"Poverty NOT corruption is the Philippines' number one problem." says
Rendell Tiongson, one of the country's twelve Most Influential People in Personal Finance by Moneysense. "But it sounds little ironic because an average Pinoy changes mobile phone every 8 - 12 months and four of the world's biggest malls in the world are in the Philippines! We shop like we have that first world taste of consumerism but we forget we are a third world country!" He continues.
I will continue to share with you the "groundbreaking" and "hair-raising realities" about the Philippines when it comes to personal finance issues as told by Rendell. And I hope this is read by every Filipinos out there. We need to do something!
* Among Asian countries, SADLY the
Philippines has the lowest savings rate which is only 16%! Hong Kong & China are 50%, India, Malaysia & Thailand are within these range 29% - 38%. Vietnam which has almost the same economy as the Philippines is 27%. Based on our low savings rate, our country is in trouble!
* Only
ONE out of ten Pinoys prepare for retirement security. Not so much of us really care what is going to happen when we are old and weak. The saying "Bahala na" system is really getting into the mindset of many.
* MOST of our bright fellow countrymen are leaving the country. Rendell shares every time he speaks in every school and university, either a public school or a private owned same thing. He asks about who will stay and who will leave the country to work abroad.
Ninety percent raises their hand to leave the country to work abroad and ten percent who did not raise their hands are BASICALLY those who are not listening to his questions that is why they did not raise their hands.
* Of the ninety (90) million Pinoys, thirty - six (36) million only have bank accounts which is roughly 2/3 of the total population.
Twenty-three million (23) have balances below Php 5,000. But we have so many cash flowing in the banks - 5 trillion in banks!
*
Fifty percent (50) % of Filipino families do not own their houses. Though our SSS, GSIS and PAG - IBIG housing loans and projects have been very active (appears) to be for developing housing project initiatives.
Rendell spoke in front of aspiring entrepreneurs and members of the New Media or the bloggers. He was one of the speakers (other one was Carlo Ople ) in a free symposium
"Towards an Enterprising Philippine Society: Entrepreneurship Advocacy and Business Development through Social Networking" last March 3rd at UP Institute for Small-Scale Industries Building, UP Diliman, Quezon City.This discussion aims to share to everyone that "one of the best things one can do for his country is to start his own income-generating, job creating business."
The Philippines is No. 1 in Facebook and No. 9 in Twitter penetration. Good news for local Filipino entrepreneurs because a good part of that audience is Filipino. We need to take advantage of our fellow countrymen to let our products, services and whatever form of business we have to use social networking sites in a good way! Anyone who has a business should hop on the social media networking bandwagon NOW!
The photo above by the way is one of the slides in Rendell's presentation.
