Interview at Bloomberg TV Philippines

This morning, I was in a very short, live, one on one studio interview by host Quintin Pastrana at Bloomberg TV Philippines. Bloomberg is available only for Cignal cable subscribers.

A friend, Reuel Hermoso, was able to watch it and posted a photo in fb with a note, “Watching Noy sock it to government on Bloomberg PH TV.” Thanks Reuel.

I know, I know, I'm not a good public speaker or telegenic on tv, that is why I persist on writing. Anyway, how did I get there, well, segment host Quintin Pastrana said he found my article last week interesting, so he asked for an interview. It was Bloomberg staff Skipp Victor Macadagdag who invited me by email.

I agreed to the interview partly because I was also curious how Bloomberg studio looks like inside. :-). Not big but lots of lights and cameras. 

With just 3-4 mins interview, I delivered my main message in the 1st minute -- as people get more access to the web and more info, they become more impatient with government corruption, taxes, permits and bureaucracies. Government should cut those taxes and bureaucracies.

A friend suggested that with high corruption in PH government, "that could be the reason they want our internet to remain in Jurassic Park."

Actually if you check Table 1 of my article, you will see that the PH has the fastest expansion in internet access in the ASEAN and the rest of East Asia from 2010-2014. Coincidence, the PH also has the biggest improvement in global ranking in the ASEAN, reduction in corruption perception, from 85th to 134th, Table 2.

Thanks for the invite, Bloomberg PH.

------------

See also: 
Business Bureaucracy 10, WB's Doing Business 2016 Report, October 29, 2015 
Business taxes, Makati vs. Taguig, November 01, 2015

BWorld 21, More internet use means lesser corruption?

* This is my article in BusinessWorld Opinion last October 28, 2015.

Many Filipinos and Asians now are getting more vocal about their frustrations regarding government (inefficiencies, wastes, corruption, plunder, etc.), corporate monopolies and duopolies, politicians and/or political parties, and so on. One of the explanations is that people have more information and have increased access to the Internet and events happening in their country and abroad.

Table 1. Mobile phone subscribers and internet users in East Asia, per 100 population 

Source: ADB, Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2015.

The column on multiple is not part of the ADB report, it is only added in this paper.

More affordable laptops, tablets, and mobile phones plus greater access to the Internet, are big contributors to this.

In the past, news about a political scandal or a murder can take days or even weeks to be disseminated to the rest of the country. But now, these events can be broadcast within minutes and hours. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms have helped transformed ordinary citizens into spontaneous reporters of important community events and stories and national issues.

For this piece, I wish to test this hypothesis: “Increased publicly available information, broader access to the Internet, result in lesser government corruption.”

This is not an exhaustive academic paper but another short attempt at explaining what contributes to greater or lesser wastes and corruption in governments, in the Philippines and other Asian countries.

Two sets of data will be used: Internet use and mobile phone subscription data from the Asian Development Bank and corruption perception index by the Transparency International (TI). So the data set is limited and hence, its conclusive function is also limited and hence, may be inaccurate for some countries. Nonetheless, the numbers should give readers more ideas by which they make their own conclusions.

In the table below, note the multiple -- meaning the number of times the figure in 2014 have expanded over the same figures in 2010 or 2000. This is a good indicator for the people’s greater access to information.

From the data shown, if the aforementioned hypothesis is true, the following countries should experience reduction in corruption in 2014 compared to 2010, at least in corruption perception: Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos.

Let us now check TI’s data for Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Brunei is not included in the report.

Table 2. Transparency International (TI) corruption perception index in the ASEAN

Source: Transparency International,

http://www.transparency.org/cpi2010/results

http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results

The following can be gleaned from the above table:

• Significant improvement in global rank and score in just four years by the Philippines (134th to 85th);

• Mild improvement in global rank by Malaysia (56th to 50th) and Laos (154th to 145th);

• Decline in global rank for Singapore (1st to 7th) and Thailand (78th to 85th);

• Eight of the nine ASEAN countries have experienced improvement in scores, which is an indicator of overall decline in corruption perceptions. The reason why many of them have not improved significantly in global ranking is because other countries have also improved their scores;

• Overall, there is reduction in corruption perception in ASEAN countries. Singapore might have slipped in global ranking and score, but it remains in the top 10.

