|
|
A strategic approach to MICE
Michael Alan Hamlin
By 2015, Singapore is targeting to generate US$7.5 billion from business travel and meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibits (MICE) to and in the city-state. To accomplish that goal, it has embarked on three key initiatives. First, it is fostering close collaboration among government agencies and industry partners to “create, grow, and attract business events” in value-generating sectors like biomedical sciences, ICT and digital media, environment and water technologies, banking and finance, transportation and logistics and tourism.
The Singapore government believes that making Singapore a global center for the exchange of information and research in these sectors will contribute to their development in Singapore. Second, it is investing in the development of events. Its “BE in Singapore ” initiative provides incentives to the MICE industry to attract, bid, and grow strategic business events. Third, Singapore is undertaking a multi-channel communications campaign to build its image as a leading global MICE destination.
Continue reading >>>
|
Posted
8/27/2008 12:45:31 PM | |
|
|
La Salle rolls out web services
Michael Alan Hamlin
Cloud computing debuts in the Philippines
Last week, I had the opportunity to speak with Josemari Calleja, the executive director for communications and corporate services at De La Salle University. Calleja confirmed to me that La Salle has been rolling out Google’s suite of web services to students since January. Called Google Apps, the services include the usual office productivity, e-mail, and calendar software applications.
The rollout began with graduate students, and is expected to be completed by November. It includes all 17 schools throughout the Philippines, and will involve about 100,000 students and faculty. Parents of students and alumni are also eligible to receive the accounts. Calleja told me that undergraduate students will begin receiving their accounts next month. (Disclosure: Google is a client of my firm.)
Continue reading >>>
|
Posted
8/22/2008 11:20:11 AM | |
|
|
Oops! I did it again!
Michael Alan Hamlin
Ideally, governments should LEARN from their mistakes
Earlier this year, veteran journalist Barry Wain writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review criticized the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for a deal with China and Viet Nam that opened the South China Sea to joint seismic study by the three countries’ national oil companies. Wain called the deal “unequal and surreptitious,” and accused the administration of breaking ranks with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in making “breathtaking ” concessions to China.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Philippines agreed to open areas of its continental shelf not claimed by either China or Vietnam, giving legitimacy to China’s “legally spurious ‘historic claim’ to most of the South China Sea.” Wain’s disclosure of the terms of the agreement resulted in outrage in Manila. A principal reason for that outrage was the deal’s covert terms, which provided that the “agreement and all relevant documents, information, data and reports” were to remain confidential during its three-year period of validity, and for another five years following its expiration.
Continue reading >>>
|
Posted
8/13/2008 12:39:20 PM | |
|
|
Arroyo's Trojan Horse
Brett M. Decker
How a MILF peace deal can help Gloria cling to power
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is pushing a curious agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest armed Islamic separatist group in Southeast Asia. Called the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain, the ostensible purpose is to give Philippine Muslims unprecedented autonomy and the right to live under sharia law in an expanded area of the archipelago’s southern islands. The deal is designed to appease Muslims who want to break away from the Philippine nation and unify with other Muslims in the region. The concordat would be dangerous if signed into law, but even its failure gives President Arroyo a vehicle to extend her political life.
On Monday, the Philippine Supreme Court temporarily put the brakes on the deal, which was scheduled to be signed in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday. The Arroyo administration’s openness to relinquishing control of so much territory has stirred up massive protests. Under the agreement, 700 towns, many with sizable Christian populations, would be turned over to Islamic rule. Residents and local leaders were not consulted about the transition, a fact that does not sit well in a country whose population is 93% Christian. A Constitutional amendment would be necessary to free Muslim areas from national governance. Such a national campaign to empower Muslims faces an uphill battle.
Continue reading >>>
|
Posted
8/7/2008 12:29:31 AM | |
|
|
Rule of law & economic success
Michael Alan Hamlin
And creative destruction
A country such as the Philippines that comes in dead last in Asia Pacific in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) and sadly trails its neighbor states in its capacity to foster economic prosperity should think seriously about what it takes to create an environment conducive to rapid and sustainable economic growth. It’s been argued that among the requisites to economic growth is rule of law, meaning that government institutions such as the judiciary should be immune to political pressure, resolute, and honest.
But according to Columbia Law School Professors Curtis J. Milhaupt and Katharina Pistor, that argument is flawed. In a new book, they seek to unsettle the prevailing assumption that a U.S.-style “rule of law” is vital to a successful economy. Milhaupt and Pistor anchor their argument on an analysis of recent high-profile corporate scandals around the world - from Enron in the United States to Yukos in Russia and Livedoor in Japan.
Continue reading >>>
|
Posted
8/6/2008 12:48:15 PM | |
|
|
Iraq's Philippine Precursor
Brett M. Decker
Asymmetric warfare is nothing new.
Politicians endlessly refer to “this new kind of warfare” when discussing insurgent tactics, especially in Iraq. Intrinsic to this definition is the inference that America’s supposedly old traditional military structure is not prepared or capable of meeting the modern challenge. For example, Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s strict adherence to the need for a 16-month timeline is predicated on the assumption that if U.S. armed forces cannot get it right in 16 months, then it is unlikely that victory is achievable and withdrawal is thus necessary. There is no doubt that U.S. and coalition forces in the Middle East and in and around Afghanistan are confronting unconventional tactics. For example, the development and implementation of cheap Improvised Explosive Devices on a wide scale may be a novel way of using a specific weapon. However, little else is new under the hot Middle Eastern sun. It is an age-old practice to try to avoid conventional confrontation and to introduce inventive techniques so that smaller forces can take advantage of the weak spots of much larger, stronger armies. That is the very meaning of asymmetric warfare.
The current prevalence, initial triumphs and escalation of asymmetric warfare do not mean that these tactics are new or that they cannot successfully be put down. The United States has confronted asymmetric threats repeatedly over the course of its history and usually has been victorious. The defeat of the Philippine Insurgency of 1899-1903 is a fitting example. The origin of this conflict, which Filipinos call the Philippine-American War, was the transfer of the Philippines from Spain to the United States after Madrid’s defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898. During America’s war with Spain, Washington promised independence to the Philippines if Filipinos helped U.S. forces eject the European colonial power from the archipelago. After the war, however, Washington reneged on its word and assumed sovereignty of the 5,000 or so Philippine islands in the Treaty of Paris, through which Washington also received other former Spanish possessions such as Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam. The result of this broken promise was a Filipino insurgency to try to kick out the new American occupier.
Continue reading >>>
|
Posted
8/4/2008 11:43:30 PM | |
|
|
Frustration in the Desert
Brett M. Decker
Historical Lessons Abound in Fictional Narrative
Sand is everywhere: in the food, stuck between the teeth, all over the bed sheets, caked to the skin beneath the boxer shorts. The only thing worse than the sand is the sun, which beats down relentlessly, sizzling the skin as if the flesh had been torn off and thrown into a frying pan.
The constant pain and irritation grow into frustration, as one soldier turns to another and snorts in disgust, “The reason we’re here, case you hadn’t realized: Keep the empire’s oil flowing.” The troops were told they were going to the Middle East on a humanitarian mission to keep the peace, but now were bogged down in a hostile occupation with no end in sight.
Continue reading >>>
|
Posted
8/1/2008 11:15:52 PM | |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
