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I Have a Dream
Efren Ll. Cruz, RFP®
On August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., USA, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous speech, “I Have a Dream.” That dream has not only been fulfilled but continues to be lived, the latest achievement being the election of America’s first black president.
I too have a dream. And just like Martin Luther King, Jr., I dream of my countrymen being set free from oppression. But the oppression I talk of is not racial in nature but financial.
All too often, we hear of people whose take home pay is very close if not already zero. Their ATM payroll cards are in the hands of creditors who withdraw loan repayments every payday. What is left is so little that people are locked into a vicious cycle of borrowing, repaying and borrowing.
There are those who are perhaps merely trudging along financially, always longing for a quick fix to their financial mediocrity. Taking high stakes in “too good to be true” investment schemes only bring them set backs and sometimes deeper holes from which to dig themselves out. These people believe that more money is the answer when all they need is to apply the right personal finance practices.
The Philippines had more than 780,000 micro, small and medium scale enterprises in 2006 per DTI records. Entrepreneurship is a form of investing. However, when it comes to investing in securities, Filipinos are not that enterprising. There is an inordinate aversion to risk. The preference is for short-term investments with guaranteed returns, even when some of those returns fall short of the inflation rate. The daily trading value at the Philippine Stock Exchange is paltry and dominated by foreign funds as compared to those of other Asian countries like Taiwan and Pakistan where trading values are huge and dominated by locals.
Many Filipinos may have already reached the height of pessimism in the personal finance, which was dealt a series of blows by the current global financial crisis and the recent typhoons that hit the country one after the other. But as I always say in my seminars, people just need to take the “H” from height, the “o” from of and the “pe” pessimism and put them all together to see that there is always “Hope.”
Hope is that dream of mine. And just like the Americans, there is need for action to transform that dream to reality. Nothing is impossible for a person with a “can do” attitude and with faith.
Prosperity always begins with “S” or savings and perhaps this is the area where Filipinos should begin in solving their financial problems. The country’s savings rate as of 1997 was only around 16% compared to those of its Asian neighbors whose savings rates ranged from 27% all the way up to 56%. In 2003, the Philippines’ savings rate stayed at 16% and even slid to 15% in 2006. Personal spending needs to be controlled. After all, we don’t live our whole life to spend. Rather we spend to live a full life. The goal is paradise and not pera-dise.
The job at hand is enormous but not impossible. Apart from the Filipino having to change his mindset, he also needs to learn the various but simple ways to live life free from financial worries. And financial planners abound to help Filipinos get back on track. Log on to www.rfp-philippines.com to see the list of Registered Financial Planners or RFPs who can help.
An alternative is to attend the Personal Finance Advisers Phils. Corp.’s “Quick, GET RICH Schemes” personal finance seminar series. The next one will be held on January 16, 2010. For details and reservations, call (02) 216-8151 or 0917-530-1809.
Cheers!
This article does not constitute nor forms part of any offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities. The opinion and views expressed herein are solely those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the Personal Finance Advisers Philippines Corporation.
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