Competing Globally

Over the last three years, our country's competitiveness has consistently slipped. We are currently the 77th competitive economy out of 117 countries. This is because of our meager national spending on education, health, research and development (R&D) and basic infrastructure.

The world has changed dramatically. If we are to grow as a nation, we need to prioritize our spending and improve our capacity for innovation. We need to be able to produce a wider array of quality goods and services, accelerate the pace of technological change, and integrate with the global economy.

The Filipino's creativity is our redeeming grace and could be the basis of our national wealth. We must put Filipino talent and skill in the forefront of national competitiveness.

That means we must intensify training in agribusiness, electronics technology, cyberservices (business processes outsourcing, medical transcription, animation) tourism including medical tourism, seafaring, aviation, education, mining and construction, and the creative field (performing arts, architecture, design). These industries are expected to generate more than 4 million jobs from now until 2010, and thus will be the key drivers of our economy.

The private sector must take the lead in training our young and capable workers. Government, meanwhile, should provide a supportive policy environment. To start with, it should review the archaic Labor Code and adopt to changes in the workplace and the nature of work. For instance, we should lift the prohibition against nightwork for women, for there are already thousands of women working in call centers. We should make the labor market more flexible to create more jobs.