Ultrasound shows a boy

A Year of God’s Unmerited Favor

[The story has been told that one day the well known Christian author, C.S.
Lewis, walked into a room where a lively debate was in progress. The small group
of people that had gathered there was having a discussion about the major
religions of the world, and trying to decide what is the fundamental difference
between these other religions and Christianity. As Lewis entered, the room
became suddenly silent, and everyone turned to put the question to this great
Christian thinker. His answer was short and simple. "One word," he said,
"describes the difference between Christianity and all other religions. That
word is 'grace.'" End of sentence, end of debate.] - http://www.webedelic.com/church/graceworksf.htm
(accessed Oct. 1, 2007)

Grace (charis in Greek; chen in Hebrew; biyaya in Filipino, and megumi in Nihongo) is popularly defined as “God’s unmerited favor toward men.” Dissecting this definition would give us three of its basic elements: (1) it is from God; (2) man is the recipient; and (3) it is unmerited. It is a picture of the cross and all it represents.

Given this definition and though it would still be an understatement, my one year here in Japan can be characterized by a year of God’s unmerited favor, as has been in the past years. God has amazingly engineered a lot of events and circumstances, bestowed blessings and triumphs, and allowed trials and frustrations in my one year here in Kochi. I recognize His graciousness and faithfulness, and I am grateful.

1. I was awarded a Monbukagakusho scholarship for PhD. Although it is
in a small graduate school in a small university, I am still thankful because
then I get the opportunity for discipline in self-study, independence in work,
and all the accompanying difficulties that only serve to strengthen one’s
resolve;
2. I got married. God gave me a husband who prays, and who
undoubtedly loves me. Although his marrying me completely delayed all his other
plans, we both believe in and attribute our circumstances to God’s sovereignty;
3. I’m now with a child. I look at my big belly and smile at his
father, and I tell myself, this is another grace from God. I know of one here
who had to go through invitro fertilization (IVF) where the implantation
succeeded but the zygote strangely didn’t manage to grow.

These, and all the innumerable daily little joys, frustrations, triumphs, trials, blessings, friends I encountered in my past year in this foreign land are unmerited favors from our gracious God. I cannot be more grateful.

For His glory,
Che

(I came to Kochi, Japan on October 2, 2006)

Recent photos

at eto pa, parehong buntis

On accomplishments

I came across this collection of bite-size quotes in Francis Kong's website (http://www.businessmatters.org). I thought it nice to share it here.

"No person was ever honored for what he received.Honor has been the reward for
what he gave."- Calvin Coolidge

"The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."- Chinese
proverb

"It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your
help.Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth
mentioning?"- Coleman Cox

"For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as
greater than he is."- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"You are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be."- Wayne W. Dyer

"All the discontented people I know are trying to be something they are not,to
do something they cannot do."- David Graydon

A letter to HPC and JCLGF family

Dear family:

"And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." Eph 2:6-7

This was part of the text (Eph 2:1-9) in last Sunday's WS and although I understood probably only 10 to 15% of the message given in Nihongo, the passage spoke to me very clearly. Indeed, one cannot fathom the incomparable riches of his grace.

Thank you for continually praying for us. I would like to share with you some of our praises and thanksgivings:

1. God saw me through in my first trimester with relatively few discomforts. Our baby is genki and growing normally according to the doctor, while his/her little adversary in my left ovary is not growing.
2. The Immigration here finally accepted my application for Marlon's Certificate of Eligibility. We are now waiting for their decision which may come in 1 or 2 or 3 months, God-willing.
3. My adviser had some initial shock and disappointment owing to my pregnancy, but God caused him to reconsider and he finally agreed to Marlon's coming here in Japan as soon as possible.
4. The Asakura Yorokobe Kyokai, the church I am regularly attending here now considers me a 'transient' member of the family so I have my own bin for announcements and I get the rounds of being assigned to taking and praying for the offering (similar to how HPC does it). What a great support group God has provided me in this brave new world.
5. Notwithstanding my pregnancy, I haven't missed any of my Wednesday classes; and I still get to the graduate room the rest of the week.

So iu koto, Kami-Sama ni kansha ita shimasu.

Thank you for your prayers and please continue praying with us on the following areas:
1. My planned data gathering this August, and research funds for it;
2. God's will for Marlon when he comes here;
3. Trainees from Benguet here in Kochi--strength, comfort and recognition of God's grace;
4. Our spiritual maturity;
5. My pregnancy.

