LOS ANGELES — GAUTAM Kaji, former vice president of the World Bank for East Asia and the Pacific, was more than one of the world’s respected development leaders. He was a close adviser and a true friend of Subic and the Philippines at a time when we were trying to prove that Filipinos could transform a former American naval base into a world-class economic center.
He gave Subic his full support. At a time when we had to convince the world that this new experiment could work, Gautam and the World Bank gave us something equally valuable: credibility. He understood what we were trying to build and believed that, given the right conditions, Subic could become a catalyst for investment and growth far beyond its gates.
With his passing, I remembered a remarkable letter he wrote to President Fidel V. Ramos more than three decades ago (33 years ago), when he was serving as the World Bank’s vice president for East Asia and the Pacific.
It was unsolicited and remarkably frank, but never insulting. It was the advice of a man who knew the Philippines intimately and cared enough about our country to say what needed to be said.
Gautam offered President Ramos five essential prescriptions: maintain macroeconomic discipline; provide a stable, consistent and predictable environment for investment; ensure the success of Subic; reverse the stagnation of Philippine agriculture; and use the government’s political capital decisively while the opportunity for reform remained open.
His warning on Subic was particularly telling. Gautam saw its infrastructure, its skilled and dedicated workforce and, in his words, its “dynamic and charismatic chairman.” He urged the president to “pull out all stops” to make Subic succeed, while warning that “political jealousies and bureaucratic hurdles” could easily thwart otherwise solid efforts.
He understood that Subic was never meant to succeed in isolation. Its development was supposed to radiate throughout Central Luzon, creating infrastructure, investment and jobs. Two decades later, I continued to pursue that vision through the Regional Investment and Infrastructure Coordinating Hub (RICH) bill, which passed both houses of Congress, only to be vetoed by President Rodrigo Duterte. Decades later, we are again talking about integrating Subic, Clark and the surrounding areas through the Luzon Economic Corridor.
The names may have changed. The idea has not.
And look at Gautam’s other warnings.
He warned us more than 30 years ago that countries like Vietnam were competing for the same investments we wanted. Look at the region today. Vietnam has surged ahead. Indonesia and Malaysia have strengthened their industrial and investment bases. Singapore remains a regional economic powerhouse. Meanwhile, we are still talking about red tape, bureaucracy, policy uncertainty and many of the same obstacles Gautam warned us about decades ago.
He warned against bureaucratic red tape, uncertainty and the constant flip-flopping of economic policy. More than three decades later, businesses still complain about the same things.
He warned about agricultural stagnation. Agriculture continues to struggle, while too many of our people in the countryside remain dependent on dole-outs instead of being empowered through productivity, infrastructure and sustainable livelihoods.
The same failure to sustain long-term thinking can be seen elsewhere. We have talked for decades about flood control and preparing communities for disasters, yet every rainy season many of the same places are flooded again. We spend enormous amounts responding to problems we have long known about instead of addressing their causes with foresight, discipline and continuity.
That is what makes Gautam’s letter so striking today.
It does not read like an old document. It reads like something that could have been written this morning.
This was not a man lecturing the Philippines from afar. Gautam knew us. He worked with us. He supported Subic when that support mattered, and his confidence helped give us credibility before the international community.
More importantly, he cared enough to tell us the truth.
His letter was written not because he had to, but out of a sense of duty and friendship to a country whose potential he had seen firsthand. He warned us about the dangers of bureaucracy, political interference, inconsistent policy and lost opportunities. He told us what needed to be done while there was still time to do it.
More than 30 years have passed, yet much of Gautam’s advice could have been written yesterday.
That should trouble us.
Gautam wrote not to criticize the Philippines, but because he believed we could do better. He had seen our potential. He wanted us to succeed. That is why his words deserve to be remembered today — not merely as a historical letter from a World Bank official to a Philippine president, but as advice from a friend who cared enough to tell us the truth.
We should have listened more carefully then. We should listen now.
Because after more than three decades, we must ask ourselves a difficult question: Have we really learned?
We have had the warnings. We have had the plans. We have had the opportunities.
The problem has never been that we did not know what needed to be done.
The question is whether we have learned to do it — and to stay the course.
When will we ever learn?
Richard J. Gordon
Former senator of the Republic of the Philippines
Founding chairman of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority
