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Yeah, Cebu has a lot of malls. But some of them are nice. I like the old fashion feel of several floors and attendants everywhere. Just like the gas stations it's full service, not self service. Most of the employees at these malls are young people on temporary contracts. They get paid very little, but it's something. The Philippines could do so well without the corruption. I thought the President was going to end corruption.
Philippines is implementing Minimum Wage Law for all labourers; so I cannot reckon how labour violations are there for SM or Ayala Mall operators. The employees of these malls can always complain to the Labour Department for breaching any labour laws such as regarding wages and work hours. On the topic of contractualisation of its employees; I don't see anything wrong about that as long as these employees are paid based on the required wages; in addition to the company's retention and permanency programs for these casual of contract workers. My previous companies also get contract services and these contract workers enjoyed good benefits...their work tenure with my previous company was limited though.
Yeah, Cebu has a lot of malls. But some of them are nice. I like the old fashion feel of several floors and attendants everywhere. Just like the gas stations it's full service, not self service. Most of the employees at these malls are young people on temporary contracts. They get paid very little, but it's something. The Philippines could do so well without the corruption. I thought the President was going to end corruption.
You will be shocked to find out that it turns out that Aquino is MORE corrupt than even Arroyo! the tolerance of smuggling is a GREAT tool to measure real corruption level. The comparison of smuggling from Arroyo's term to Aquinos term makes Arroyo look not corrupt compared to Aquino. Smuggling of every kind of retail goods has literally exploded beyond belief under Aquino.
You will be surprised how much these retailers save using contracturalization. People have referred to malls as "contractualization camps" due to the severity of not just the number of employees affected, but the sheer loss of compensation for each and every employee. The wages only tell a fraction of the story. Not only are they missing out on a high value of benefits such as leaves and money bonuses and coverages, but also the elimination of unions sinks wages even lower than they cold be with unions. The net result is them compensating workers thousands of dollars less per day and keeping maintenance costs super low.
The Philippines had a depreciated currency for a long time, which when combined with a large usd earning expatriate population sending remittances created the right environment for shopping centers to spawn. Remember that the philippines is the #3 remittance country in the world and the largest per capita. To understand what's going on, you need to study the evolution of the mall industry there since the 1980s before making blanket generalizations disguising jealousy.
So you still consider the contractualization as a zero factor? Are you saying that the billions saved by corporations through labor contractualization is not a factor? The scale of this labor scheme is so mind blowing, if you think it is NOT a factor, you need to learn about it, because you are obviously missing something. I read that malls are VERY expensive to operate. maintenance cost alone can be more than rent cost according to one source. And this does not factor in the many in store employees costs. This means that the labor cost is by far the biggest factor.
And you are not getting something about this remittance thing. The Philippines is not blessed by the remittances because they have it INSTEAD of other things that would be better like industrialization. Remittances is only one thing they got. Think about tourist dollars inflows like in Mexico and Brazil. They got far more "foreign dollars" coming in just alone through that. Not to mention a well developed industrial base. Remittances does not tell the whole story about the actual state of the nation. An actual state of the nation analysis is disgusting to residents at best. They describe the Aquino administration as a disaster with its policies. The amount of money gained through remittances is far offset by huge losses incurred to the public by contractualization appalling job situtation, high cost of living and more crisis. As anyone there how is the Philippines economically and everyone that answers will say it is very hard, money is very tight. Reports say the quality of jobs in the country has deteriorated under Aquino.
It seems like he is even more corrupt than Arroyo. proven corruption comes from dirrectly stealing. Aquino seems to have a whole new kind of corruption that is worse, but far more in the silence. They quietly impose policies that oppress the people with bad labor practices and allowing smuggling. The deterioration of job quality and explosion of smuggling go to show that Aquino is allowing a new level of corruption to proliferate. And again, with the high cost of everything from electricity to goods in stores compared to Mexico, my comparison to them for remittances goes to show how that is not enough to make Philippines a mall paradise for local shoppers especially since this is about retail itself which is not even any cheaper than Mexico, if not more expensive. Their income at best is no better than richer countries. I keep telling you the only reason they can shop is because the malls are cheaply run through contract labor.