Thank you so much for your prayers. God bless you. Rest assured that I am also always with all of you in prayer.


In His Grace,

Che/Ate Che

The importance of improving infrastructure

This is a part of the DEMAND AND SUPPLY column of economist Boo Chanco. Full column can be accessed at http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=80379

A new and improved Ate Glue?
BOO CHANCO

...

Poor Ate Glue! She may proclaim through the rooftops until she is blue in the face that the economy grew the strongest during her watch but the people are not inclined to give her any credit for it. That’s because people can’t eat statistics. If the economy is really strong, how come they are not feeling it?

The same question was the subject of an article by Karen Bitagun in the Makati Business Club magazine and website. The general populace, the MBC publication noted, measure economic growth in terms of availability of jobs, access to services, and food on the table. The areas that have recently been experiencing growth — the stock market, export revenues, or even OFW remittances, affect a more limited number of people.

The MBC publication turned to World Bank country director Joachim von Amsberg for his views on what exactly is going on in the Philippine economy. Mr. Von Amsberg says sustainability of stronger than usual economic growth depends on strong policy signals from government and real investment to come in. Unless investment kicks in strongly, that 6.9-percent growth is in street parlance, ampaw.

According to Von Amsberg, as quoted in the MBC publication, the per capita GDP growth rate of the Philippines from 1966 to 2004 averaged 1.28 percent, significantly lower than the regional average of 5.77 percent. "This is not talking about one administration, not talking about one regime, but a 40-year perspective," he explains.

It would appear, he said, that the Philippines has been missing opportunities and did not adapt well to changes in those four decades. The country’s recent economic performance has picked up, but there are still doubts about whether this can be sustained and expanded to the point that it becomes palpable to all Filipinos.

The local World Bank representative thinks "one of the basic building blocks of economic expansion is improvement in infrastructure, where, unfortunately, the Philippines has failed miserably compared to its neighbors." The paradox, he observed, is that the Philippines is a "country with wonderful assets, great opportunity for progress, educated people, natural resources, and wonderful neighbors who are rapidly developing and strengthening the dynamic business sectors. But the modest development outcome, modest levels of growth compared to other countries of the region, is rather a slow progress in terms of improving the quality of life of the poor and poverty reduction." Von Amsberg points to poor infrastructure as the culprit. "I want to make a case that infrastructure policies and infrastructure investments are actually quite central for the Philippines to grasp its window of opportunity and become part of rapidly growing East Asia. Entrepreneurs, and business leaders have told us that infrastructure is a major concern and constraint to investment," says von Amsberg.

The good news, according to the World Bank official, is that the year 2007 presents a unique window of opportunity for the Philippines to catch up on infrastructure investments. For one, the country’s fiscal condition is now healthy and can therefore afford disbursements for infrastructure projects. Furthermore, there is presently high liquidity among international investors just waiting to be tapped and channeled into infrastructure projects. Just as we have written in this column, the World Bank executive sees two possible scenarios for the Philippines in the next three to four years.

"The first scenario is a continuing ‘muddle through’ scenario, where fiscal reforms and the current positive environment will lead to complacency," says Von Amsberg. In this scenario, he expects politics will dilute fiscal reforms and investments will not pick up. Unless urther policy reforms are pursued, people will not see financial gains leading to better jobs or higher income.

On the other hand, von Amsberg paints another more positive scenario, the "takeoff" scenario. If the Philippines is to be set on a path toward joining the East Asian renaissance, key decisions need to be made. The fiscal gains of 2006 have to be followed up with real investments in 2007, with infrastructure playing a driving role in the real investments. With new investments, there will be more jobs and income, and Filipinos will begin to feel the fruits of the economic reforms. The choices are clear: muddle through or take off. If indeed we have a new improved Ate Glue ready to govern as she should and not as her political allies dictate, then we just might take off. But unless I see concrete evidence that the new and improved Ate Glue is for real, muddle through is the likely scenario for the next thousand days.

Face to face with the legend

During my interview at the Philippine Embassy for my Monbukagakusho scholarship application, the first question from the panel was, “Why do you want to study in Japan?” My candid answer was “Some of my favorite agricultural economists are Japanese, and it is a fact that there is much to learn from the experiences and expertise of Japan in economic development.” One of the panelists immediately made a follow up question, “Like who are your favorites?” I answered, “Like Dr. Yujiro Hayami, Keijiro Otsuka, Sam Fujisaka (actually, a sociologist).”

