Think about it
Another view of Chinese dominance
By Jun Velasco
“The company of just and upright men is better than wealth and a real estate,” Euripides.
YOU should have read “Get Real” columnist Winnie Monsod’s recent piece on the ethnic Chinese dominating the Philippine economy. We sometimes mistake dominance for arrogance in light of our Big Neighbor’s hardheadedness on the Scarborough standoff.
Of course, Ate Winnie was munching another facet of Chinese dominance – business – as she tried to express her awe of the singkit-eyed leadership in the Philippine economy which lists 15 Filipino billionaires (in US dollars, that is), who are mostly Chinese or of Chinese descent.
This select circle of billionaires controls 60 percent of the local economy, according to statistics culled by Ms. Monsod, a respected journalist. Nine of these Chinese billionaires (they are in fact ethnic full blooded Chinese) include Henry Sy, Lucio Tan, John Gokongwei, Andrew Tan, George Ty, Robert Coyuito, Tony Tan Caktiong, Lucio Co and our former Manila Bulletin boss Emilio Yap.
Another 3 of the 15 are Dave Consunji, Bobby Ongpin and Danding Cojuangco. The non-Chinese billionaires are Ricky Razon, Jaime Zobel and Inigo Zobel, all Spanish mestizos.
A character trait they most have is they are self-made, meaning, they came from almost nothing, and only a few made their billions from inherited wealth.
How did they do it – climb the acme or zenith of business “excellence?” Note that we put quotes on excellence because many of them got to their niche thru unorthodox or corrupt means.
But there are those, says Winnie, who made it thru sheer hard work and kept their noses clean. She praises to high heavens Dave Consunji. The rest? Ate Winnie attributes their “successes” thru hard work combined with political and/or financial hanky-panky, hard work with shameless labor exploitation, hard work plus getting rich by hook or by crook, or by just sitting back and not rocking the boat on inherited wealth.
This subject interests Dagupenos because our two top officials are Chinese or, at least, of Chinese descent. We are not saying that have the makings of future billionaires, but why not? What probably makes them better than their national counterparts is their leadership in public service or politics which we know – with a fading hope – they are adept at handling to strike a happy balance between nobility and greed.
Let’s hope they are doing it for the public interest.
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In the neighborhood, hardly a day passes without a report or two of a case or cases of burglary or theft or robbery on unwary households.
Despite claims to the contrary, poverty and all its ugly faces have worsened a lot. Criminality has graphically increased to horrific levels. Law violators have become a common place everywhere in our luckless land.
What to do? Since we can’t be on the lookout always and the local police are as good or as bad as we know them to be, thoughts of being armed literally can’t be discounted.
We are restating this with the installation of new General Sonny Verzosa as provincial police director and the awarding to Col. Bong Caramat as head of the top station nationwide. There is hope in the premises, but we expect more fast action on many cases, which are still legion.
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NOTES: It’s our fault to find our last week’s column littered with typos. Even the word “mien” became “mine.” When we reviewed our copy, what we emailed was the first draft. Sorry. We’ll be more careful next time.
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