Country: Philippines

Audience: College Students

Title: Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher

Intoduction:

Economic challenges lies near in the heart of many matters, such as public concerns, public health, government, people's welfare and especially in the world of business.

Part One

First and foremost, we have to tackle what are the economic challenges our country faces from history up to now. Some says that today we are living in the world full of circumstances, circumstances that even ancient medieval philosopher had not resolved.

To continue with this, may I ask you what our country thinks of resources.

Resources, from the word itself "source", some are recyclable and some are not.

In our everyday lives, we may think of what would happen if one of our basic needs is consume in high rate that even government cannot maneuver.

Energy sources are classified as nonrenewable if they cannot be replenished in a short period of time, unlike the solar and wind which can be replenished in a short period of time.

Fossil fuels were formed from the buried remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago, wherein according to Schumacher is an expendable income, for him it should be treated as capital since it is not renewable. Good allocation of fossil fuels should be maneuver with great care for it is used by many countries.

Philippines is rich in natural resources. It has fertile, arable lands, diverse flora and fauna, extensive coastlines, and rich mineral deposits. About 30% of the land area of the country was determined be geologically prospective by the Philippine Mines and Geo-Sciences Bureau. But Only 1.5% of country's land area is covered with mining permits. Despite the rich natural resources of the Philippines, the government is restricting its exploitation. A logging ban is imposed on many areas of the country and only in select areas are "sustainable logging" allowed.

However illegal logging and small-scale illegal mining continues in many areas. In July 2012, President Benigno Aquino III ordered a stop to all mining activities in all (78 areas) protected and eco-tourism sites. A positive step in the right direction to protect the natural resources of the Philippines.

Oil can be concluded as an important commodity of today's economy. Its supply to different country has a great impact on its price.

What makes the oil change its price is by means of "supply and demand", which is the basic lesson in economics. But it is not only the thing that make the oil change in price, there are many various reasons such as "Market sentiment" and "Cyclical trends" which also play a dominant role.

Philippines as a consumer of oil is greatly affected by Oil pricing, knowing that our economy is not as strong as other Asian countries. Changes in the price of oil affects our everyday. From transportation up to the very basic needs of people like food production.

Part Two

Great thinking comes from great man. Schumacher believes that human being is naturally brilliant. It has a unique quality that makes human different from any other species. Motivation in someone's personality is important especially in Third World countries.

For example, here in the Philippines, we are blessed with our nature's beauty but it needs to be conserve.

If we will look back in the past, we may think of western civilization on how they preserve their history as well as their cultures and traditions. Many great philosophers and thinkers were native of Western country, and up to now we still rely on their theories and analysis which made our educational system a good one for giving importance to those who share their knowledge for us to cope up with the challenges.

Education doesn't mean having a "sobra saliente" grade, but it means learning on something which you can use in real life situation.

The real value of education is something to be kept in mind as treasure.

If we will relate this in our country (Philippines) we can see great discrimination between out-of-school youth and those who study. The problem is, people thinks that out-of-school youths are those people who lacks brilliant mind, not knowing that people has different situations. Some are due to broken family, some are due to financial problem and some are due to the social classes that discriminates those who cannot afford.

Land is an essential thing in every country. It is where our home stands and where our foot, steps. Man is a child of nature, and he is not the master of nature, or shall I say "we are not the master of this nature"

To boost up the lesson, the land is very important in Agriculture for it has a unique ability to be an instrument to make various agricultural products such as vegetables, fruits, grains and especially land as habitat for animals.

To continue with this, People has a human nature of exploring new things to be unique over others. It’s like they want to experiment little things for them to be acknowledge by others.

In the world of industry, it is quite important to know the season. For you to be able to produce things that will be sold by consumers. For girls, beauty products is very important. It is a well-known product many years before the 20th century.

The question is how can we know the value of commodity? Well it is simple as a basic two plus two math problem. The value of commodity can be objectively measured by the average number of labor hours required to produce the commodity.

To generate heat, nuclear power is used. It includes nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion. It helps in the way that it can produce electricity in a very low price compared to solar energy. But it can have a slight risk of accidental contamination.