I just found yet ANOTHER factor. No wonder retail seems to be exploding amidst apparently a crisis level economic situation. smuggling under Aquino has been benefiting retailers under Aquino's govt. Puregold has been increasing its smuggling and now Puregold is going on a store building binge. This happens when Puregold just so happens to be getting big into smuggling. Puregold corp is close to Aquino so he is helping them achieve this. It appears that smuggling has skyrocketed and total amoun smuggled seems to be equivalent to the approximate value of all retail sales in the country. 33 billion USdollars worth of merchandise will be smuggled into the country this under the current trajectory. This is fueling the supermarket explosion of Puregold. Hundreds of malls on a new level of building binge planned have yet to be opened. This happens when smuggling of retail merchandise is reaching top levels at the benefit of retailers. I told you something strange is happening there. Puregold is secretly being blamed for smuggling. Smuggling is soaring in the last 2 years. Puregold is exploding its store count starting this year with hundreds of big box stores including across Mindanao, plus hundreds more mini stores under franchise.
It does not surprise me that more economically stable countries don't have this gargantual retail explosion. So while yes, clearly people are finding it really easy to shop a lot which is causing this explosion, the reason for it is not by honest means. It is INDISPUTABLE that this massive scale of retail size and further massive scale of expansion is being caused by various illicit practices. exploitation of dirt cheap labor. 2. smuggling of goods 3. monopolization of the economy. 4. Illegal transactions/bribery/buying of laws to favor the capitalists.
Without any doubt, ilicit practices are the reason for the proliferation of explosive retail building in a country known for nothing but suffering extreme poverty. Mexico is building factories like their is no tomorrow, Singapore is building world renouwned CBDs like there is no tomorrow, Macau is building casinos like there is no tomorrow, Dominican has put up resorts like there is no tomorrow, Philippines is building... just malls, like there is no tomorrow.
If you elect someone like say Duterte to stomp out corruption, all 4 of the above points will vanish and so will all those retail empires f the overall economic situtation they have now does not change much. Stop the smuggling? prices of goods wont be dirt cheap so people wont buy so much. Stop the contractualization? the whole operation wont be so economic anymore so staying open will be difficult. Kill the monopoliation scheme supported by Aquino? SMEs or small business will finally open up and will be the final blow to all those SM, Ayala malls and more as more typical medium stores and shopping areas will grab all they can from the pie since only low cost retail platforms can handle normal goods costs and establishment operational costs. So they will be the ones to take the shoppers. With this current kind of govt gone, then there would also be no more other misc special accomodation to big corporations. The end result of this? those big malls would be replaced by the general setup everywhere else? What may that be? look in ANY country outside the Philippines and you will see what is normal! A city with a middle class population of less than one million people typically has no more than one big mall. Cebu city has a tiny middle class population with FOUR big malls. If 1. smuggling, 2. monopoly control and 3. labor exploitation were obliterated, it would look a lot different! Those 3 things are all enormous contributors to the setup.
I just found yet ANOTHER factor. No wonder retail seems to be exploding amidst apparently a crisis level economic situation. smuggling under Aquino has been benefiting retailers under Aquino's govt. Puregold has been increasing its smuggling and now Puregold is going on a store building binge. This happens when Puregold just so happens to be getting big into smuggling. Puregold corp is close to Aquino so he is helping them achieve this. It appears that smuggling has skyrocketed and total amoun smuggled seems to be equivalent to the approximate value of all retail sales in the country. 33 billion USdollars worth of merchandise will be smuggled into the country this under the current trajectory. This is fueling the supermarket explosion of Puregold. Hundreds of malls on a new level of building binge planned have yet to be opened. This happens when smuggling of retail merchandise is reaching top levels at the benefit of retailers. I told you something strange is happening there. Puregold is secretly being blamed for smuggling. Smuggling is soaring in the last 2 years. Puregold is exploding its store count starting this year with hundreds of big box stores including across Mindanao, plus hundreds more mini stores under franchise.
It does not surprise me that more economically stable countries don't have this gargantual retail explosion. So while yes, clearly people are finding it really easy to shop a lot which is causing this explosion, the reason for it is not by honest means. It is INDISPUTABLE that this massive scale of retail size and further massive scale of expansion is being caused by various illicit practices. exploitation of dirt cheap labor. 2. smuggling of goods 3. monopolization of the economy. 4. Illegal transactions/bribery/buying of laws to favor the capitalists.
