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CALL TO PRODUCTIVITY

WAWD -
Earth, where peace reigns and hatred has no home, earth (Ph included), home of abundance. – Star Trek (Episode 10)

PRODUCTIVITY

Production is what we make; Productivity is what we are.
Everyone has the seed of productivity from which to grow.
Communities can be productive and become better and better.
Communities can be productive and prevail; -- or perish.
Is there a better way?

House Bill 10410, which will repeal "Productivity Incentives Act of 1990", just passed the Lower House: https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/12/03/news/regions/productivity-incentives-bill-approved-by-house/1824499?utm_source=izooto&utm_medium=push_notifications&utm_campaign=news

Dear compatriots,

This is a call to Productivity; more and more and more of it; more and all of it, as much as it takes. There is no better way to prevail and survive in the coming age of the 3rd Millennium!

Kudos and thanks to the House of Representatives for passing House Bill 10410 “seeking to strengthen productivity incentives for enterprises and promote inclusive and sustainable productivity growth.

It’s a good law that points us to the right path, but incentives may not be enough…

It is not enough to survive and overcome another:

  • another 52 years of armed Insurgency gone mad and murderous; not even 52 weeks.
  • not another decade for a rich habitat degraded by creeping Poverty of its people.
  • not another six years for a community that keeps losing wealth to its own Corruption.
  • not another six for the masses that ceded bed, and board, and dignity to Oligarchies.
  • not another boom-bust cycle for a people run dry by its own Complacency.
  • complacency that spawned a vicious cycle of Poverty-Inequality-Insurgency-Criminality.
    *a circular force so strong that it can only be pierced by a surge in national Productivity.

A CITIZENS’ PRODUCTIVITY MOVEMENT!

What it takes:
Individual and communal productivity: closely interconnected moves and interrelated actions; one shapes the other and vice-versa; one feeds and nurtures the other and vice-versa; how do we start this big deal from virtually nothing?

Let’s start with first aid, simple moves that are easy, quick, not too costly to accomplish, with immediate impact;
Next, we do “major surgery”: more complex, elaborate, costly, with long-term permanent impact, as if treating cancer;
Finally, we start “moving mountains”, give our best shots, and everything we got, to induce the birth of a national, continuing, MOVEMENT contaminating everybody with the ‘virus of Productivity’ -- against this, there is no antidote, except complacency and unbelief, the first mountains that must move away.

So here goes -- first aid; major surgery Reforms; Programs to move mountains:

DECONGESTION: SHORTER QUEUES, SHORTER PILA

No more long queues in govt facilities, by self-imposed administrative, management reforms:
* govt banks like LBP, DBP, PVB; AFPSLAIs, and other public SLAIs;
* GSIS, SSS, and other GOCCs that provide public services (already ongoing btw);
* Govt centers that provide public services like cash aid, passporting, etc.;
* Other facilities like Ports, Airports, and public transport terminals.

No more long Pila in private facilities, done by incentives, persuasion, or moral suasion.
*in banks, malls, transport terminals, and service centers; for example, big, prosperous banks have no business tolerating long queues and bottlenecks in serving depositors.

Decongest highly urban centers like EDSA, and the NCR, by better Urban Planning practices, or better still, accelerate the “BALIK-PROBINSYA Program” (as proposed and discussed below):

Nothing wastes our energies and productivity more than idle queueing in long lines – be it for “AYUDA”, or gift packs ala Community Pantry, or “bank cash withdrawals”; the masses think they have no choice, but they actually do, if we put our hearts into it and move together as Community; it is not too hard to manage queue lines, especially when transactions with economic value are involved, like bank cash withdrawals. It’s first aid for us to stop the practice NOW! (it’s starting to happen, in govt and the private sector, like Landbank going digital, spearheading the digital transformation in govt and enterprise.)

PROGRAMS THAT TRIGGER, AND INDUCE, PRODUCTIVITY

A Whole-of-Nation Approach – Public and Private

The Keep the Change Program* (KTC). The “Gleaning Principle” to monetize, mobilize and recycle dormant, hidden, people’s wealth: KTC PROGRAM paper is available on request.
* Dormant fractional change: Php720M annually from the KTC can help fund UBI
* Search for similar dormant peoples’ assets like dormant bank deposits.

REFORMS

(1) Major roadblocks to Productivity and Prosperity
Corruption, Criminality, and the protracted ‘Armed Insurgency’ are the top roadblocks to Productivity; they have stifled and suppressed individual and communal Productivity and the prosperity of the entire Nation. *

“The buck starts here with me”; without “corruptors” there is no corruption.
Corruption Impedes economic growth: (from a commissioned study)
Corruption taxes and hinders entrepreneurship.
It reduces the quality of public infrastructure.
Reduced public trust in government inspires armed conflict and repression of the poor.
Carefully crafted, anti-corruption programs yield important poverty reduction results.

(2) PRODUCTIVITY - A ‘POP’ CULTURE

Restoring and protecting Productivity of People (POP) and Communities:
Stop excessive long queues that waste time and productivity of people**.
Reduce and stop congestion in public areas, offices, banks, service centers, and roads.
Reverse excessive urbanization, congestion, traffic, and man-made bottlenecks**.
Support Anti-red tape in govt and private sector (ARTA);
Productivity/Efficiency Movements, public & private: Managing GOCCs well (ala Temasek of SG).

