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Are you trying to dispute the fact that large malls in the Philippines indeed far outnumber other countries as stated in the list?
But how can you miss the whole point? This has nothing to do with how wide these malls are. The malls are listed according square foot mall area
There is a reason why you dont measure width, because that is not the point anyways. It is about how much square foot space they have. So back to all my points. How can you explain this whole mall trend in the Philippines? You should take a look at the actual malls then to see the specifics.
Are you actually disputing any of these? :
A. Philippines has 1/3 of the malls in this list of world malls
B. cause of explosive expansion is because of exploitation of labor.
What is your argument against these? I cant imagine how you can even argue A. because the facts are stated right in front of you! you cant just make assumptions based on a quick observation on the ground. The world data for ALL countries is right there for you to analyze! Instead of disputing the gigantic presence of malls there, you should instead argue as to WHY this is happening there and not in any other country.
In fact, if anything the PHILIPPINES should be the country suffering from the most land area anyways since it IS the one grappling with land shortages in places like Manila and Cebu where the biggest malls luckily have still been build, despite difficulties in finding more land. So that claim about land availability is wrong anyways. And in the reverse thought, if Philippines could NOT get land, they too would have built up. Point is, LOOK at the facts on mall rankings!
And also besides, it is not just Indonesia, it was clearly stated that ALL countries in the WORLD were far beat by Philippines so your argument of losts being the final answer is clearly invalid as that is certainly NOT the strength they have there. Didnt you read both long posts? Didnt you observe the facts stated? I discussed a lot about the difference in labor policy, the economic situation in the Philippines and comparisons of countries and lots more. Since Philippines beat the rest of the world by a mind boggling margin, you should take a look at why Philippines has so many malls instead of disputing the fact that it has so many malls. It is indisputable, big mall investments there are taking over the country and going up like there is no tomorrow.
On a separate note, I am actually confident that the oligarchs responsible for this do have control over the elections. Despite the past president being in control then, it appears that the current liberal party won because he has the best links to the oligarchs. He serves the interest of ALL the rich. He made promices to the people about poverty and corruption and broke them. He conversely promised and FULFILLED promices for the monopoly business elite and so they love this president even more. They rigged the election result last time and will do the same again this year. Unlike last time there the sitting president was an opposition and the comelec was a divided body, now the whole comelec, sitting president AND the oligarchs/billionaires are all on the same side and for the same election goal which is Liberal party to maintain the status quoe. So I am certain, especially if Grace Poe and Duterte are disqualified, the remaining opposition, Santiago and Binay will be easily cheated out by the monopoly groups and current government that all have this one goal in a harmonized effort. So my prediction is that even though the grand majority dont want Roxas to win, he (under liberal party banner) WILL win because all the rich and powerful want it and will get it through easy manipulation of both the surveys and and actual elections so their cheap operation is covered up.
I am not disputing your facts but I don't know the circumstances of other countries. I just know that Malls they built in the Philippines were built on available large tracts of land. for example, the Mall of Asia was built on a reclaimed land. it was sitting there for like 20 years before they develop into a mall. same thing with the MegaMall, it was built on a vacant lot.
and the most important; profit. you don't build mall if you know you don't make money. that's the most important consideration. there are just developers who know what they are doing. a mall built earlier at the reclaimed land I was referring too didn't attract shoppers so it got bankrupt and abandoned. some developers just don't have the magic touch
Not true, that is just absolute non-sense. Small scale local manufacturing have always been strong in these region.
All major shopping spots around the world have global designer brand available, well thanks to capitalism.
Malaysia have 30 million people and they have several malls on the ranking.
I have that point covered by something too. I will even add to this that Thailand ALSO has them. Malaysia and Thailand are TOP tourist destinations. People are coming in in truckloads every minute to spend their hard earned foreign dollars totally unlike Philippines. I even factored this in in my posts earlier when I talked about countries that were like Philippines due to low tourist numbers. I excluded the top tourist destinations from comparison to Philippines since they have so many forein spenders it is obviously a bad comparison. And besides, Malaysia ad Thailand have better economies anyways, just like how Brazil moves forward.
