Senator (Goverment of Philippines)

You’ve had a long history within this government and you’ve seen many changes. How do you feel about the current economic situation?

Prospects are rising and (are) more hopeful than the past and I feel that the economy is on the uptake. Foreign investments are again slowly coming in both in the stock exchange and properties and especially in IT – call centers, business processing. Things are starting to look up but I’m not saying that it’s already up – it’s still in progress.

So you’re optimistic about the future.

Yes.

We know that there’s a common history that really unites the Philippines with Spain, obviously, lasting over the last 300 years. What is your personal assessment of the relationship with Spain at this moment?

It is one of the greatest forgotten and untapped resources between our two countries. We were under Spain for 3 ½ centuries, and for the last 100 years, there have been no meaningful relations between the Philippines and Spain. Well, there was a little cultural and educational exchange at the beginning, just a little economic trade, but in terms of a deeper economic, cultural and educational tie, that had ceased in the past 30 years, and it’s only now that we are – both sides, not just the Philippines but even probably the Spaniards – it’s only now that we are waking up to the potential of that historic tie. We are the only Christian country in this part of the world. We are Asian, but with a very strong dose of Western values that’s why the Filipinos can assimilate anywhere, whether in Germany or in Italy, or in the US because we don’t form ghettos. We live with the rest of the population because of the orientation and the values that we share with the West and that makes us sometimes an odd man out in Asia of different religions and cultures.

This is probably the most transparent country in this part of the world. So we are really the window to the East and Spain should have been our window to the West, which it did not fulfill.

It’s only now since 2003 when we passed a law that set aside one particular day of the year – June 30 – as the celebration of Philippine-Spanish Friendship Day that there is again an awakening of those historic and cultural ties that both sides now begin to realize that, “Sure, we can be our respective gateways to our regions – the Philippines to the ASEAN, to Asia, and Spain to the West.” And that’s why you can see a most visible increase in tourism, in exchanges, in visits – official and private visits. Even our President visited Spain this year and next year will make a state visit – really high profile exchanges are beginning to be seen just because, I think, that law sparked a new interest in relations.

In reference to the Philippine-Spanish Friendship Law, what do you think this day means to the Spanish and to the Philippines?

Well it means a lot, but each one must realize that this is going to be a valuable asset, especially in a globalizing world, every strand, every thread that ties people together is going to be vital and (we had) better utilize and exploit it.

Corruption has been one of your big battles here in this country and your personal…

Advocacy.

That’s right, and as President of SEAPAC, what is your role?

I’m the president of the Southeast Asian Parliamentarians Against Corruption and I sit on the International Board of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption based in Ottawa, Canada.

The first thing that we did was push for the UN Convention Against Corruption and it’s been passed. Our next goal is to have as many countries adopt that convention because that convention contains a body of rules and ethical regulations which if followed, country after country will probably make the world a little less corrupt and many countries a little less poor.

So globally, this is a huge initiative.

Yes, a huge initiative and I think this is the first time ever in history that there was a universal consensus that corruption is a plague on every country’s house.

Now, since that has been your mission throughout your political career here, what do you think has been your greatest achievement in your personal career? “Mr. Education” is what they call you. How do you feel the education system is at this time?

That’s at the heart of an IT society, of an information technology society, and at the heart of a globalizing world because then you must be competitive, not only as a nation but also individually. If you are a lawyer, you had better be competitive, if you are a doctor, you had better be competitive. Therefore, you need the instrument of education and training. That is central to competitiveness.

And how do you feel about the education system here in the Philippines?

We can do much much better. The Philippines was one of the first countries in the Far East, in Southeast Asia, that was able to put together a mass education delivery system – the first public education system was here, and that’s one of the greater legacies of the American colonial rule. It was the first thing that they did. They set up mass education, basic education, primary, then later on, secondary, then later on, universities. That helped for a long time, and educated many of the leaders of this country, in politics, in the clergy, the military, in the professions. But lately, maybe in the past 10 years or so, the standards have been slipping and excellence has been declining largely because we are underinvesting in it: The broadest measure of that decline is in the teacher-student ratio. You measure the excellence of the classroom by how many students one teacher handles and in the Philippines it is almost scandalous. We have one of the highest in Southeast Asia. The official figure is one teacher is to forty-five students, which I do not believe because I go out and see them. It is more like 1 teacher to 60.

Really? That’s an incredible figure.

Indeed. It’s impossible to learn (that way). No matter how good a teacher you are, it’s impossible to teach (like that) especially because our classrooms are 49 square meters and then you pack 60 students like sardines, so it’s impossible.

But why do we have that incredibly high ratio? (That is) because we lack teachers, we lack classrooms, we lack desks, we lack books, and that’s a function of investment. So I go back to investment – that, we have got to solve, and solve quickly.

You’re right because that’s the root…

…for the society, for the information society of a globalizing world. We compete not only domestically among Filipinos but also now with the Spaniards or with the Canadians.

In terms of foreign investment, what incentives do you think the Philippines has to offer the foreign investor, especially those coming from Spain?

By and large, we have highly literate, and highly educated manpower, and that’s still one of our comparable advantages. Secondly, we have this open transparent and very hospitable society. One can live and work in the Philippines no matter where he comes from and feel adjusted almost quickly. He would have no problem communicating with the natives, he could go anywhere and he could get by. So it’s a welcoming culture. There’s still a large pool of natural resources in our country which very few countries in this part of the world probably have anymore. Of course I don’t want to make any comparisons, like Indonesia, they may have more natural resources than we have, but I think that we are better in managing what we have. We are still mismanaging it, but relatively we are better in managing it and preserving it, and utilizing it. And our legal infrastructure is in place. We have a fairly good legal and bureaucratic infrastructure. It’s not the most perfect – there are many weaknesses in the legal system, there are many weaknesses in the administrative and the bureaucratic system but by and large, compared with others, perhaps it’s much better because here things are more predictable. There’s an identifiable channel of recourse if you want to complain or have a grievance.

Do you have a specific message to the readers of ABC as well as the investors working in the Philippines?

There is much that the Philippines can offer to the Spanish investors, especially in energy and power, but in particular renewable energy like solar, biomass, wind, where the Spaniards excel. There is so much opportunity in tourism and hotel development because the Philippines probably has the best beaches and sights undiscovered, which to me is a blessing because (the world is) running out of good sights everywhere. It’s a secret that we’ve been keeping. So there is ample scope and opportunity to move into that area.

There is tremendous opportunity in food processing, because the Philippine cuisine and even taste are more akin to the Spanish taste than others. So even our food that we eat – and like the Spaniards we are also fish eaters – and the potential for food processing is great such as anchovies being processed here instead of Santander or Asturias. The growing of tuna is great here. I don’t know if Atlantic tuna is still there, but I think it’s vanishing. The anchovies are also vanishing, but here we still have plenty. All you need is the processing technique and Spain is very good in processing, excellent in packaging. So those skills you can bring here and marry it with the abundant raw materials.

Infrastructure, yes, that is where we are lacking – the physical infrastructure like roads, bridges, even communication facilities. Again, Spain is leading in that field. In fact, many of the infrastructure companies in Spain, the construction companies, are all over Europe and in airports, they’re buying up Heathrow in England. See how big they are? So they can make the Philippines their base in Asia. The Philippines is at the center of Asia. Manila is not more than 4 hours to Tokyo, to Beijing, to Singapore, to KL (Kuala Lumpur), to Jakarta. It is a hub.

Well we are calling our report “Philippines: Pearl of the Orient”, and now we are thinking of changing it to “Window to the West”

“Window to the West,” and we are the “Window to the Orient!”