The Philippines should catch up with Vietnam in exploiting its intellectual capital to achieve economic recovery since this is what it is rich in or it will soon be left behind similar to how Taiwan, which in the 1970s was in the same league as the country, sped up toward industrialization.

It is noteworthy that the Philippines has taken the thrust to advance economic recovery through the maximized use of its natural resources such as in mining or oil resource development.

However, the Philippines' obvious strength is in its human resource, not merely for labor, but for the high-end intellectual property (IP), for research and development, particularly in the biotechnology or Information technology (IT) sectors.

"We're looking at businesses that rely on IP. WE may focus on industries that use natural resources - mining and oil. But these are capital intensive. We're not rich in capital. Our people may be poor, but they're intelligent. We can use them as means to grow our economy," said Dennis Ramon B. Posadas, Ayala Foundation Inc. consultant.

Posadas is also author of "Rice, Bowl, and Chips: How Asian countries are using the Silicon Valley model to develop technology startups."

The Philippines was working at the same time as Taiwan in the 1970s on the semiconductor industry and integrated chip design when the Philippines failed to commercialize its inventions. On the other hand, Taiwan, through its establishment of an industrial center in Hsinchu north of Taiwan, lured investors to spring up a high-technology industry. The Hsinchu is a convergence site for industrialists, academicians, and venture capitalists.

Now, biotechnology is part of Taiwan's flagship "two-trillion, two-star" as it believes biotechnology will be its next boom area like the microchips before for which it has been putting up biotech parks. The Executive Yuan also invested so far $112 million for biotech companies and venture capital funds and another $600 million in low-interest loans and startup capital through three investment banks.