These are heady days for the "Tiger cub" Philippines as Prime Minister Stephen Harper visits

MANILA — What Prime Minister Stephen Harper brings to the Philippines on Friday is his presence.

That counts for a lot in the Philippines. It has been a sleepy hollow since long before Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were pushed from power in 1986 by Corazon Aquino's "People Power" revolution. As a consequence, few foreign leaders have bothered to stop by.

The Philippines only got added to Harper's Asian itinerary — the first by a G8 leader in several years — because Indonesia got fed up waiting to find out the details of the prime minister's plan to visit Jakarta. Nevertheless, Harper's visit to the Philippines, which provides

While most of the rest of Asia took off — led by South Korea, Taiwan and China, followed by the equally export-driven "tiger economies" of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia — the Philippines languished far behind. Its soap opera-like politics, too often populated by movie stars and crooks, has forever been rife with coup rumors, and scandal and corruption of every kind.

But the Philippines is finally waking up and the world is taking notice. Not quite yet a "tiger," the Philippines may now accurately be described as a "tiger cub." Its economy grew by 6.4 per cent in the first quarter of this year.

Even with a global economic slump, Philippine GDP will probably grow by more than five per cent in the fourth quarter, according to the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and others such as Merrill Lynch. Even that perennial weakling, the Philippine peso, has shot up six per cent in value against the Canadian dollar over the past 10 months.

Goldman Sachs and HSBC reckon the country will jump from 43rd place to at least 16th place in the global GDP table by 2050 and to 20th spot in GDP per capita. Incidentally, the same survey predicted that based on GDP, Canada would move up to fifth, eclipsing Britain and France.

While not exactly middle class yet, many Filipinos have already benefitted from the stronger economic numbers. Crowds swarm swank new shopping malls or take their families on brief holidays. Presaging the coming boom and relaxed visa regulations for tourists from countries such as Russia, for the first time in decades half a dozen luxury hotels are being built in a country that has never until now really been on Asia's well beaten tourist track.

The Philippine economy is poised to take off partly based on explosive growth in its service sector, led by offshore call centers and international bookkeeping and auditing operations that take advantage of Asia's only English-speaking population and their American-style education. Its future success will be underpinned by mining exports.

The sudden change in the global outlook for the Philippines partly stems from the fact that for the first time in years the Philippines has a president  — Benigno Aquino III (Noynoy) — who is regarded as untouched by corruption. He follows years of misrule by Joseph Estrada (Erap), who was hounded from office and convicted of "plunder," and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is now awaiting trial on charges of fraud for allegedly fixing elections and of misusing $8 million in lottery funds.

Getting clearer mining rules for foreign investors is an issue that Harper must raise with Aquino. The current investment situation in the mining sector is unstable and uncertain. Canada and Australia are unhappy because of dithering over new regulations that affect major projects in the south of the country. Many Filipinos are unhappy because of environmental concerns and because royalties from mining either don't make it back to where the mines are located, or wind up in the pockets of local governors who still rule what are essentially fiefdoms.

Harper and Aquino will also undoubtedly celebrate the little-known fact that Canada's biggest immigration office overseas is in Manila, not in Beijing or New Delhi. In fact, Canadians might be shocked to learn their embassy here has about 180 Canadian and local employees, and that Philippine Airlines is from the end of this month adding non-stop flights to Toronto to the daily flights it already has to Vancouver.

Canada has a lot to offer the Philippines. It can help upgrade its woeful infrastructure so that it can realize some of the potential that the banks have been talking about. The roads, airports and the power grid are in a terrible mess. Nor has the country been able to fund any mechanisms to prevent or mitigate the widespread flooding that comes with every typhoon.

For the nonce, however, the Philippines will remain overly dependent on remittances from the nearly 11 million Filipinos working abroad. They contribute more than $21 billion a year or nearly 10 per cent to the national economy. In fact, it is the perpetual smiles and strong work ethic of these noble expatriates, the Philippine Economy Army – The Overseas Filipino Workers who are everywhere but especially in the Middle east, that have until now fed the 92 million Filipinos at home.

The Vancouver Sun

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Philippines top 7 for E-Learning Growth- Worldwide

Philippines cited for e-learning growth

The Philippines has been cited as one of the top 10 countries in the world in terms of high growth in "e-learning" revenues in the next few years, according to a global report by US-based market research firm Ambient Insight.

Ambient Insight said in a statement that in Asia alone, the market for learning and training programs supported by electronic technology is expected to reach $11.5 billion by 2016, or more than twice the $5.2 billion in 2011.

The report, titled "The Asia Market for Self-paced e-Learning Products and Services: 2011-2016 Forecast and Analysis," finds that Asia has the highest growth rate for e-learning worldwide at 17.3 percent yearly and the growth in some countries "is nothing short of remarkable."

In terms of growth rate in e-learning, the study places the Philippines at seventh. The country joins Azerbaijan, Thailand, Kenya, Slovakia and India with growth rates of between 30 percent and 35 percent.