The hypothesis seems to be confirmed by the above data except in Thailand, which remains under a military junta and dictatorship since 2013 or 2014 with no electoral and popular mandate, nor plans to hold any election in the near future. Corruption perceptions therefore, declines overall.

As people become more empowered with more information, they become more demanding and more politically impatient. People want quicker changes in the socioeconomic conditions of the country. And muted in various political and economic analysis, is the desire by many people to have less government -- less regulations and taxation, less permits and bureaucracies.

More information means people can manage their own lives, their own households and communities better. More information is improvement in people’s welfare itself.

Ignorance partly due to inefficient public education system can be compensated by the people having access to the Web, where people can download and read almost any type of information and skills upgrading they want.

The people’s impatience with government inefficiencies, wastes, and corruption should be a signal for government leaders and officials to reduce and shrink their intervention and assault on the people’s pockets and free will.

So long as people do not resort to violence and deception to expand their income and wealth, there is little or no justification for governments to keep their high degree of regulations and taxation, permits, and bureaucracies.

Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the head of Manila-based Minimal Government Thinkers, Inc., and a Fellow of Kuala Lumpur-based South East Asia Network for Development (SEANET).
-----------
See also:BWorld 17, More on the Philippine electricity market, August 30, 2015 
BWorld 18, Non-tariff barriers in the ASEAN, September 12, 2015 
BWorld 19, Taxation and regulations in PH mining industry, September 24, 2015 
BWorld 20, DOE Circular to raise electricity prices, October 25, 2015

Telecom oligopoly 2: Slow internet in the Philippines

Where there is lack of competition, there is generally lousy service and/or expensive prices. A monopoly (single producer) or oligopoly (few producers) have little incentive to really improve their service or bring down prices. Consumers have little or no option anyway but buy from them, so why spend big money to innovate hard?

There's a good article by a friend, Harry Santos, in his blog today, Why is the Internet Slow in the Philippines. I went to his primary data source, netindex.com and here is the ranking of 170 countries covered as of April 11, 2011. Click on the picture to get a large image.

South Korea has the fastest internet connection all over the world with a whooping 36.64 Mbps. It is followed by Sweden, Lithuania, Aland Islands, Romania, Latvia, Netherlands and so on.

Among other Asian countries, here are their ranks and internet speed, in Mbps:

16. Singapore, 16.48; 17. Japan, 15.94; 23. Taiwan, 13.58;
45. Vietnam, 7.99; 48. Macau, 7.60; 65. Thailand, 4.97;
72. Mongolia, 4.60; 74. China, 4.38; 93. Malaysia, 3.00;
95. Brunei, 2.96; 124. Nepal, 1.98; 125. Philippines, 1.98
129. Cambodia, 1.83; 137. Pakistan, 1.54; 139. India, 1.53;
144. Indonesia, 1.41; 150. Sri Lanka, 1.28, 153. Afghanistan, 1.17;
156. Laos, 1.07; 164. Bangladesh, 0.78.

So one will naturally ask, Why are internet speed in S. Korea, Singapore and Japan, much faster than in the Philippines? Aren't we supposed to have fast internet connection because we are gunning to be no. 1 worldwide in business process outsourcing (BPO) business?

Harry said that S. Korea has 29 competing internet service providers (as of 2002) fiercely competing with each other. The Philippines has only 6 major players, 3 of which are owned by the Manny Pangilinan group -- Smart, PLDT and now SUN. See my related article, Telecom oligopoly 1: Smart takeover of Sun.

I've been suspecting that Pangilinan and his companies are now the new cronies of the past and present administration. Our economy is structurally allergic to fierce competition due to the 1987 Philippine Constitution that disallows the entry of foreign investments and players in many sectors of the economy, and the legislative franchising system for utilities and media. Then add the strong protectionist lobby by various local vested interests, from business groups to NGOs and media, business cronyism is not difficult to happen.

For NGOs, other civil society groups and academic institutions that seek corporate funding for many of their activities, be wary when those corporate interests that thrive on cronyism will be asking for certain "favors" from you later on.

Related article will be UN bureaucracies -- too many, part 2, it's about the plan of some bureaucrats and bureaucracies at the UN to regulate the internet.