Indonesia is a PERFECT example of what Philippines SHOULD look like in terms of malls if labor laws were the same. Indonesia has the same GDP per capita as Philippines if not a bit higher and MUCH less poverty. Jakarta also has exact same tourist arrival numbers as Manila. Jakarta is a perfect comparison city! So looking at Jakarta gives you an idea of how Philippines should look at best. But their immense exploitation of contract labor is what is giving rise to these retail empires.
Metro Manila will later have SIX fancy malls: MOA; The new massive Ayala mall going up beside MOA; SM North; SM Aura; Eastwood; Greenbelt. And maybe even throw in the 7th one as UP town centre appears a bit upscale for just a mall to serve students in Manila. How many of you have/had an upscale mall catering to your campus????
And now comparing Manila to Jakarta, how many jaw dropping mall complexes do we find there? Like one? none?
Then you have Cebu! Ayala Cebu, SM Seaside, which is brand new and jaw dropping. In addition, Cebu city has 2 other big malls. In Bali Indonesia, a good comparison city to Cebu, Philippines you have one tiny upscale shopping area and a medium sized mall, compared to Cebu's 2 massive upscale malls and 2 other huge malls. And Cebu is a city of extreme poverty you should know.
Findings show that Indonesia has a better economy with apparently greatly reduced poverty rate, Indonesia has pretty much no upscale malls and mediocre bigger malls.
Philippines has significant poverty issue with many people living in poverty and underemployment. Philippines has tons of upscale malls and hoards of gigantic malls on top of it.
The properties look more upscale and classy than any retail areas anywhere even in Chicago!
the fact that it happens to be the country with the worlds most horrifying labor law, it only makes sense that all of this was made possible through extreme exploitation of contract labbor to achieve what no other country achieves. To find such classy public developments made in a just way, you need to go somewhere like Dubai where there was actual revenue to pay for this. But even they used imported cheap labor to achieve it, but not in the way Philippines does it. It is very easy to figure. Philippines is a country known for having a lot of poor people that get exploited. It has amazing places kept in working order because of extreme abuse of labor. All other countries like Indonesia, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Germany, Taiwan have basic normal projects because these things are expensive to be manned by so many people when they are only for retail. Even supermarkets. Supermarkets abound in the Philippines with them all aqually big, modern and 1st wordly and are all over the place! but are just scattered in Indonesia with verying degrees of quality. The things in them are quite costly in Philippines. Noone would be able to afford them if they cost much more so without the cheap contract labor, they would cease to exist. It is no wonder even supermarkets are not all over the map in Indonesia. The prices I saw in Manila were about the highest they could go without being too expensive even for a Canadian shopper. The cheap contract labor being exploited all over the place more than covers the difference between making this profitable and making it bankrupt. Even St. Louis, MO-IL Metropolitan Area with a bigger population than Metro Cebu and without the excessive 3rd world slums, St. Louis has just tiny malls. Whatever they did to get all these posh establishments up and running must have taken some massive abuse of human resources because the economy is so bad there, people are dying to get out so forget about thinking that these projects are a sign of amazing economic situation. I know something funky is goin on in there. It is like Binays properties. It looks good, but it makes everyone question where the rich get these things from. In a country as poor and desperate like the Philippines, when you see so many rich properties amidst massive slums, something is not right. In Mexico, Indonesia and Brazil and even Canada you have normal suburbs in every part of the country, surrounding medium sized strip malls and a few bigger one. In the Philippines you have massive slums encircling massive mall projects and upscale projects that make an american's jaw drop. Dont you see something is not right here?
So again, it will be a sight to behold when they abolish this labor law that has been used to build and then run masive properties like you never see anywhere else and see how one by one the malls get shut down.
Building so many things that need all this cheap labor to operate and remain in business is a dangerous risk being taken by these people as they risk losing everything if the labor law they used for this is taken away from them since these things cant stay in business under normal circumstances, much less in a country with so many who are deprived. Only made possible through continous exploitatio or else, byebye SM empire of malls! But if they can ensure this election keeps Liberal party in control, they will ensure a long life ahead with no changes in anything. So politics is the issue at stake.