The two countries with the highest growth rates in the world are Vietnam and Malaysia, respectively at 44.3 percent and 39.4 percent. Also in the top 10 are Romania and China.

"The vast majority of revenues will be generated from the sales of packaged content, (which) is rising so rapidly in many countries in the region that suppliers are scrambling to meet the demand," said Sam S. Adkins, Ambient Insight's chief research officer.

"Authoring tools will generate the second-highest revenues after packaged content during the forecast period," Adkins said. "The growth rate for cloud-based authoring tools and learning platforms in Asia is a robust 22.7 percent, the highest growth rate of all products. Authoring tools are in high demand as commercial suppliers and internal organizations rush to meet the demand for content."

According to Ambient Insight, the major factors driving growth include the massive content digitization efforts across the school systems "in every country in the region" and the large-scale deployments of tablets in the academic segments, as well as the explosive growth of online higher education enrollments.

Other factors cited are the strong demand for e-learning in the corporate sector in many countries and the strong demand for digital English-language learning products in both the academic and consumer segments across Asia.

In the Philippines, e-learning has been gaining ground in the education and agricultural sectors, with a big push from government efforts.

One group that has been actively promoting and using e-learning is the Philippine e-Learning Society, or Pels, whose members are mainly colleges and universities in both the public and private sectors.

Also, the Department of Agriculture is running an extension program called e-learning for Agriculture and Fisheries with the Agricultural Training Institute as the lead implementing agency.

The program is being carried out with help from other government agencies, state universities and colleges and nongovernment organizations.

Inquirer

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Cris Valdez – a Philippine street kid that becomes a global inspiration

In a picture taken on Oct. 20, 2012. Cris Valdez, known as Kesz, poses with his International Children's Peace Prize trophy he recently won in the Netherlands, during an interview at the compound of the child rights' advocacy group Club 8586 in Cavite City, Cavite province. — AFP

CAVITE, Philippines — Cris Valdez began life unwanted by his parents and was soon scavenging in a Philippine rubbish dump, an unlikely start for a boy now hailed as an inspiration for children around the world.

Valdez, 13, won this year's International Children's Peace Prize for his work as head of a charity organization that educates and hands out gifts to thousands of youngsters in his poverty-plagued hometown.

South African human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu gave Valdez his award at a ceremony in the Netherlands in September, declaring him a "voice for the voiceless" and a "true inspiration".

After returning to the streets of Cavite, a coastal city on the outskirts of Manila, Valdez spoke in a soft voice to AFP about his noble philosophies that emerged from personal devastation and the people who turned his life around. "I help because I see myself in children who roam and live on the streets," Valdez said during one of his weekend community outreach programs.

"Some good-hearted people showed me love and changed my life, and I am just paying it forward."

Valdez, nicknamed "Kesz", was born the third of nine children from a desperately poor couple who lived with hundreds of other squatter families on the fringes of a huge garbage dump in Cavite.

His parents called him "bad luck" because they tried to sell him when he was a baby but failed, according to Harnin Manalaysay, the head of a local youth charity who eventually rescued Valdez. Manalaysay said Valdez was forced to start scavenging in the garbage dump from the age of two.

At ages three and four, Valdez was sleeping anywhere he could, including atop tombs at the city cemetery, because he frequently fled home to escape beatings by his rickshaw-driver father, according to Manalaysay. At an age when children are just learning how to make friends, Valdez was learning to beg and steal.

"I found him sleeping on a curbside covered in flies. He was very dirty and being kicked by passers by," Manalaysay said.

Manalaysay enrolled Valdez, then aged four, in his alternative learning programme for street children, in which volunteer teachers use mobile classrooms on pushcarts to bring classes to the students.

In between lessons, Valdez still scavenged for scraps to help out his family. Then bad luck struck Valdez again when he was five.

Fellow scavengers jostling around a dump truck accidentally shoved him into a pile of burning tyres, badly injuring his arms and back.

"My father was angry when I came home and said I deserved it for being stupid," Valdez recalled.

Valdez said his mother took him to Manalaysay, who paid for his treatment and allowed him to recuperate at the charity worker's shelter for street children, called Club 8586. "She came back (months) later to tell me they did not want him back anymore," Manalaysay said.

Manalaysay, a portly marine engineer whose club has been helping troubled youths for more than 27 years, became his legal guardian. Under his tutelage, Valdez recovered, and his grades improved.

He also began volunteering as a six-year-old to teach other street children about basic hygiene.

When Valdez turned seven, Manalaysay asked him what he wanted as a birthday gift. "I told him I wanted other children to receive what I had: rubber slippers, toys and candies," Valdez said. So Valdez and his guardian spent the day giving various items to street children.

The giving became a yearly tradition and led to the creation of Valdez's own charity, called Championing Community Children.

Valdez's plans for the immediate future are to continue with his charity, while making sure his school work does not suffer from his busy schedule.

Eventually, he wants to work in one of the toughest jobs of all, while expanding his charity work.

"I'm studying hard because I want to be a doctor... I want to help more children, not only in the Philippines, but also in other countries," he said. —

AFP

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