Celebration
Malaysia had reason to celebrate its 60th National Day yesterday: with 145 golds and an overall medal haul of 323, it was the biggest winner in the just concluded 29th Southeast Asian Games.
During my visit over the weekend in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, it was clear that the SEA Games was a big deal for the country. The 2017 SEA Games logo was plastered all over the host city. On Monday, on the one afternoon that I could take a brief bus tour of the city, the tour guide brought us near the SEA Games venue outside the city center. He then pulled out a sheet of paper to announce with pride that his country was leading the ASEAN pack with 96 gold medals so far. Thailand followed and then Singapore.
I asked for the sheet of paper before he could read the medal standings down the line. And sure enough, there was Team Philippines at a disappointing sixth place in the medal standings, behind the four other founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia) plus Vietnam, whose final rank was third with 58 golds, 50 silvers and 60 bronze medals.
Our team had its worst finish ever in the SEA Games, taking a paltry 121 medals: 24 golds, 33 silvers and 64 bronzes, way behind fifth placer Indonesia with its 191 medals (38 golds). This is becoming a bad habit for our sports teams.
The Malaysian tour guide didn’t gloat, and he was clearly happy to be entertaining foreign visitors. Along with palm oil, tourism is a top revenue earner for Malaysia. In ASEAN, it ranked second to Thailand in terms of tourist arrivals last year with 26.8 million foreign visitors. There must be something in the delectable Malaysian laksa. The Philippines, on the other hand, received 5.97 million tourist arrivals last year, behind Vietnam’s more than 10 million. With our peace and order problems and the quality of our tourism officials, the figures could get worse.
The World Economic Forum also ranks Malaysia second to Singapore in terms of tourism competitiveness in Southeast Asia, ahead of Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. As in the SEA Games, the Philippines also ranks sixth in the region in the WEF tourism competitiveness index.
From the day we gained full independence from the United States in 1946, our republic is one year older than the Malaysian Federation. If we compute from the day Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence from Spain in 1898, we’re half a century older.
With ASEAN celebrating its 50th year last Aug. 8, we should ask how we got left behind by the founding ASEAN members in many human development indicators, and even in sports performance.
* * * I’m no fan of any country that bans Puerto Rican stars Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s hit song “Despacito” from state radio and TV. The reggaeton-pop hit (excluding the Justin Bieber part-English version) is now the most streamed song of all time (a staggering 4.5 billion times as of July) and the official video as of yesterday afternoon had been viewed 3.5 billion times on Youtube. It has become the longest running No. 1 hit on the Billboard chart. But Malaysian authorities found the Spanish lyrics dirty and banned the song from their state broadcast media.
Malaysia also ranks low in press freedom (although they don’t kill journalists) and is weak in terms of upholding human rights. (But they’ll probably say, look what’s happening in the Philippines.) Its government has corruption issues and numerous scandals.
The long, snaking line to clear immigration upon arrival at the sprawling Kuala Lumpur International Airport also rivaled my interminable wait to clear immigration at the NAIA Terminal 1 departure area on Aug. 26.
But Malaysia has outpaced the Philippines in many economic indicators including per capita GDP. Kuala Lumpur, meaning muddy river, used to be a tin panning area. The country has crude oil, although this has suffered from soft prices in the world market. Now the city is surrounded by farms planted to palms for one of its top exports, palm oil. Tourism is a major revenue earner.
I couldn’t help envying certain things in Malaysia: the modern airport that hopes to compete with Asia’s best; the smooth, top-quality road from KLIA to the heart of Kuala Lumpur; the high-speed wifi, free in many areas (in my hotel, no need to log in, no password); the commuter train network for mass transportation.
And yes, there’s that medal haul in the 2017 SEA Games.
Sure, sports performance is no accurate gauge of national progress and development. Ethiopians have been reaping medals in the Olympics since 1956: a total of 22 golds, 10 silvers and 21 bronzes.
But the resources poured into sports development can be among the indicators of national advancement. And as in several other indicators, in this part of the world, we have been left behind.