Last edited by Santaronto; 01-16-2016 at 06:49 AM..
I am not disputing your facts but I don't know the circumstances of other countries. I just know that Malls they built in the Philippines were built on available large tracts of land. for example, the Mall of Asia was built on a reclaimed land. it was sitting there for like 20 years before they develop into a mall. same thing with the MegaMall, it was built on a vacant lot.
and the most important; profit. you don't build mall if you know you don't make money. that's the most important consideration. there are just developers who know what they are doing. a mall built earlier at the reclaimed land I was referring too didn't attract shoppers so it got bankrupt and abandoned. some developers just don't have the magic touch
But that is another thing. If it is true it was 20 years, then this also makes sense. This contractualization scheme is kind of new in its current level. It only started taking off less than 20 years ago and has reached extreme levels this past decade only. In fact, back then if you started a mall, chances are you used regular labor. Your point just strengthened my point about malls not running well in either places or in this case, times where people cold not exploit labor. Before contractulization started full gear, malls were no bargain at all! Try seeing them introduce fully compensated workers in the whole mall and watch these new malls fall just the same! As contractualization increased since 2003, malls have gotten even more profitable, hense the building binge we have seen since 2007 after a few years planning started earlier. Reports say that poverty in the Philippines, unlike the other countries remains unchanged and everyone there complains poverty is as bad as ever. Yet SM says they are building malls faster for the next 7 years than they ever did before! The exploitation of contract labor also maxed out to what they said was "almost all labor is now contractual in SM" No wonder this is happening. All because of one little rule about labor, this mall trend is exploding! As I have said, it will be unimaginably mid boggling to see what happens to 100 malls when the labor law is changed by Duterte as huge malls are far too expensive to operate under any normal circumstances, especially with the kind of poverty they have there. The skyrocketing costs coupled with plunging revenue due to fleeing tenants will cause a free fall for each mall. That monster size upscale mall in Cebu they just built, plus that other monster mall in Quezon city, plus the 1, and soon to be 2 behemoth malls near Pasay city will collapse with this exploitative labor law tossed out and tell them to run them using normal generously paid labor of thousands of employees. Where will they get all that money? Due to high operating costs, the money they did make came through labor abuse only so they cant fund all that manpower anymore if contract labor schemes are abolished. They build these massive retail facilties under expectation of rock bottom manpower costs and cant run them as they are with labor laws reverted to normal like Indonesia, Mexico, Canada laws where such malls dont exist, especially when you consider the massive poverty in the Philippines.
Just look at this! One of the worlds biggest and most awe inspiring mall projects built next to, yes, that is ALL 3rd world slums you see in the whole adjacent city area on this image! Of all places it could have been built in! in Cebu:
Go up on the lookout in this mall and guess what you will see! slums! The people that slaved to build it and to staff it now!
Last edited by Santaronto; 01-16-2016 at 07:24 AM..
I just figured out part TWO that is the cause for this big issue in the Philippines. The policies in the Philippines support monopolies by having no competition law in place and monopolies have protection by not only themselves and their business connections, but also by the govt who works in hand with these big corporations. Business is controlled by a few like SM, Ayala and the govt of Philippines itself. SM and Ayala have abused the country in a 2 part process. First they control all banks and policies so that the thousands aspiring to be entrepreneurs cant get loans and start businesses. The monopolies and oligarchs effectively prevent competition by making it impossible for new businesses to sprout up. Second is the part I already discussed where they exploit labor to make malls viable for profits. So the current govt administration has served the desires of these elite by giving them the 2 punch step they needed to effectively take over the economy through hoarding of business and exploiting people to make it profitable.
THAT is why SM is now setting the stage to build 100 malls across the country. They are now in a historic time where they managed to monopolize the whole economy. The combination of their efforts to monopolize everything and make it cheap using terrible practices is what lead to this explosion of mall building.
The current retail empire is made off an artificial system that wont work anywhere else in the real world.
