My daddy always told me to avoid discussing religion and politics and in general I hold to that principle pretty tightly. But I am going to dance around the edges a little bit right now and mention a verse from the King James Bible that seems to shape the lives of a lot of people, especially here in the Philippines. Please bear with me, even if you aren’t Christian, because I’m not really trying to open a can of worms … but instead trying to get a “handle” on what it is that continues to make certain people prosper, year after year and century after century while others, who have every single advantage that the prosperous folks do, languish and flounder, dedicating themselves to the principle of “if only” … if only my ship will come in, if only I had been born rich, if only …. (fill in your own banks).
I’m talking of course about 1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrow.
A majority of Americans I have talked to shorten this phrase to “Money is the root of all evil”, and certainly it seems to me as I start my third year here living in the Philippines that a number of Filipinos also seem to have taken it as the whole core of their being. If you read the actual words, it doesn’t say money is the root of evil at all, it says that coveting of money over and above the principles of your faith is wrong, but certainly not that money itself has any inherit good or evil.
By far one of the most common questions or complaints I get from fellow expats … or wanna-be expats is, “there’s no way to make money in the Philippines”, or “If only I had money, I’d move to the Philippines tomorrow.” I can never figure this out. Money is to be made wherever you are, and today there have never been better opportunities. Virtually none of those opportunities have anything to do with where you live in today’s world, only with your mindset. yet many of my fellow Americans seem to hold a belief that it’s ok to have a job and make as much money as you can from it, (while making three times as much for your employer) but to go into business for one’s self and make money for yourself is inherently wrong.
Among my Filipino brethren this seems to be even more the normal way of thinking rather than an exception. Unless it’s something like a misinterpretation of the Biblical passage above, I am at a loss to figure this out. A few examples:
- A dentist that I know does not practice here in the Philippines. I showed here, perhaps thinking to spark a little interests, a web site Bob created for a dentist friend of his. You can see it here. My dentist friend’s reaction? “Oh the prices she charges are terrible, how can she live with that.” Well the prices in question are way, way under what equal work would cost in the US, and there are a real dearth of dentists and other professionals here who seem to even want business from foreigners. Why? I‘m at a loss to know, unless it is a fear of being a success.
- I was chatting one evening with a number of my neighbors. Several are men retired from responsible jobs (one used to be on President Arroyo’s Palace staff). Several others are degreed engineers who aren’t working and doing little to find work. As part of the conversation I mentioned Henry Sy (the founder and CEO of the huge SM business conglomerate), a man with stores from one end of the Philippines to the other, who provides honest jobs for hundreds of thousands of Filipinos here, so they don’t have to leave home, and a man who started it all as a poor, near-illiterate immigrant. No family money, no connections, no ‘silver spoon’, and yet he’s one of the most successful retailers in the world. One would think he would at least be tolerated by most Filipinos, if not revered as an example of “Filipino ingenuity”. Instead, the senior man in the group, the one who used to work on the president’s staff, literally spat out his evaluation. “He’s no good, no good at all, Those stores weren’t built with his own money, he borrowed money to build. Flabbergasted me. A business that hasn’t borrowed money … via bank loans, by selling stock, issuing bonds, etc. is essentially no business at all. Henry Sy and others who borrow money to seize an opportunity are “no good”?
- Some months ago I published an article to illustrate how one local Filipino was making money and investing in real property to leave a legacy for his family, while at the same time providing decent homes at a fair price to working-class Filipinos. This gentleman is now building another apartment project literally around the corner from me, and I have on my “to do” list to meet the man and maybe blog about his new project periodically as it gets built. I asked an older, well respected man in the neighborhood … an educated man, retired from a responsible government job, if he new the apartment entrepreneur, with the thought of perhaps getting introduced. The answer blew me away. “Him? He’s no good, no good at all. He’s a terrible person.” When I asked why, expecting to hear this guy was some sort of drug lord, white slaver or another form of “scalawag” the answer was a complete surprise. “If he was a decent person he wouldn’t be building apartment buildings left and right”!
In my last article I used the term “lack of hope” about the Filipino mentality and several readers disagreed. I concur that was a poor choice of words … but I am at a loss to figure out a better term. I’ve never lived some place where there was more opportunity to fill needs (feed a starving crowd) and at the same time more people unwilling and even contemptuous of taking advantage of the opportunity.
Goodness knows what people think of folks like me who earn money online while living here in the Philippines … we must be a step or two down the food chain from drug dealers and whore meisters. I dunno.