(3) TAX REFORMS

Towards reasonable, equitable, efficient, affordable tax systems exemplified by TRAIN 1 and 2, and CREATE, signed into law in April 2021:
Progressive, developmental utilization of taxes that recycle our people’s wealth;
Making able taxpayers, willing and eager, to share the costs and fruits of good government;
Productivity comes from a culture and habit of giving and sharing:
Giving to govt and nation through correct taxes is a simple, direct form of a CSR mindset;
Tax consciousness is the instinct of good housekeeping and patriotism;
It is the Godly sharing in the costs of governing community, akin to the giving of tithes;

(4) FINANCIAL REFORMS

Financial reforms that promote Inclusionary Development and Productivity:
Reforms in Agri-Agra, and MSME lending law and practice to improve access;
Banking reforms for more equitable access to bank services and credit for smallholders.
Inclusive digital banking where no one is left behind, unserved or underserved.
Developing a culture of responsible credit consciousness as a personal and social value.

Strong, robust Financial Institutions. Banks and FIs are seen to grow even more when they funnel an overflow of growth to the underserved market peripheries, making the consumers and users of their products and services grow as prosperous as the FIs that serve them**:
-More consumer-oriented “branch banking practices” not just more bank branches;
-Fintech, notably digital banking, will reach the underserved peripheries, not just Fin Centers;
-FIs will have branch-customer-oriented websites that showcase service quality practices;
-FIs honor the Productivity of customers and will not tolerate the practice of long client lines.
-Banks can be community-oriented by disclosing branches’ local deposits to local loans ratio.

(5) IMPACT OF REFORMS

Reforms will mean better cash flow for all:
More taxes for govt; more access to social amelioration, and capital for citizens and enterprise; reforms are inter-connected, correlated by purpose, and with results: more supply, broader, more equitable distribution, and higher velocity of money that will keep the nation healthy, and energized, enough to overcome calamities and realize the true potential of its people.

(6) PRODUCTIVITY AND REFORM PROGRAMS

Productivity Programs:
(a) BALIK-PROBINSYA: BALIK-PROBINSYA (BP White Papers) BP Incentives Program

(b) Universal Basic Income: THE NEW NORMAL; a snapshot summary of what people say of UBI
UBI PROs & CONs; FUNDING UBI D3 a quick scan of our ability to fund a Philippine UBI program;
KTC PROGRAM Keep the Change Program, recycling Peoples’ wealth to help fund UBI.

BP and UBI can start with a govt/legal mandate, and then get caught by all like a virus; a successful BP program supports and can help fund a successful UBI program and a successful UBI program enhances and supports the continuing success of the BP program.

(c) Poverty eradication programs by the private sector, like “ECSOM” and “Smart Cities”;

(7) IMPACT OF PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAMS

Productivity and Reforms Programs will induce the creation of beneficial, sustainable cycles:
The package of Programs will trigger the creation of beneficial, sustainable, replicating cycles that will launch the nation to fulfill its aspirations in an environment of Peace and Productivity:

Reforms = more govt cash = more people support programs
= more available capital = more productivity of people and institutions = more cash
= more capital = more spiraling productivity cycles in the Whole of the Nation.

THE OUTCOMES

What would be the outcomes of successful runs of the proposed Reforms and Productivity Movements? The FF comes from an ongoing Research, Assessment, and Development study:

POP IMPACT (PHP)
(Research findings available on request)

PH THE PROSPEROUS
The Ph community is an old adolescent -- fragile, malleable, teachable, discovering new paths to growth, maturity, resiliency, and prosperity, its God-given strengths and ebullience unseen by the naked eye, unaided by insights; it has been, the envy of Oligarchies, domestic and foreign, corporate and individuals, who can see the rich, poor man of Asia, and know better.
The Ph nation is a conundrum; it is branded one of the least developed, ranking high in global poverty ratings; yet it is potentially the most productive; it had the highest GDP growth rate in ASEAN until the Pandemic disrupted the economic settings.
In its vast territory of mountains, forests, and plains, flows the Mindanao River Basin, one of the longest and largest, that not only sustains its rich, fertile agricultural lands but also feeds the Mindanao Grid with more than 700 installed MWs of hydropower. Amid all this, lie large marshes with massive potential for fisheries development above, and massive natural gas deposits, below.
The seas along its coastlines, one of the longest in the world, and the deep seas within its Exclusive Economic Zone teem with abundant fish that feed its people and the wealthy in HK, Tokyo, and Sg and provide livelihoods to fisher folks, big and small.
On top of all these is the Filipino, its greatest resource, resilient, patient, creative, adventurous, and engaging; they may be called sleeping giants for now; but those that find their way abroad, are collectively giants in their own right -- domestics, caregivers, nurses, doctors, IT/Fintech experts, technicians, professionals, scientists – they are actual favorites among other nationalities in HK, ME, SG, Israel, Europe, the US. It is not difficult to find out why. When “POP” is done, there will be more and better jobs in our backyard; they will then have to compete for their talents and labor.

“WON and POP”. Ph, a rich nation with wealth unseen, suppressed, and deferred until now. “WON” and “POP” will start to uncover this wealth, starting now.

HOW DO WE EXECUTE?

Bob Calida Dec. 25, 2021
The points presented here were compiled from several Position Papers and essays written over the lockdown months of 2020 and 2021; they may have been written in an environment of ease and tranquility but are now submitted with a sense of urgency.

Linked or attached Papers and References: (available on request)
A shotgun wedding 11/20/2020 Reforms Open Letter 7/20/2020 *
Ending Corruption 8/18/2020 * UBI PROs & CONs 9/9/21
BP Whitepaper | BP Incentives Program “BALIK-PROBINSYA”, May 2020
https://opinion.inquirer.net/139275/doing-stimulus-right Doing stimulus right by Cielito Habito