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"In the current economic climate..."
Michael Alan Hamlin
And other carpetbag marketing trends
Last Saturday, I found myself in Rosario, Batangas where I enjoyed an excellent Filipino lunch and great conversation. One of the other guests present makes a living operating sari-sari stores in Bicol. I asked him if he felt the effects of the economic crisis on his business, which is a baseline monitor of economic well-being for most Filipinos. Initially, his response was that Filipinos in export industries and information technology are experiencing the negative effects of the crisis, with demand drying up and jobs disappearing.
He then thoughtfully gazed into the distance and said, “But we feel it in the sari-sari retail industry, too.” This friendly gentleman, while pouring me another glass of an impressive Shiraz, related to me and others gathered around a small table in a bahay kubo hut the story of one of his regular customers, an attractive couple whose lifestyle is supported in part by siblings working abroad.
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Posted
2/26/2009 11:00:03 AM |
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The Race for Malacanang
Brett M. Decker
Philippine voters are looking for change. But will they get it?
(From today’s Wall Street Journal Asia)
The presidential race is on in the Philippines. Although the election is not until May of next year, the main players have declared their candidacies and jockeying for position is well underway. Much is at stake.
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Posted
2/23/2009 11:40:05 PM |
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Controverting an insurgency
Brett M. Decker
Force and flexibility are a winning combination
Contemporary insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan have generated renewed interest in previous uprisings and what measures were undertaken to subdue them. The most common counter-insurgency case studies tend to consider America’s war in Vietnam, the French campaign in Algeria, and Britain’s handling of the Malayan Emergency. To a large degree, until recently, the U.S. military’s extensive experience in “small wars” has been neglected in academia, an oversight that has applied to the Filipino insurgency against U.S. forces following the defeat of Spain in the war of 1898. Only a small number of scholars specialize in this precursory conflict. One of them is Texas A&M Professor Brian McAllister Linn. In The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899-1902, Mr. Linn provides a concise overview of U.S. military operations in part of that controversy. Although useful for his demonstration about how U.S. forces adapted after interaction with the enemy, it does not suffice as a stand-alone history of the Philippine-American War.
In the first page of the preface, the author specifically limits the scope of the work at hand. He makes clear from the outset that, The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899-1902 “is primarily a military history concerned with U.S. Army operations and policies at the local level. The focus is thus on how American soldiers developed and implemented pacification policies and methods designed to deal with specific conditions in their immediate areas.”[1] In other words, this book is not intended to be a broad overview of the multifaceted aspects of national policy and strategy that are central to the Philippine-American War. It does not delve deeply into the relevant machinations of statecraft that led up to and continued throughout this war. Similarly avoided is lengthy commentary into the international dimension of U.S. activity in Southeast Asia. For insight into why the United States undertook such a costly endeavor and how the decision was made in Washington, the reader must make do with a short nutshell summary in chapter one.
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Posted
2/21/2009 5:40:30 AM |
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The return of Martial Law, and other stories
Brett M. Decker
Michael Alan Hamlin interview with Brett M. Decker
Originally Published on: December 31, 2008
Last week, Global Filipino: The Authorized Biography of Jose de Venecia Jr., Five-Time Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, was officially released in Manila. Three former presidents of the Philippines-Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada-were present at the launch in Ortigas. However, Brett M. Decker, the book’s author, was absent due to a family emergency. In his first public interview on the subject, Brett, a longtime friend, house guest and colleague, discussed his controversial book with this column.
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Posted
2/21/2009 5:34:56 AM |
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Is it as bad as it's going to get?
Michael Alan Hamlin
No, I’m not asking rhetorically if the latest in a long string of corruption scandals allegedly involving First Gentleman Mike Arroyo - the latest centered on collusion to corner and siphon off funds from World Bank-funded infrastructure projects - is as bad as it’s going to get. There’s still plenty of time until national elections in 2010 for worse scandals to emerge in Asia’s second-most corrupt country after Laos (The Philippines is 141 of 180 countries ranked in Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index, with 1 being the least corrupt.).
Nor am I referring to Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr.-controlled San Miguel Corporation’s (SMC) penchant for snapping up government shares of blue chip companies such as Petron and Meralco and entering other strategic industries such as telecommunications and mining. And while we’re on the subject of transparency and good governance, you have to wonder what minority shareholders thought about SMC selling the San Miguel Beer brands and real estate assets to its new, almost wholly-owned beer subsidiary for US$826 million to help fund the newly diversified holding company’s expansion.
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Posted
2/20/2009 2:44:11 PM |
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BPO inflection point
Michael Alan Hamlin
In December last year (“BPO Outlook Positive, But Are We Prepared? ”, December 3, 2008), I wrote that the results of a survey of executives in non-voice business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors were overwhelmingly upbeat on their 2009 prospects despite the increasingly debilitating impact of the global financial crisis. The sense of industry executives participating in the survey was that the crisis could actually stimulate demand for their high-quality but comparably low-cost services.
Since then, millions of jobs have been lost in both developed and developing economies - almost 600,000 last month alone in the United States as unemployment rose to 7.6%. The U.S. Senate began debating a massive so-called stimulus package this week that in whatever form it eventually takes will cost close to a staggering US$1 billion. Meanwhile, government is continuing to close banks - nine have already been shuttered this year. The $700 billion the US government has already poured into insolvent banks through its Troubled Asset Relief Program has failed to get credit flowing again from spooked banks worried about further losses and maintaining capital ratios. (Read a summary of the program here.)
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Posted
2/12/2009 1:40:23 PM |
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"Tuloy ang Buhay!"
Michael Alan Hamlin
My title can be considered a heartfelt greeting or an ominous warning. It’s also the second half of a road safety campaign, “Ligtas na Paglalakbay, Tuloy ang Buhay,” soon to be launched by the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC). Road safety campaigns come and go, and I’m not sure anyone knows if they have any measurable or significant impact on road safety. But the “Ligtas na Paglalakbay, Tuloy ang Buhay” campaign is unique among road safety campaigns in a number of ways.
First, its creators are not agency professionals - at least not yet - and are not marketing managers with the DOTC or highly paid consultants. Rather, they are advertising and marketing management students at De La Salle University-Manila. Second, the campaign wasn’t commissioned, and there were no agency pitches for the account. The campaign was developed as part of an annual inter-university competition.
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Posted
2/8/2009 12:44:25 PM |
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