You can say they are practically 'subsidizing' the shopping experience of their middle class spenders by abusively exploiting the poor to plummet the operating costs of malls to make the middle class able to shop in malls. The Philippine middle class is not well off enough to shop in malls under normal operating costs as even their wages are suppressed. thousands of foreign outlets operate in malls and if this unlawful 'subsidization scheme' of mall operating cost through labor is finally broken up, these people wont be able to afford to shop these stores and they will have to close as the resulting rise in costs will far exceed their spending capabilities. So yes, the easiest way to define this worrying trend is 'subsidizing' mall shopping experience through labor exploitation.
If the next govt is different and anti corrupt like Duterte, these monopolies will go bankrupt. Mall operating costs will soar again with normalized labor laws making these monopoly retail empires suffocate in the resulting cost changes and what will finish them off is the restoration of fair competition legislation which will result in these monopolies taking their final death blow by new small and medium enterprises springing up and taking back peaces of the pie, one by one, new enterprises will steal back from SM. As excessive use of malls will no longer be so viable, like most places on earth, many new competitors will emerge with the more typical low cost box store and strip mall establishments and local businesses. SM and most of these monopolies wold go bankrupt as smaller, more typical size businesses take to the market. So why is it that Indonesia, Mexico, India, Brazil, Canada, USA and many others have such limited density of super retail projects and monopolies? Because almost everywhere outside Philippines the policies are normal. Philippines' is beyond 3rd world, its 4th world like no other.
The fact that SM boasts of practically all of its malls being "supermalls" goes to show just how abnormal this is and severe a downsize things will go under a normalized policy. All these supermalls will close down when the govt finally busts its monopoly/economy takeover and appalling labor abuse practices as it has been said that these riches have not come without a crime. I knew all along that something was wrong with 3 ominous signs: 1. the upscale nature of so many establishments amidst terrible poverty, 2. the dominance of so few companies, 3. The sheer size of there properties as compared to all the other more progressive nations. With the grave state of the nation, no business flourishes without extreme unfair and illegal practices. Unprecedented domination of the country and abuse of people and policies is what brought the few big companies to where they are now. When the policies change, this retail empire will be a gonner as new business aspirants finally step in and compete with SM, Ayala and the rest whose malls will become unaffordable and uncompetitive under the normalized conditions.
But my end observation is that the reality is I think nothing will change. With the whole economy in form of billions of dollars running off these unfair practices, I am certain these powerful people will ensure that whoever comes into office this election will be on their side. Since the majority of presidential aspirants are the same typical servants for corporate greed and capitalism in the name of big money making, they will use the PCOS machines in an unexpected way to get what they want. The minority like Duterte and seneres who vow against the monopoly interests will be prioritized to have their numbers minimized and leave the pro capitalists to compete for the winning votes. In the last election despite Arroyo being in power, the election machines were rigged in favor of not the ruling party, but the monopolies with all the money to bribe the comelec. A reverse will likely happen this year where the bribing will be done to suppress Duterte and seneres instead of being 'choosy' about the winner. All they care is that Duterte, seneres loses and the above described corporate crimes will continue. I think that even the pre election surveys are corrupted and rigged to make it look like the ones they most want are on the top and the ones they least want are on the bottom. this is what will save the billions invested in properies and developments for these establishments that would be all but obliterated under a revolutionary governing like Duterte.
Last edited by Santaronto; 01-16-2016 at 05:49 PM..
I have that point covered by something too. I will even add to this that Thailand ALSO has them. Malaysia and Thailand are TOP tourist destinations. People are coming in in truckloads every minute to spend their hard earned foreign dollars totally unlike Philippines. I even factored this in in my posts earlier when I talked about countries that were like Philippines due to low tourist numbers. I excluded the top tourist destinations from comparison to Philippines since they have so many forein spenders it is obviously a bad comparison. And besides, Malaysia ad Thailand have better economies anyways, just like how Brazil moves forward.
