Philippine Politics, AI, and DLT

Reading the news this morning, though I don't like the drama that is taking place in Philippine politics, it is good to see that the once most powerful man in the country could be seen inside the prison in days to come. Of course, that would depend on the outcome of the case filed against him. According to the report, the former president "could face a maximum of six years imprisonment and a fine of P100,000.00 in case the court finds him guilty of grave threats." Source

Shifting to the technology sector, I am not sure how should I respond to reading phrases and statements from the current President that I only read here on Hive for the first time. Hearing phrases like "technological inclusivity" and "shared growth" from the mouth of a politician, it is but natural to receive them with reservation.

Rhetoric is good. I am not sure about the substance and its concrete implementation. The President even said that he was not satisfied with making these ideals just part of the vision, but wanted them to be "actively realized."

And so the President was talking to investors and representatives of private companies in the technology sector. He told them that "the Philippines is embracing the future of AI . . ." and wanted to position the country "as a 'center of excellence in artificial intelligence'. . .” He hoped to see that by digitalizing the system in the country, we would have our own "data centers" and "cloud." This is his idea of preparing the nation for the digital age. Source

So far, so good. However, as we all know, political speech is cheap. Ultimately, it boils down to the kind of policies that will promote such "technological inclusivity." And besides, if the government aims for inclusivity, why only focus on AI? How about blockchain and cryptocurrency? I think using the latter is a more concrete implementation of such inclusivity.

Perhaps, the next news article answers the above question. Two days ago, I stumbled upon this cointelegraph.com article about the plan of the Philippine government to sell $179 million worth of tokenized treasury bonds. Just this morning, I read yesterday's news about P10 billion tokenized treasury bonds. Source

The government coins the term "proof of concept" using DLT in its bond market. According to the report, this is:

. . . the starting point of the government's broader agenda of democratizing investment through digital technology . . .

If this is how the government defines technological democracy and inclusivity, this would mean that such an opportunity remains exclusive to those with huge capital. Imagine buying a tokenized treasury bond at 10 million. Who can afford that? The target is not the majority of Filipinos, but institutional investors.

I no longer wonder why politicians and bureaucrats love to use terms like inclusivity and democracy. This is because these terms are popular and people love them. However, though we cannot stop them from using these words, at least, we should be discerning enough to distinguish false promises from true substance. The kind of democracy and inclusivity these bureaucrats love to talk about is different from the kind of democratization of finance we see in InLeo and the vision of Hive for financial inclusion.

Anyhow, for those with huge capital, the bidding of the tokenized treasury bonds will be inaugurated on 20 November, this coming Monday.

Grace and peace!