Publisher's Synopsis
This is the first published work of the author, Cesar Fernando Lumba - the culmination of five years of research and a lifetime of independent and original thought. The author eschews the established and well-traveled paths of scholars and reputable experts in economics and political thought and instead embarks on the unexplored margins. Convinced that the Philippines is on the wrong track and is on a trajectory towards a massive failure in governance, he has set out to craft his own solutions, finding that elusive right track that will put the country on a trajectory to first-world status. Cesar Lumba's problem-solving approach mirrors his eclectic life experiences. It is a life that started with so much promise in school as well as in his first employment as the youngest Managing Editor of a trade magazine in the Philippines at the age of 22 - while he was still a student at the University of the Philippines. Then his life went on a wild ride when he immigrated to the U.S. and took jobs that Cesar Lumba Out Of The Misty Sea We Must 5 varied from being a reporter for the Business Information Division of Dun & Bradstreet to being a bank computer specialist to an Accounting Manager, to a Credit Manager, to being a Registered Representative for Pruco Securities and an agent for Prudential Financial. It is a life that has molded him into an original and unorthodox thinker. A Social Sciences graduate of the University of the Philippines, with concentrations in Political Science and Economics, and an MBA graduate of Seattle University, Functional (Finance) Major, Cesar Lumba is at home in the world of finance, economics, politics and the study of societies and groups. He has been technically retired since 2004, but because of his blogging (http: //nykos2.blogspot.com) and other activities he is as busy and active as during his working days. A blogger since 2004, he chronicles his life and activities in his retirement years. This hard-hitting book explores political and economic taboos as only an original and courageous thinker such as the author, Cesar Lumba, can. When the ideas in this book were presented to the public in his blog in 2005, there were cat-calls as well as well-deserved praises for originality and brutally-frank storytelling. His critics called his commercial bases idea a give-away to developed countries such as the U.S. though they applauded his call for a moratorium on interest payments on Philippine sovereign debts. "I can't help thinking of what's good for the U.S.," he explained to his critics. "I am after all an American concerned for the welfare and direction of my beloved adopted country." His call for a moratorium on interest payments on Philippine debts, however, is a plaintive appeal for a sensible way out from under the crushing burden of the Philippines' debts which include odious debts incurred by the country during the reign of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and which were widely suspected as either lost to corruption or used by the regime to oppress the people. The ultimate marginal man, Lumba has two levels of consciousness - his waking days as an intensely passionate progressive and liberal American and his dreamy enchanted nights as a Filipino who grew up and became a man in a paradise in the open sea. Though that country now only exists in his memory because its population has exploded to the point that one cannot walk in the city streets without being run over by tricycles, jeepneys, cars and buses, its grinding poverty is now for all the world to see, its politics dysfunctional, its institutions under attack and its people hopelessly cynical, the old, remembered Philippines still exists in many levels of his sub-conscious. The author's unique historical and present-day perspectives are the main attractions of this book. It is a must-read - one of the truly amazing nation-building books coming out of the global Filipino community that is now entering its golden literary age.
