dollars, one
resident or patient can even afford to hire his own exclusive caretaker 24 hours a day!
Paging entrepreneurs and businessmen
in the Philippines to start making a feasibility studies or business plan for
this 21st century
phenomenon when the baby boomers
generation of Filipino Americans
becoming senior citizens
themselves! I am quite interested
because in another l5-25 years, I might be one of those residents who wanted to
go back and probably even die in the Philippines. That is,
if our beloved Perlas ng Silangan, the Philippines that I used to
know, will not have gone to a real hell
run by immoral shameless, greedy and corrupt politicians! The forthcoming May 2004 election (if there
is any) will serve as a litmus test for
all of you in the Philippines. We, the Overseas Filipinos, can just wish you the best and of course, we
will continue to pray.
* * * * *
At our Progressive Times
forum, I
recently advanced an idea where we can convert our tourism dollars into
some kind of Philippine Social Development and Entrepreneurial Fund
(PSDEF). The response was very positive
and many PT members are continuing our spirited
discussions in the Internet. Let
me also share with our STAR readers some highlights of this revolutionary idea:
In North America, bed and
breakfast business is getting very popular as it is a great alternative to just
staying in a typical Hilton, Sheraton or Holiday Inn during one’s vacation.
I am proposing that members of our Progressive Times forum can form a PT
Global Bed & Breakfast Club (PTGBBC)
where any one can become the
guest/ tourist or the host/tourist guide at any predetermined
days of the year. Through a website
created solely for this purpose, a PTGBBC member can research, compare his
options and then make the necessary arrangements with another member in another
city or country to be his host. Instead
of paying the host directly for the market value of his Bed & Breakfast stay, the guest or
tourist obliges himself to remit or deposit the fair market value of his stay
into this “mutual” PSDE Fund. Said deposit, however, will be credited EQUALLY to himself (the
tourist or guest) and to his host/tourist guide.
Let’s enumerate some advantages and its potential: If 100 PTGBBC members avail of this B&B Club for mutual
benefits, staying an average of 7 days a
year, paying $100 per day ($50.00 goes
back to him as his “mutual” fund investment), the fund will generate $70,000
or about P3,500,000 that would have spent to any
Hilton, Sheraton or Holiday Inn.
Multiply that amount by l,000 or
l0,000 tourist days and the generated amount will become
staggering! The PTBBC Board of Trustees
may decide to invest the generated
revenues into any entrepreneurial
endeavors (hopefully in the Philippines)
like building more or improving existing
resorts to make them more attractive for tourists to keep on
coming. Other potential applications of these PSDE Funds are endless.
The advantages of staying in
a B&B home are varied as the number of members
participating. Primarily, it will encourage many tourists, especially
those who have not traveled much, to
become guests or tourists as it will
be much cheaper with the added benefit
of having a tourist guide (the host) who will also enjoy some financial or
economic benefits. Friendship will be
developed and relationships will be strengthened as the Club members become tourists and/or
hosts every year. Staying with a host
family who has similar or equivalent interests, education or hobbies, will not
only be more economical but also better, healthier and more educational than
just staying in a typical commercialized hotel.
When all these are said and done, I believe that it is us, Filipinos wherever
we reside in the world ------- not the Americans, Japanese, Koreans or Europeans -----who can and must improve
the Philippines. Let us all stop hoping
(and begging) other nations to make us better.
It is only us who can make our country progress!
Dear STAR readers, I
appreciate any feedbacks or comments!
E-mail me at:
erdelusa@hotmail.com
* * * *
Today is Halloween (All Saints
Day) and tomorrow is El Dia de los
Muertos (the Day of the Dead).
People here in America celebrate these church holidays differently than
they are practiced in the Philippines.
On the last day of October, many
people, even at work, don on costumes or
wear masks pretending to be somebody else ---- from a mermaid, to Arnold
Schwarzenegger, to a monk to a pirate, you name it. In the evening, many children with their own
costumes go from house to house to do their “trick or treat” and the homeowners
gave out countless of candies. Houses
are also decorated with spooky characters with many carved pumpkins like Jack
o’ Lantern with lighted candles inside.
But these American Halloween
traditions are quite benign or somewhat
passive in nature as opposed to the way these holidays are celebrated in
the Philippines especially in many
cemeteries, like the Chinese Cemeteries.
Only in the Philippines, it seems, where even the dead are segregated by
social classes. You can easily
differentiate the tomb of a poor man
versus the mausoleum of a rich man.
It’s been over two decades that I
have not been in a cemetery in the Philippines during All Saints or All Souls
Day. Do they still have those hired
musicians or priests who are paid to sprinkle holy water or paid
mourners to cry in front of those newly white-painted tombs of different
sizes with fences? I am nostalgic of those memories of these
holidays when we did not have classes
nor work. As millions of
“provincianos” living in Manila want to
go home on the eve of All Saints Day,
the competition to get a seat in the provincial buses is also skill
where the fittest always win and get the
first available seats. The prize? To be able to go home on time and partake
with all the kakanins (native cakes) that are prepared for everyone for a
several days.
Yes, for the Filipino
expatriates like me, we often reminisce those good old times, when we are not
burdened by so many things of a modern
day life in the name of “progress.” Despite our
21st century gadgets
of high tech, fast cars and fast
foods, the good times of yesteryears seem much more
satisfying if not more profound.
Yes, Virginia, when you are past 40 or 50 you gradually become more nostalgic and
melancholic especially in your
solitude. Oh such memories… they can
make you smile and even inspire you to go
on living!
---- 3 0 -----
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