Left behind in ASEAN

"We never overtook you," my Thai friend once told me, when I told her how far the Philippines has been left behind by Thailand, Malaysia and perhaps even Vietnam.

- BOO CHANCO

"Your neighbors did not overtake you," she insisted.

"Your leaders held you back." That meme circulating on social media attributed to Gideon Lasco captures the essence of the Philippine tragedy. No one can feel sadder about this horrible state of Philippine affairs than those in my generation. Back in 1969, I was in a delegation organized by the UP Student Council to visit universities. Truth be told, we were way ahead of all the ASEAN countries we visited. Never were we so proud to be Filipinos then.

Then in the early 80s, I joined an official delegation from the Ministry of Energy for a conference in Kuala Lumpur. I was so shocked that KL had overtaken Metro Manila in terms of development. The same was true of Singapore. What happened? They simply left us behind. The decade of martial law clearly caused a terrible decline in our country's economic development.

Our public infrastructure remained third world compared to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

The difference? Singapore had Lee Kuan Yew, Malaysia had Mahathir and we had Ferdinand Marcos. The problem is, even after the dictatorship ended, the succeeding Philippine presidents, except FVR, did nothing much to catch up. So, here we are, where we are. And at the rate our politicians are robbing the country blind, our future generations will be the most pitiable in the region.

What happened? We kept electing bad leaders who neglected basics like building necessary modern infrastructure. What little they built is substandard because corruption reduced the amount needed to complete infrastructure to world-class quality.