Indonesia is a PERFECT example of what Philippines SHOULD look like in terms of malls if labor laws were the same. Indonesia has the same GDP per capita as Philippines if not a bit higher and MUCH less poverty. Jakarta also has exact same tourist arrival numbers as Manila. Jakarta is a perfect comparison city! So looking at Jakarta gives you an idea of how Philippines should look at best. But their immense exploitation of contract labor is what is giving rise to these retail empires.
Metro Manila will later have SIX fancy malls: MOA; The new massive Ayala mall going up beside MOA; SM North; SM Aura; Eastwood; Greenbelt. And maybe even throw in the 7th one as UP town centre appears a bit upscale for just a mall to serve students in Manila. How many of you have/had an upscale mall catering to your campus????
And now comparing Manila to Jakarta, how many jaw dropping mall complexes do we find there? Like one? none?
Then you have Cebu! Ayala Cebu, SM Seaside, which is brand new and jaw dropping. In addition, Cebu city has 2 other big malls. In Bali Indonesia, a good comparison city to Cebu, Philippines you have one tiny upscale shopping area and a medium sized mall, compared to Cebu's 2 massive upscale malls and 2 other huge malls. And Cebu is a city of extreme poverty you should know.
Findings show that Indonesia has a better economy with apparently greatly reduced poverty rate, Indonesia has pretty much no upscale malls and mediocre bigger malls.
Philippines has significant poverty issue with many people living in poverty and underemployment. Philippines has tons of upscale malls and hoards of gigantic malls on top of it.
The properties look more upscale and classy than any retail areas anywhere even in Chicago!
the fact that it happens to be the country with the worlds most horrifying labor law, it only makes sense that all of this was made possible through extreme exploitation of contract labbor to achieve what no other country achieves. To find such classy public developments made in a just way, you need to go somewhere like Dubai where there was actual revenue to pay for this. But even they used imported cheap labor to achieve it, but not in the way Philippines does it. It is very easy to figure. Philippines is a country known for having a lot of poor people that get exploited. It has amazing places kept in working order because of extreme abuse of labor. All other countries like Indonesia, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Germany, Taiwan have basic normal projects because these things are expensive to be manned by so many people when they are only for retail. Even supermarkets. Supermarkets abound in the Philippines with them all aqually big, modern and 1st wordly and are all over the place! but are just scattered in Indonesia with verying degrees of quality. The things in them are quite costly in Philippines. Noone would be able to afford them if they cost much more so without the cheap contract labor, they would cease to exist. It is no wonder even supermarkets are not all over the map in Indonesia. The prices I saw in Manila were about the highest they could go without being too expensive even for a Canadian shopper. The cheap contract labor being exploited all over the place more than covers the difference between making this profitable and making it bankrupt. Even St. Louis, MO-IL Metropolitan Area with a bigger population than Metro Cebu and without the excessive 3rd world slums, St. Louis has just tiny malls. Whatever they did to get all these posh establishments up and running must have taken some massive abuse of human resources because the economy is so bad there, people are dying to get out so forget about thinking that these projects are a sign of amazing economic situation. I know something funky is goin on in there. It is like Binays properties. It looks good, but it makes everyone question where the rich get these things from. In a country as poor and desperate like the Philippines, when you see so many rich properties amidst massive slums, something is not right. In Mexico, Indonesia and Brazil and even Canada you have normal suburbs in every part of the country, surrounding medium sized strip malls and a few bigger one. In the Philippines you have massive slums encircling massive mall projects and upscale projects that make an american's jaw drop. Dont you see something is not right here?
So again, it will be a sight to behold when they abolish this labor law that has been used to build and then run masive properties like you never see anywhere else and see how one by one the malls get shut down.
Building so many things that need all this cheap labor to operate and remain in business is a dangerous risk being taken by these people as they risk losing everything if the labor law they used for this is taken away from them since these things cant stay in business under normal circumstances, much less in a country with so many who are deprived. Only made possible through continous exploitatio or else, byebye SM empire of malls! But if they can ensure this election keeps Liberal party in control, they will ensure a long life ahead with no changes in anything. So politics is the issue at stake.
