Dreaming of the 2024 Olympic Games in the Philippines. For next year 2014, let us all dream big, really big. I propose we prepare to bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics (XXXIII), to follow the 2020 Summer Olympics to be hosted by Tokyo. Impossible dream? Not really. Seoul hosted the 1988 Olympics, winning the bid around 1980 when South Korea was just a rising economy. In 1972, the Philippines and South Korea were at around the same level of economic development. We already had a 10-year old shipyard in NASSCO, Mariveles, Bataan, constructing inter-island ships. Hyundai Shipbuilding of Korea had its groundbreaking only in 1972. We were already assembling cars way before with Ysmael's Fiat, DMG's Volkswagen and the PCMP Program, when South Korea virtually had no domestic car industry. But South Korea apparently dreamt bigger dreams than we did as a nation. They dreamt of hosting the Olympics and won that bid just around 10 years after they made that 1972 push for economic development. I dare say we are in a much higher economic status now than where South Korea was when they had their Olympic dream in the 80s and achieved it. In the process of working for that Olympic dream, they worked to dramatically improve their infrastructure, energy, social amenities, communications, etc, to become worthy of consideration to host the Olympics. When South Korea achieved their Olympic dream, they accelerated as well their national development. I propose we dream that big dream, the Olympic dream and in the process accelerate our economic development the way the South Koreans did more than three decades ago.
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