June 25, 2015
3 Hours * 730a - 900a
II. Clas Schedule
Course Code: Entrep 201
Course Title: Business Opportunities 1
III. Objectives
IV. Subject Matter
1. Topic: Business Culture and Practices in the Philippines
2. Reference:
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/107002/opinion--a-spaniard-deconstructs-the-filipino-mall-mentality
3. Materials: Newspapers
V Procedure
A. Introduction
1. Daily Routine
a. Checking of Attendance
b. Recap
B. Pre-Discussion
1. Vocabulary Building
a. Culture
2. During Reading
Why do Filipinos like malls?
By: Jorge Mojarro, InterAksyon.com/ March 16, 2015
(Editor’s note: Jorge Mojarro, a Spaniard, is a PhD candidate doing research on Filipiniana. He has lived and worked in the Philippines since 2009, walking its streets, taking the LRT, and even enjoying the occasional basketball game with Manilenos.)
The first time I realized how important malls are for Filipinos was from an article about overseas Filipino workers in Brunei. They did not complain about anything except not having enough malls and night life.
A few years later, talking to a high school teacher from a small Mindanao town, I asked about how the everyday life there. After much prodding, she said they did not have a public hospital, parks, sidewalks, colleges, a fire station, and only a few paved roads. The had a very old plaza with a sculpture of Rizal in the center and a very big house at the side, the one from the alcalde. When I asked what the town really needs, she did not show any shadow of doubt. “A huge mall,” she said.
That a educated professor living in a faraway place with scarce public services prefers a mall over many other things is reasonable. The average mall is a huge air-conditioned cube where passers-by can shop and eat, watch films, repair your teeth or your nails, get a massage, climb a wall, play videogames, get a medical consultation, talk to God and pray, get your mobile phone fixed, watch a parade or a fashion catwalk, engage in Tango courses, listen to a political speech, participate in a painting competition, play bingo, exercise your abs, listen to a very talented pianist, meet new people in the cybercafe, do your homework, have a walk, or even renew your passport.
Malls in the Philippines are multi-purpose areas where all these activities - and many more - can be carried out.
Malls fill a gap in government services
Given the absence of some government-provided basic services, like a pedestrian-friendly street, malls astutely provide them. As I said in a previous article, the sorry state of the Philippine streets actually guarantees the success of malls.
This is why malls are not very common or succesful in cities with some kind of urban planning and open spaces. Here in the Philippines, economic elites have been quick in filling the huge gap of basic services abandoned by so-called public servants.
I do not see any problem with malls, except that they are almost the only option for Filipinos urbanites on where to spend their free time.
How people decide to spend their free time shapes and defines their culture. Filipinos are really dependent on malls because they are not being offered any other choice, like clean public spaces and parks or cultural events.
Once upon a time, Manila was a city praised for having more than twenty theaters and long wide avenues with big trees where families happily used to hang out. Not any more, but it seems people do not miss those old times at all.
When I ask my students about what they do during free time, they almost always say: “I go to the mall.” In other countries, they say, “I learn to play the guitar, I play tennis, I run, I volunteer in an NGO, I draw paintings, I take extra classes to improve my grades,” etc. Here, they just go to the mall. Moreover, it is taken for granted that it should be the same everywhere.
Some politicians say malls are good for the economy. My question is: for whose economy?
Rental prices for retail businesses or restaurants are quite expensive inside the malls. Some even charge a percentage of the renters’ profit. This economic burden goes directly to the price the consumer is paying.
‘Cathedrals of consumption’
Malls are also not very ecological: The bright illumination and the blasting air-con contribute massively to carbon emission. They are are clearly destroying the already sorry landscape of the big cities, being built in areas already extremely congested by traffic, like in Edsa. Still, malls are not forced to take care of their surroundings by providing wide roads or free transportation. Of course, they want you take your car and park inside.
A country with a high poverty incidence like the Philippines with so many huge malls is an obvious proof of the aberrant economic inequalities in society and an excessive accumulation of capital in the hands of a few lucky families at the expense of a population who seems fine with the status quo.
As some researches have proven, that malls are the only option for people influences their expectations and even models their goals in life and their values. Mall shopping has became a way for people to affirm themselves, express certain preferences, and enhance some dubious values - like the display of social status.
Most of malls are closed structures that do not have (or have few) windows and benches for people to sit. The reason is clear: Despite all the shows and entertainment offered in there, the goal of malls is to attract people and make them spend their money - and leave.
Malls, as this is short reflection shows, are cathedrals of consumption that do not contribute in creating social cohesion, do not support a sense of community, and do not enhance solidarity, although they create an illusion of sociability - opposite the optimistic view defended by some mall architects.
Moreover, cathedrals are at least masterpieces of art where you can contemplate and reflect. Even decrepite temples keep an unmistakable aura of beauty. I do not know of any mall that has made a real contribution to the art of building.
The current trend of malls being abandoned in the US is interesting and shows a new hope in terms of consumers’ behavior and preferences - and how malls horribly look once they are abandoned waiting for a demolition.
Over box-like malls, shoppers are choosing to go to open malls that seem less artificially constructed and less crowded. The Ayalas seem to have wisely seen the future pattern of behavior of the increasing middle class and have taken the first steps into a new model of malls with Greenbelt, Bonifacio High Street, and the Ayala Center of Cebu. The reaction of people have been clearly positive.
But this only highlights the irony that private enterprises create public-like spaces in the Philippines, and it is not difficult to guess why this contradiction exists.
C. Discussion
1.How has culture shaped the nature of businesses in the country? 
2. What internal variables contribute to the strength of Filipino business and poses threat to sustainability of Filipino businesses?
D. Assessment/Evaluation
each group would be asked to identify appropriate businesses for any potential investors (given the existing culture in the country). Be ready to present your group output the following session.
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