The country of the Philippine islands has a long history of being colonized by many different countries. This has caused the Filipino people to receive a colonial mentality. This means that Filipinos are inclined to buying branded products. So ask yourself what you like better, sneakers or cloud 9, Oreos or bingo, pop cola or coke. But does this have an effect on the economical atmosphere of the Philippines?
The answer is yes, perhaps not in a direct way but still has a very big impact on the economy of the Philippines. First buying products from foreign companies would caused that money to leave the country. This is shown through the economic cycle of a country. To gain this income one must be “employed” and have a contribution to the “production” of goods of their country. Now that the person has gained the income she or he may use it to consume products. When one buys a product made in the Philippines that money would return to economic flow of the Philippines. The money that the person used maybe used by the company of the product to employ more people or to develop their business more. But if one buys an imported product the money that was used would be used by the foreign company and that money would no longer be in the countries economic flow. Which would lessen the money supply in our country.
Another effect of colonial mentality is weak competition in the business sector. Weak competition is caused by colonial mentality because since Filipinos are inclined to imported products rather then locally made ones people in the Philippine would be discouraged to set up their companies against big foreign companies. Weak competition would lead to inflation of prices, since these foreign companies know that they are the only ones selling this certain product they would increase the prices because of supply and demand. Which states the lower the supply the higher the price and the higher the demand the higher price. If we put this two factors in the Philippines would be easy to take advantage of. The people are demanding for imported products which would increase prices and they don’t have and other companies making the same product causing low supply which increases price to.
To solve this problem a very obvious solution is to set up companies to increase competition which would force the foreign companies to lessen their prices. But how may students like us help our country to avoid this problem? Because we just cannot set up a company. As students we may choose to buy locally made products rather then imported ones. This would also be a good thing since that locally made ones are cheaper and as students we don’t have that much money.
Today there are different companies that are actually able to compete with these foreign companies one of which is Jollibee. Studies have shown that Jollibee is making more money then Mc Donald’s here in the Philippines which proves that it is possible to compete with these companies. There is also bench, penshoppe and kamiseta.
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Colonial mentality will always be present because too many Filipinos have no more faith in their own country. What these people do not realize is that importing products costs too much as well.
As students, we can do our part by simply buying local products. Even something as simple as eating in Jollibee instead of McDonald's can leave a big impact on our local economy.
It's sad that there is a McDonald's branch near our school, yet there is no Jollibee branch nearby.
Buying local products is really the best way for us students to help the economy. However, what if the competition between the quality of the foreign and local brand has a great difference? Like Chocnut and Hershey's.. Hershey's wonderful taste exceeds Chocnut's by a thousand times(for me). That's why I choose to buy the foreign choice.
So what I'm saying is, if people were to set up a local business to compete with goods of foreign companies, they should make sure that the quality would not lose from that of the imported ones. So that Filipinos would not lose faith to our own goods, we would buy these local things, the business won't close, there wouldn't be weak competition, and prices won't go up. This would greatly help, not only students, but also citizens in general, to promote buying local products.
But I hope that it doesn't get too promoted to the extent that no one would buy imported goods anymore because it may lead the local business to dominate the market and they're the ones going to increase their price.
I think that colonial mentality will continue to exist even in the future, because we, Filipinos are never satisfied with the products that our own country produces. We often think that if we buy something which was made abroad or which was imported, we feel that we are in a much more higher class or status compared to the other people who can't afford to buy one.
If only the Philippines can keep up with the global competition, then I think that our colonial mentality with eventually decrease. Filipinos will now have a stand to purchase their own products because they know that they are competing with the manufacturing giants like China, and the United States.
Colonial Mentality, I believe, is one of the major factors why WE Filipinos are slowly developing,compared to most Asian countries. WE FILIPINOS should THINK, SPEAK and ACT for our country. If we don't...who will?
By the way,Jollibee is at the corner of Vito Cruz in front of Starbucks,I believe.
@ Pilosopo Tasyo (Sir James Co)
Yeah, there is a Jollibee branch there. But it might be too far for some students; they might not make it to their next class if they eat there.
firstly, you can't remove colonial mentality especially in a country whose native products lack in quality.second, you also can't blame the people for not buying or patronizing local products. lastly, practice what you preach.
Colonial Mentality started ages ago when the Spaniards invaded us. We Filipinos want have a foreign products because we continually think of them as good quality and famous to use them around.
It is a fact that colonial mentality affect modern economics. We should admit that most of us have a lot of desires when it comes to imported goods. When we dont support our own products, we dont support modern economics. Local products shoould be promoted more. Plus. there should be an incentive. betetr offers should be given to local products in terms of publicity and rent fees.
I agree that some of the Philippine Corporations are able to compete in the global and local market. Colonial mentality though is something the people choose. They are exposed to it and favor imported products more. If we want to remove this mentality, then everyone will have to choose to support their own country's products. Supporting foreign products is a personal decision made by the consumers.
I agree, its very possible for our own brands to compete with foreign products. That's what we should aim for.
We are Filipinos! But we don't buy our products. We think that the other country's products are better. We should be competitive against the other country's products and it can help in our economy. Look at China, they make their products and the also export their products. They have the chance to be a superpower some day. They have proven it. We should buy our products and the government should also export our products in a large scale.
Most filipinos like to buy products made by other countries. One example are flip-flops, everyone want the imported brand meanhile there are so much local brands with great designs in the Philippines. It has been a social injection into the minds of people the imported are bettter than local. For some cases it is true.
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