Indonesia have 5 luxurious mall in Jakarta, that contain brand the likes of gucci, prada or dior. Isnt that very upscale? Metro Manila only have 1 or 2. There is one in Surabaya and Bali, and none in Cebu. Lots of pretty big ones too that isnt even justified on the ranking.
How do you even know supermarket retail distribution here , have you personally see it?
Indonesia have 5 luxurious mall in Jakarta, that contain brand the likes of gucci, prada or dior. Isnt that very upscale? Metro Manila only have 1 or 2. There is one in Surabaya and Bali, and none in Cebu. Lots of pretty big ones too that isnt even justified on the ranking.
How do you even know supermarket retail distribution here , have you personally see it?
Indonesia has 1.5 times the population of the Philippines, so of course you have more, of everything. The most luxurious malls in Manila are Greenbelt, Powerplant mall, and Shangrila Plaza. Many of the other malls have a mix of high-end and middle-range stores. So if you go to SM Aura or SM Mega Mall, you'll see stores for all classes because malls are where EVERYONE goes to hang out.
But all the malls I've seen in Jakarta just look like boring traditional indoor malls. Manila has a lot of malls that utilize the outdoor areas too. Do you have anything like Greenbelt
Manila has created some areas that feel more like walkable districts than traditional malls. Jakarta should work on that. It doesn't even have walkable CBDs like Makati, BGC, or Ortigas. And Jakarta really needs to stop building traditional huge malls because it's sinking into the ocean
Indonesia has 1.5 times the population of the Philippines, so of course you have more, of everything. The most luxurious malls in Manila are Greenbelt, Powerplant mall, and Shangrila Plaza. Many of the other malls have a mix of high-end and middle-range stores. So if you go to SM Aura or SM Mega Mall, you'll see stores for all classes because malls are where EVERYONE goes to hang out.
But all the malls I've seen in Jakarta just look like boring traditional indoor malls. Manila has a lot of malls that utilize the outdoor areas too. Do you have anything like Greenbelt
Manila has created some areas that feel more like walkable districts than traditional malls. Jakarta should work on that. It doesn't even have walkable CBDs like Makati, BGC, or Ortigas. And Jakarta really needs to stop building traditional huge malls because it's sinking into the ocean
And average wealthier people too, according to vehicle ownership index we have more people with cars per capita. And i agree we should have less mall and have more walkable street and green space, the pollution here is terrible and the traffic even worse. As for the sinking issue, its really a matter of underground water supply consumption, not its weight.
It wouldnt be bad seeing it turned into garden city like singapore.
You can claim that Indonesia has 5 "upscale malls" but the fact is almost every country has these, even Kenya and Mali! But I mean mind boggling architecture of retail developments on a massive scale. You dont have a huge mall with awe-inspiring architecture like SM Aura in Jakarta. Or a huge mall like SM Megamall with skating rink or a new mall even bigger and better than that waiting to be built or like SM north edsa with its huge size and unique design. And Bonifacio global city. Those malls in Jakarta that were mentioned were merely smaller places with some expensive merchandise, but nothing else noteworthy.
And Yes Indonesia has more cars per capita because indeed it is more well off. The fact that it is richer per capita and much bigger shows how imbalanced things are when you see how more expensive looking the malls are.
I also observed something new. SM and the other top mall chain are joining ventures to develop CityMall. A chain of 100 more small malls to be put up in almost every city that SM does not already have one in. this is the monopoly going full force. They claim to want their malls to be the "centre of gravity" for each of the cities they put them up in. Meaning they have an ambition to monopolize the economy just about everywhere! I cant think of any big country where one company monopolizes about every town. I think that no other countries have one mall in ever small city, much less all owned by the same monopoly. Aquino is letting it happen.
Something to consider. Every other family in Manila has a family member living and making money overseas (Middle East, US, Europe, or other Asian countries). Even the money that the maids are making goes a long way in the Philippines. That's why all these malls in Metro Manila are sustainable. You've got money from overseas fueling the consumer-driven economy
contractualization actually started way back in the 90s. when they saw that there are more labor available than demand.
its just a matter of economics. even in the US, when the economy is sluggish, they just hire temps or contract.
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