Mining and tourism are part of the sunshine business that the Philippines should look into. We have to wake up that fishing and agriculture while basic and needed cannot sustain our country towards industrialisation. While outsourcing continues to bless the Philippines with a generated income of about 12-13 billion dollars and rising to 100 billion dollars by 2020 (according to estimates), we cannot rely on putting all our economic hopes in one basket alone. In fact this is the reason why we have lagged behind so much in Asia. We have placed our hopes on our OFWs for a long time since the 80s and 90s but their 18 billion dollars of yearly contribution mostly goes to consumption and a few on investments.

Consumption, in economics is minus, while it is directed towards the Philippines, eventually this consumption is not retained because it does not multiply. Investments on the other hand multiply because it is like sowing a seed to a fertile ground. Once the investment works, this will prosper. Investors are godly people, in the sense that they have great faith that they will see their seed money invested in their employees, invested in their markets and invested in their area to reach such fruitfulness that they will eventually be able to recover all the money they threw into that business.

Mining for example is capital intensive, you need to rent or buy your equipment so that you can get the gold or nickel found buried deep beneath the earth. After that you need to hire talented people to pinpoint exactly where the nickel is and then bring in the miners and the equipment to get the metal. Next, you have to process the metal and then you have to market it outside. All these stages are capital intensive. This is a reason why only few businessmen with a good sense will go for the gold in areas where there is low security.

Now when you set these mines on fire and target the miners and the businessmen, what kind of mentality do you have? What kind of cause are you fighting for? Business or entrepreneurship is the only engine that could resurrect the Philippines back on track towards full industrialisation. Without entrepreneurs in the agriculture, fish, food, garments, mining, outsourcing, retail and science fields, there would be no jobs and we are reduced back to the Stone Age! You need the market and you need money to govern and make a living. These attacks of the rebels are not only dastardly acts of cowards but appalling that no local politicians and no local police and armed forces have been able to stop them.

What happened to their intelligence? We must sound the alarm and everyone should be proactive citizens to guard not only our own lives and families but also willing to die and guard our business establishments because these created money that is infused eventually to our government. Real nationalism starts when we think of our country as one whole loaf of bread instead of seeing it as fragments of tribes. Now a loaf of bread is made up of millions of fragments of milled flour. Filipinos now count more than 80 million from Luzon to Mindanao, we are one! We need business to survive! If there are no businesses, there will be no jobs. Which kind of situation would you rather be---jobless, without money and worthwhile living and be a slave of rebels or get a job, join the family of humans, integrate to the society and find your true dreams?

There is a false sense of security among bandits, their little bands may create a family circle for them but unless their vision will be changed towards a higher cause and a better way of living, these will die hopeless.

Rebellion will never bring the real change. The kind of real revolution that we all aspire for can be fought without the need for guns and intimidation. Just as Bro. Eddie Villanueva’s life have demonstrated to all rebels, from Joma Sison to the least of them, real courage and the real vision of change can be accomplished much more through the cross than through the use of guns. This gospel that we preach is not empty; it is not the gospel of Mao Tse Tong nor of Stalin that can change the world. It will always be the gospel of Jesus Christ from which all true freedom and democracy came that will outlive us all. Because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!

From where I live in Bonn, Germany, I have witnessed the courage, the hard work of the Germans and I could only say that a society that is orderly will also bring peace and prosperity. There could be no other way for real industrialization to occur because we have already witnessed that a socialist state cannot exist without the corruption that will actually engulf it. The real foundation of the German economic miracle apart from hard work and unity is their resolve and vision to do things right, not because it is convenient or political but because it is right. Recently, we moved to a new apartment and because we were renting it from an old and kind woman, we asked if the rental contract can actually be inflated to 100 euro more than what we agreed but we will pay only what is written in the contract.

This was to actually estimate the electricity and water bill that would come and so that we could be granted an added subsidy from our scholarship. But the old and kind woman said that the contract as stated should be honoured regardless of other reasons. We were stunned. In our mind, we think like most Filipinos do, we can do a palusot!  Finally we thank her for being so kind and in fact the place we rented was big enough and good enough for us. But we know that almost every German that lives here knows what a contract is and a contract remains as it is once agreed and signed.

They honour their spoken and written words so much so that when they also speak and do things, we don’t only see validity but a powerful impact. I believe in a clean and green environment but not to the point of worshipping the environment; I will always favour an economic endeavour while at the same time trying to minimise and environmental disaster. The least thing that any responsible business man would do nowadays is to actually destroy the environment. Every businessman today is different from those who mined the earth and logged trees 40 years ago or 50 years ago because they are aware of the green movement, much more, they are also educated of the past disasters that have happened.

This is why we now have an environment compliance certificate and their consultants are not fools who do not know that their basic ecosystem supports their business. This is an example of what Bob Jones have prophesied years ago that we should watch for and pray that it will not happen again, the green movement could turn ballistic or the NPAs could jump on the green causes and bring the ballistics!

Our sure word of prophecy is this, “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever” (Isaiah 32:17) and our God is not “a God of disorder but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Let us all cultivate and do things that tend to peace and let us pray for all our businessmen that they will not be discouraged of what happened and that our military and police officers will become more watchful to protect and serve the nation’s vulnerable citizens and treasuries.