And so when my adviser informed me that Dr. Yujiro Hayami will be visiting Kochi University and will be giving a seminar, I was filled with quiet anticipation. And when my adviser later added that he arranged for graduate students to have a short coffee time with him, I was even more excited, but felt a tinge of dread. There are not many occasions when you get to talk with famous people whom you know only through their works.

His Seminar: What is Development Economics?

"Physics: Why sky is blue and forest is green?
Development Economics: Why some countries are poor and some countries are rich?" - Y. Hayami

This quote is in his first slide reflective of his ability to write economics in simple yet insightful way, as can be seen in his numerous books and journal publications. One can not mistake economics for mathematics in his work; rather one will appreciate economic theory and see its logic in reality.

(I wish I could include here excerpts on what he said in the seminar but he gave the seminar in Nihongo so except for his occasional reference to his slides written in English, I didn’t understand much of what he said which is very unfortunate. Nevertheless, you can access his presentation for reference at http://www.savefile.com/files/747944.)

There is much to think about just by reading the information from his slides. Mine was my old favorite question to foreign economists: What has gone wrong in the Philippine case?

What has gone wrong in the Philippines?

If the Philippine economy was not too far from Japan’s in the 1960s, where did we go wrong? Why have we progressed but not as far as Japan or Taiwan or Malaysia, and now Thailand?

“That is a good question, but a difficult one to answer. My hypothesis is that until now, the Philippines has not overcome the problem of wide discrepancy in income." He thinks this is probably a remnant of the long Spanish rule characterized by landlord and peasant system. He also agrees that part of what has gone wrong is in the cultural-institutional sub-system in the social system (see his slide on the interrelated developments in a social system).

Is there hope for development in the Philippines?

“Yes, I think so.” One of the strengths of the Philippines is education. Most of the young children go to school, and literacy is high. The emerging problem here is that a lot of your educated people migrate and end up working for other nations.

As I went on to discuss my topic of interest: what factors determine income diversification or what factors promote or limit rural farmers and fishermen from taking advantage of off-farm or non-farm opportunities, he added that one route to reduce poverty and inequality is to capture the opportunities that the current globalization wave has created. He discussed with passion the potential merits of establishing a rural trading network that will allow small rural farm households even in the hinterlands to participate and take advantage of the global demand for labor-intensive goods especially from developed countries. Yet this production and trading network will have to be built on a community-based contract enforcement mechanism as he calls it. It will not be fast and automatic, but it is a good direction for a more balanced urban-rural development.

As he has concluded in one of his recent papers Globalization and Rural Poverty (2006),

"Indeed, the current globalization wave has created a great opportunity for rural communities in developing economies to reduce poverty and inequality. However, whether this opportunity can be captured by the rural poor depends on how wise public investments are allocated in their support for infrastructure including education and extension services. The needed support should include improvements in the efficiency of markets by building institutions to protect property rights and enforce contracts while the government should refrain as much as possible from direct intervention into markets."

Although the last few words of the quote is ironic in that Japan is known to be an utter protectionist for selected commodities and a generous provider of subtle direct subsidies, indeed it is probably the shrewdness of the Japanese government in allocating public investments and building institutions that brought them to where they are now--two areas the Philippine government probably needs improvement.

"I am better in writing than in speaking."

Here's an incomplete list of the books he has written:

Anatomy of a peasant economy: a rice village in the Philippines
Yujiro Hayami

A Rice Village Saga: The Three Decades of Green Revolution in the Philippines
Yujiro Hayami and Masao Kikuchi
London: Macmillan/Barnes & Noble/International Rice Research Institute, 2000.

Development Economics: From the Poverty to the Wealth of Nations, Second Edition
Yujiro Hayami
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Communities and Markets in Economic Development
Masahiko Aoki and Yujiro Hayami (eds.)
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Agricultural Development: An International Perspective
Professor Yujiro Hayami and Professor Vernon W. Ruttan

Asian Village Economy at the Crossroads: An Economic Approach to Institutional Change
Yujiro Hayami

The political economy of agricultural protection: East Asia in international perspective
Kym Anderson, Yujiro Hayami, and Aurelia George

The agrarian origins of commerce and industry
Yujiro Hayami and Toshihiko Kawagoe.
St. Martin's Press, New York, 1993

Beat that smile!

Cheryll, Filipino, poor country; Dr. Hayami, Japanese, rich country; Saharia, Bangladesh, poor country

Human Behavior: Why people whether from a poor or a rich country can smile?