Again, it was never my intention to insult or inflame anyone by starting this out with a Bible quote, but if the aversion and even abhorrence of success I see so often is not scriptural in origin, can someone set me straight? I do know this. It’s an ingrained attitude of many I’ve met that you need to factor in any time you have thoughts about helping family members or others who you think just need a little “boost’ to help them succeed. Better make sure that those you are thinking of helping actually want to succeed before you jump in with an offer.
I’d like to steer those who have read along this far to an excellent post Bob made on his Virtual Earner blog: Deciding to be wealthy is the first step toward becoming wealthy. You absolutely can plant your seed corn and watch it grow here in the Philippines, no matter what you nationality, religion or current bank account balance … but you won’t do it if you feel making money is somehow a sin.
photo credit: Stevie Rocco
Hi Dave – I find your conversations with your neighbors to be fascinating. For me, when they see somebody like this neighbor who has done well by building apartments in the neighborhood, it would be more logical to mimic him, study what he is doing, etc. I guess that this is an example of the "crab mentality" that we often here about in the Philippines.
This was a great article, I enjoyed it a lot, and I am a firm believer that one can indeed grow a nice crop of corn (figuratively, of course) here in the Philippines.
Hi Dave, wow – amazing isn't it? Typical mentality is "if I can't succeed, why should he?" THere are more along those lines …
You try to help for the good of the general, some just won't bite. Their loss. Keep up the good work.
Hi Dave – Two words: Crab Mentality (as Bob mentioned). No one gets out of the pot, and if one tries, the others pull him/her back into the pot. 😉
btw, we do grow corn in Ilocos!
@ Bob, Thnaks for the kind words, Bob. Indeed it that story about the aprtment owner really disappointe dme when I heard it … I expected to hear all sorts of terrible things about all the criminal activites this man had been involved in .. get all the chismis 😉 Instead I just found out how horrible it is to put a roof over peple's heads. As some have already looked at, in my original articles on 'It Can Be Done" I pointed out that the money from these partments makes them self-supporting … one doesn't have to be rich at all to do this … one simply has to want to.
@ Ellen. yep, the crab mentality runs deep, and not just with Filipinos. You should see some of the comments I censored out about Donald Trump and his Subic Bay project. To sume things up, the man id one step below the Anti-Christ becuase he has taken junky old buildings in slum areas (like his "Trumo Towers" and made them liveable … or rescued nakrupt casinos and their out-of-work emplyees by turning them from losersto profit-makers. Seems strange indeed, to me.
@ Paul: Keep growing that corn! So many people of all nationalities keep asking "how can you make money" and yet so much land goes unused … there's money in feeding people as well as the good feeling of knowing you are making somehtingof value, rather than selling junk paper on Wall Street.
Hi again, Dave – Combining a few threads: it looks as if we'll be growing some windmills up in our home town of Pasuquin. Things are in the works to put up a 120MW wind power farm near the old Sapat air force radar station just up the road (~ 15 km) from our house. They're expecting to start work in 2009-2010.
So, we're growing a new crop, making jobs, going green, and progressing.
There's plans on the table for tourism for the province, too. With that, I hope they respect our barangay's NIMBY point of view! 😆
Hi Dave- Very true Dave. As I wrote in my article on Virtual Earner, many people (although they may not realize) are scared of being truly successful. It is simply amazing.
hi john,
the "crab mentality" is the most dreaded term for me, i share your sentiment and am too wondering for the past decades as to why there are so many filipino have this mentality, instead of pushing one to achieve a better outcome, filipinos pull them down, instead of mimicking one's success, pinoy would bad mouth for one's fall , i would not say that this kind of behavior confined only in the philippines as there are many pinoy who is living in other parts of the world with the same mentality.
I remember a few years back, there's one well known pinoy migrated to the states and a few years later he came back home because his "friends" in the states bad mouth about him and his business, until he went bankrupt.
oh well.. i guess it runs in the blood.. lol
my bad.. i should have addressed it to dave and not to john, sorry dave, i have multiple web pages opened at once.
Hi Dave,
My wife and I are investigating various business opportunities in the Philippines. We have to agree with you that there are opportunities there for anyone with the determination to pursue them. I was reading last night that according to the recent Bureau of Statistics census that the number of Koreans coming to the Philippines has finally exceeded the number of Americans. Many Koreans are setting up businesses there. I read about a Korean has set up an organic strawberry plantation in Negros Oriental, the only one in the Philippines. No one ever thought to grow strawberries there before.
