First World Philippines

In the 1960s, the Philippines was the 2nd richest country in Asia (next only to Japan). It was on its way to being a WORLD SUPERPOWER! Imagine that! But where do we stand now? No thanks to Marcos, we are lagging behind our neighbors in Southeast Asia. We were almost there...

The weird thing is I've been reading a lot of researches done by various experts and almost every one of them is saying the same thing...in 2020, the Philippines would be a 1st world country. Whadda?!? Is this true? It has to be a joke, right? I mean look at the Philippines now: food crisis, graft & corruption, GAS PRICE and all!?! They've all probably miscalculated somewhere...

From what I've read on articles, the Philippine economy is the fastest growing in SEA and is comparative to that of India. And guess what? We're not a 3rd world country anymore. They categorize our country as a Newly Industrialized Country...yeah, whatever that means.

PriceWaterHouseCoopers estimated that by 2020, Metro Manila would be one of the richest cities in the world; 30th richest city to be exact. By 2020, Metro Manila would be richer than Sidney, Barcelona and Singapore! Whoah! Metro Manila will be the richest SE Asian city by 2020, richer than Jakarta(33rd), Singapore (40th), Bangkok (46th) and Ho Chi Min (78th). If that's really going to happen, Manila would belong in to a league with Miami, Toronto, Moscow, Madrid & Seattle. Sweet!

Foreign Direct Investment cited three Philippine cities as members of the Top Asian Cities of the Future. Quezon City, Cebu City and Davao City made the list. The magazine also said that Quezon city has the 5th best economic potential and 3rd most cost effective city. Cebu was recognized as the 4th most cost effective city while Davao was cited to have 5th best human resources. Bravo!

And lastly, the Philippines is among the NEXT ELEVEN by Goldman Sachs. The firm previously announced that Brazil, Russia, India & China (collectively known as BRIC), would be the future superpowers of the world. Then just a year after, they released their thesis on the Next Eleven saying that these countries have the highest potential of having the world's largest economy next to the BRIC. By 2025, Goldman Sachs estimated the Philippines to have the 19th largest economy in the world!
Wow! Well, I'm no expert on economics but these are three independent studies which all point to one thing: economist around the world are on crack. Kidding! They all agree that the Philippines has a really good potential of making it first world. Let's keep our fingers corssed 'til 2020!!!!

By Joe with 15 comments

Olympic Disaster

Ohhh...tsk tsk tsk. The pain on this man's face is weakening. Hope he's fine by now.

By Joe with 4 comments

Deutsche Zunge

Guten Tag! Ich Bin Jowell und ich lerne Deutsches zu sprechen. Lolz. That's my desperate attempt to speak German. If there are German readers out there please correct my first sentence if it needs to be corrected. Bitte... Hahaha. Most people I know, when given the chance to learn a foreign language, prefer to learn either French, Japanese and some Korean (I blame the sudden popularity of Koreanovelas here in the country). But no one that I know of, wants to learn German. I DO! I so do.

That's why I signed up for an online German Class early this month and my German class started last Monday. I am having a blast! It is hard but I'm getting better. I'm just learning the basics right now like pronunciation of the letters, introduction, expressions, family names, etc. They give me tests after every lessons and it is helping me a lot. I initially wanted to study the language by reading a book but then I wouldn't be able to learn how to pronounce the words, right? So I opted to look for an online class instead. The thing I like most is the fact that they would tech you to pronounce the words correctly! And gawd, is it hard to pronounce the German "R"! Hahaha... you kinda have to roll your tongue to produce the sound but I'm really having a hard time doing so.

I try to speak German in the house but my sisters give me weird looks when I do. Hehehe...One of these days after my German class I'll try to write an all-German entry just to practice. But that would not happen until 3 months form now. Hehehe...So until then, tschüss.

By Joe with 4 comments