Buy Pinoy is Back in Black!

I acknowledge that I’ve neglected the Buy Pinoy blog over the last four or five weeks. I have no excuses! I could tell you about all the things that have kept me busy over the last month, but I still wouldn’t have a real excuse for not posting new content sooner. I just let other things come first before blogging, treated this blog like a chore, and generally forgot what originally spurred me to begin this blog in the first place—which is really my desire to share how great Pinoy products are, especially to my fellow Pinoys.

I was confronted by this when I received a text message from Boyet, one of the individuals behind OneTama.com, and it hit me then just how much I had forgotten my original intentions for starting this blog. Has this ever happened to you: you experience something so striking that you just have to share it with everyone? Well, that’s exactly how I felt when I started this blog—I had a very ordinary, but striking insight that I wanted to put into reality and share with others.

That insight? It’s really simple: that we don’t have to look far or break our banks to find high-quality, locally-made products; and by doing so, we contribute to our country as a whole.

After all, if we believe in something strongly enough, shouldn’t it be seen in our everyday actions?

Just this Friday, I was giving a talk to a student publication that I used to write for when I was an undergraduate, and I remember telling them how much the social climate had changed since I was an undergraduate. During those years, having t-shirts that had cleverly-designed, nationalistic slogans were unheard (and un-thought) of; the kind of national pride present in pop culture at the moment was then nonexistent.

Should we just let the sense of national pride stay at the level of TV ads and t-shirts and clever slogans and snazzy ad campaigns? If we’re really proud of who we are and what we do shouldn’t that translate into our everyday actions, not just the heroic or exceptional ones? Even actions as mundane as buying things?

So, do watch out for more entries and updates from me in the next months! I promise a new post every week, but I’ll also try for two entries a week, if I can. Watch out too for guest posts from other bloggers!

Why Buy Pinoy, Part 3: Development Beyond GDP and GNP

Development can be seen, it is argued here, as a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.

(Italics mine, from Development as Freedom, by Amartya Sen)

One of the most common reasons that I hear for buying Pinoy products is that it supports local businesses and the local economy. Which is true, but it’s sometimes not a reason compelling enough for me. After all, “supporting local business” and “supporting local economy” sounds great, but what does that really mean? On top of that, I certainly don’t want to support local businesses that take advantage and abuse its laborers; nor do I want my (okay, I’ll say it) patriotic stand to result in just some sort of jump in the GNP or GDP numbers.

After all, GNP and GDP are not the best measure of development. Sure, it measures how much an economy has grown on a macro scale, but does it really show us if there is a positive change in the lives of people? And, to be honest, looking at the numbers on a marcro level doesn’t really show me, doesn’t show us, what kind of impact we make as individuals making choices every time we purchase something at the supermarket, or the mall, or the department store.

For me, what is more compelling is an argument that I’m just starting to understand, from the economist Amartya Sen. (Forgive me for going a bit “academic” here–I’m no economic expert though, so please bear with me!) He wants us to consider that real development is not about GNP or GDP, but about human freedom and quality of life.

It’s important for me to emphasize the word “real” in the quote above. Why?

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Why Buy Pinoy? Part 2: Buying Local, Carbon Emissions, and Climate Change

A rescue worker in Guinsaugon, Southern Leyte. Catastrophic landslides hit the barangay in 2006. Photo from www.flickr.com/photos/remzamora/418662063/. (I believe Rem Zamora is a photojournalist for a major Philippine daily.)

I was planning to put off this entry to a later date, simply because I wanted to do more research first. However, two things spurred me to writing this entry today:

1. Today is EARTH DAY! Happy Earth Day, everyone!
2. The weather. 

It’s supposed to be the middle of the summer in our part of the world, Because we’re a tropical country, Philippine summers are very warm, with very little rainfall, but high humidity.

Today, however, is the second day that it has been raining–and not just summer shower rain, but torrential rain. The quality of the rains of the past two days make me think of July, the middle of the typhoon season. The sky in Metro Manila is completely gray. As I write this, I am in the MRT and the sky’s dimness makes it seem as if it were dusk, though it is just 2pm.

According to PAGASA meteorologists,* this is a highly unusual weather pattern, even worrisome. The present rains, they say, are due to an intertropical convergence zone in the atmosphere–but intertropical convergence zones form only after the warm season.

Yes, folks, the climate has already begun to change.

What does climate change, irregular weather patterns, and the Guinsaugon landslide have to to with buying Philippine-made products, you might ask?  You might be surprised–buying locally-made products have a lot to do with it.

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Why buy Pinoy? How buying locally-made products helps the country, Part 1

 ”Why buy Pinoy?” is both a simple and complex question, with both simple and complex answers.

It’s a simple question because it’s straightforward, direct to the point, and asks a meaningful question. However, depending on the context in which the question is asked, it becomes quite complex.

In some situations, asking the question “Why buy Pinoy?” implies a certain preconceived notion or prejudice about locally-made products. For example, growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s, I was surrounded by so many people who preferred to buy imported (usually Made in USA) products, and would always assert that “Imported products are of better quality than local products. So, why buy local?”The early 1990 PX/Duty Free craze is testament to that mindset. My family would actually troop en masse to Subic and Clark to buy PX goods. American-made Ovaltine, Tang, Planters Cheez Balls, and 100% US cotton bedsheets were part of my childhood.

In the same way, answers to the question, “Why buy Pinoy?” can be both simple and complex. They can be simple because we can point to certain generalizations and patterns–the economic benefits of buying locally-made products, its effects on our economy, on the labor force, on preserving and creating jobs, generating more tax revenues, and creating a vibrant local economy. On the other hand, we can’t deny the effects that globalization has taken, which makes the whole situation of the local economy far more complex. Sure, by buying local products, we support local manufacturing businesses–but don’t importers and distributors of foreign-made goods generate jobs and income as well? Don’t they pay taxes, too?

On top of everything else, I’m not at all close to being qualified to talk about things like the economy, globalization, and things like that. I have to admit that it’s nowhere near my area of expertise. 

At the same time, though, as someone who advocates buying Philippine-made products, the question does need to be asked, and answered. Why do I feel so strongly about buying locally-made products, in the first place? Where does this strong opinion and sentiment come from, on my part?

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