Without any doubt, ilicit practices are the reason for the proliferation of explosive retail building in a country known for nothing but suffering extreme poverty. Mexico is building factories like their is no tomorrow, Singapore is building world renouwned CBDs like there is no tomorrow, Macau is building casinos like there is no tomorrow, Dominican has put up resorts like there is no tomorrow, Philippines is building... just malls, like there is no tomorrow.
If you elect someone like say Duterte to stomp out corruption, all 4 of the above points will vanish and so will all those retail empires f the overall economic situtation they have now does not change much. Stop the smuggling? prices of goods wont be dirt cheap so people wont buy so much. Stop the contractualization? the whole operation wont be so economic anymore so staying open will be difficult. Kill the monopoliation scheme supported by Aquino? SMEs or small business will finally open up and will be the final blow to all those SM, Ayala malls and more as more typical medium stores and shopping areas will grab all they can from the pie since only low cost retail platforms can handle normal goods costs and establishment operational costs. So they will be the ones to take the shoppers. With this current kind of govt gone, then there would also be no more other misc special accomodation to big corporations. The end result of this? those big malls would be replaced by the general setup everywhere else? What may that be? look in ANY country outside the Philippines and you will see what is normal! A city with a middle class population of less than one million people typically has no more than one big mall. Cebu city has a tiny middle class population with FOUR big malls. If 1. smuggling, 2. monopoly control and 3. labor exploitation were obliterated, it would look a lot different! Those 3 things are all enormous contributors to the setup.
Manila is not just building malls. They're building casinos and resorts. The whole area just South of Mall of Asia is being turned into a casino/entertainment area. I believe it's called "Resorts World." And in Paranaque, Paris Hilton built an urban "beach resort."
Ok nice to see the Philippines is making a larger variety of things after all. I am going to guess that the beach club place is close to the casino because I heard that it too is in paranaque. They will build another big mall there soon.
Good thing the rent is cheap there. Much better than what I get here in the USA for the same money.
Last edited by Santaronto; 01-28-2016 at 08:46 PM..
So you still consider the contractualization as a zero factor? Are you saying that the billions saved by corporations through labor contractualization is not a factor? The scale of this labor scheme is so mind blowing, if you think it is NOT a factor, you need to learn about it, because you are obviously missing something. I read that malls are VERY expensive to operate. maintenance cost alone can be more than rent cost according to one source. And this does not factor in the many in store employees costs. This means that the labor cost is by far the biggest factor.
And you are not getting something about this remittance thing. The Philippines is not blessed by the remittances because they have it INSTEAD of other things that would be better like industrialization. Remittances is only one thing they got. Think about tourist dollars inflows like in Mexico and Brazil. They got far more "foreign dollars" coming in just alone through that. Not to mention a well developed industrial base. Remittances does not tell the whole story about the actual state of the nation. An actual state of the nation analysis is disgusting to residents at best. They describe the Aquino administration as a disaster with its policies. The amount of money gained through remittances is far offset by huge losses incurred to the public by contractualization appalling job situtation, high cost of living and more crisis. As anyone there how is the Philippines economically and everyone that answers will say it is very hard, money is very tight. Reports say the quality of jobs in the country has deteriorated under Aquino.
It seems like he is even more corrupt than Arroyo. proven corruption comes from dirrectly stealing. Aquino seems to have a whole new kind of corruption that is worse, but far more in the silence. They quietly impose policies that oppress the people with bad labor practices and allowing smuggling. The deterioration of job quality and explosion of smuggling go to show that Aquino is allowing a new level of corruption to proliferate. And again, with the high cost of everything from electricity to goods in stores compared to Mexico, my comparison to them for remittances goes to show how that is not enough to make Philippines a mall paradise for local shoppers especially since this is about retail itself which is not even any cheaper than Mexico, if not more expensive. Their income at best is no better than richer countries. I keep telling you the only reason they can shop is because the malls are cheaply run through contract labor.
Contractualization has nothing to do with corruption. If that were the case then ibm, Walmart and citibank would be corrupt for hiring contractual workers around the world. Your post is illogical.
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