One thing I've noticed in the Philippines is that if someone in the family is successful or gets a job as an OFW they are expected to give money to the other family members. So once the other family members are " on the payroll " there's no need to try and find work or set up a little business. The successful one becomes financially drained because they have no funds to re-invest. The ones they helped often will never return the favour. If the successful filipino/filipina doesn't continue sending money they are regarded as greedy monsters. So for many filipinos it boils down to what's the point of working hard because you'll just end up with nothing in the long run.
My wife told me about one exception in her town. The woman started as a teacher and then set up several sideline businesses. Now retired she owns a lot of land and recently built a large American standard luxury home with her own cash. She never helped her family except for her children despite pressures to do so. I think few filipinos cannot resist such pressures and the fruits of their hard work is lost.
Hi Randall Jessup- That strawberry plantation in Negros might be the first one in the Visayas. But, strawberries are widely grown in the Baguio area, and in Bukidnon, Mindanao, and have been for years and years, maybe decades.
@ Randall, indeedas Bob already pointed out, there are several areas noted for strawbee
ry production.. But a great example there too … there's no distrobution network … or certainly a less than satisfactory one.
I've mentoned severla time sbefore our "vegetable ladies", the "Gulay Girls" who come to our house several times aweek. They travel more thna 70km, one way, with vegetables, fruits and specialty meat items and sell essentially only to their "sukis" … regular customers … in other words thye don't go up and down the street "hawking" they just vist their regulars and then go home.
Now I'm happy that they come, but I never see them withut thinking why on earth doesn't somebody local do the same thing? There are anumber of families right here on my street whos have able-bodied, educated people at home but no plan for life except to wait for remittance from a relative in Canda or Saudi or whereever. It mystifies me why folks want to sit and look at opportunity instead of seizing upon it.
That's part of the reason I've been writing this series of articles … I have obne or two more in mind … to try and 'air the laundry' so to speak and perhaps educate myself better … becuase from the outside looking in, it is a mystery to me.
I have to admit I am still new to the culture but it looks like even if people get money there they don't want to keep it. If they don't spend it soon on something that cant be resold then their will be some family emergency and 'honor' will force them to give it to the ones in trouble.
My in laws are a good example of what you are talking about. They are overly religious and when they have anything they seem to give it away. They have 8 hectares and it seems a good portion of their relatives live off them much of the time but with the exception of one of her fathers brothers they never offer to help on the farm. Most of the land is underused and they have dozens of relatives with nothing to do hmmm.
I have at times seen a similar attitude in the US but hat has change in the last couple decades as the religion has changed. Many now see that you need to help yourself before you can afford to help others.
When people talk about that bible verse I often mention the one about those not providing for their family being worse than infidels. ha ha
I will admit I have seen few opportunities for making money in the Philippines but I have heard of a few. Currently my wife and I are trying to buy a piece of land, 1 3/4 hectare with 98 coconut trees on it (actually I plan to put it in mine and my sons name). It will cost around $2000US and we are told will make a minimum of $1000US a year if we harvest the copra ourselves every 2 1/2 months. It is off the road a ways but right on a nice creek and corners her parents land. Now if I could just find and afford 20 more like that.
I forget but isn't there a law that one person can't own more than a certain amount of land there? It really is a shame, I saw acres and acres of land not being used while I was traveling to and around Calamba. I've been told that often the family gets in trouble and cuts the coconut trees to pay bills then it just sits unused, they don't even plant them back.
The other opportunities I am aware of are as you mentioned rental houses especially boarding houses near a school and loaning money as secured loans.
Ibnteresting thoughts, John, thanks. I'm always abig proponent of agriculture. We American somehow have forgotten what made the US the rich country it is … we could feed ourselves and much of the rest of the world. Once you have food figured out then other bventures become possible, but if a country has tocontinuallyborrow just to fed it's people, the outlook is dim.
Producing food isn't a quick or a necessarily very wealthy opportunity but it's still a good one to consider.
Building decent housing is also something that helps the investor, helps the tenants and helps the community as well.
I would avoid money lending like the plague myself, however. Money lending is a really specialized occupation … the boombi's territory in my view and a good way to get yourself 'salvaged" (Filipino slang for getting taken out in the woods and hacked to oieces). Some people thrive on it though.