The corona virus COVID-19 pandemic surely hit the world hard, but what I do realize and observe is how every nation seems to be reliant and dependent on one country for everything that they needed. Isn’t that kind of ironic? NY Post shares how China sold nearly 4 BILLION masks to other countries just the past month.

What’s bad about this is how nations ended up getting such faulty bad quality products despite the urgency and importance of it all, which is exactly what happened with Finland, Australia, Spain, Ireland, and possibly the rest of Europe to name a few.

So here lies within me a dream – a dream for my underdog nation. That somehow, our economy finds a means to create its own line of production that can be competitive enough for the world to take note of. I may not know all the backend framework industry technicalities and necessities, but I believe if one country can manage become a source of every commodity on the planet, it’s not impossible for another country to take reigns in one industry and do the same – maybe a whole bunch of countries if that’s the case.

Objectively, this isn’t a bad thing. If you think about how the world’s supplies were disrupted because one country isolated itself, it only makes sense to diversify and distribute the job. Japan Prime Minister Abe has already started the movement by allocating a stimulus package of US2.2B to help its manufacturers shift production, out of China.

Adidas once bore “Made in the Philippines” stamps in its shoes. And while Bangladesh is known for fabric, the Philippines also has its fair share of local manufacturing plants that deal with apparel. Personally, while I think there’s room to actually grow and source fabric locally, Love Army has adapted to manufacture its line locally too. It can’t be far from reality if these things are happening.

Various businesses have contributed in creating PPEs from scratch for donation purposes, which only proves there’s a means to create and produce everything locally. If we can procure such commodities, maybe we can level-up our game, educate people on the standards world-wide, and even export it out?

Beyond the agricultural products, beyond our best export of workers, beyond everything else, maybe we can come up with a way to manufacture everything here. We have the means, and I believe we have the budget to work it out. The people with the budget just need to make sure it gets used properly. Hopefully some time soon, the Philippines can enable itself to become a responsible and reliable hub of production and manufacturing for the world’s economy.

Opportunities lie before us. Everything starts somewhere.