A chicken-based double hamburger sold by the Kentucky Fried Chicken via Wikimedia Commons
Part IV of “Commonwealth Option for U.S.A.” Series
After this columnist featured Bluegrass Governor Andy Beshear in several column articles during the 2024 presidential election campaign, he was invited by his staff to join “Team Kentucky” (TK). He accepted the invitation. He told some 12,000-strong Kentuckians of Filipino descent that he intended to become one of TK’s “great thinkers.”
By the way, there is a Bluegrass Filipino-American Association, Inc., which has some 1,200 members and maintains a Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/181443318469.
Kentucky’s economy is experiencing growth, ranking 2nd in the South Central region and placing in the Top Five nationally for economic development projects per capita, according to Site Selection magazine’s 2024 Prosperity Cup rankings. Its population in 2024 was 4.59 million. However, it is still ranked the fifth-poorest state with a median household income (MHI) of $61,118. Even if Kentucky is one of the few states that produce a rare budgetary surplus, it has been achieved by the Beshear Administration for several years. Perhaps North Americans of Filipino descent, overseas Filipinos, and their in-laws can contribute to making Kentucky an economic powerhouse.
If this “Siamese-Twin Commonwealth” (STC) proposal of this TK member is accepted by the people of the Bluegrass Commonwealth and their leaders and the majority of Filipinos (at home and abroad), Kentucky will have an additional niche market (of consumers and investors) of 130 million Filipinos, including some 17 million Overseas workers composed of some 5 million of Filipino-descent Americans, and 2 million Filipino Canadians. Sixteen (16%) percent of the populations of Hawaii and Guam are of Filipino descent.
Ergo, for economic statistics purposes, Kentucky will have the most significant consumer population in the U.S.- at more than 135 million. On a worldwide basis, the STC of Kentucky and the Philippines may overtake the consumer-purchasing power of Russia or Mexico (the 9th and 10th countries with the biggest population in the world, respectively). As of March 21, 2025, Russia’s population is estimated at around 144.2 million, while Mexico’s population is estimated at approximately 130.7 million.
Hopefully, by 2030-to-2035, Kentucky will overtake California’s MHI of $89,870 (2023 figure). How can it be possible if it is not that easy? If Kentucky helps finish millions of Filipino nurses’ education and board certification, nearly all of them could maintain legal residence in the Bluegrass Commonwealth. Yes, even if many of them will work in the 49 other states of the American Union, in Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and other nurse-starved countries. They will file their income tax returns in Kentucky as Bluegrass resident taxpayers.
As this columnist has been writing since 2020, the World Health Organization has upgraded the projected worldwide shortage of nurses to 13 million (from an earlier pre-pandemic estimate of 5 million).
As this columnist has been writing since 2020, the World Health Organization has upgraded the projected worldwide shortage of nurses to 13 million (from an earlier pre-pandemic estimate of 5 million). Some American nurses now earn six figures annually, as many earn close to a thousand greenbacks in a 12-hour shift three to four days a week. Perhaps there will be more Kentucky-based Filipino nurses and other medical professionals in due time than the present Bluegrass Commonwealth population.
By this Wednesday, this column will discuss the vision of a pulsating socio-economic partnership between Kentucky and the Philippines in detail. It can make the Bluegrass Commonwealth the biggest single state-economy of the United States. Of course, with the help of Filipinos (both at home and abroad) and the Philippine Commonwealth (by that time), Kentucky’s entry door to the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN), which includes the Philippine archipelago, became Kentucky’ The ASEAN countries have more-than a combined population of half-a-billion people (read, consumers). This columnist will also explain how the framers of the 1935 Philippine Constitution (as approved by then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt) were inspired by Kentucky.
Here are two samples of the column’s mind-boggling but doable proposals in Part V. The corporate owners of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) humiliated Kentuckians by moving its headquarters to Texas. Well, the Bluegrass folks may later laugh loudly but fondly—to their hearts’ content—at this columnist’s idea of organizing a new venture to compete with the now-Texan KFC brand.
How about organizing a competing giant chain called “Kentucky-Filipino Chicken” (K-FC)? The new fast-food chain will serve not only fried but also grilled, baked, and Rotisseried (sic) chicken, Filipino-and-Mexican “chicken adobo,” chicken cooked in coconut milk, Filipino-Chinese orange chicken and Kung Pao chicken, chicken-feet dish, chicken-loaded buns (called siopao), and even chicken (chicharon) “popcorn” or Singaporean/Indonesian satay (barbequed chicken)? Ultimately, the KFC old brand might have this Texan-inspired slogan, “All Hats But No Chicken”?
There are more bright ideas on Wednesday like a viable new air carrier called “Kentucky-Filipino Commonwealth Airline” (KFC Air), which may be owned by its executives, workers, and employee-and-passenger co-ops, Kentucky’s pension funds, as spearheaded by millions of Kentucky-based new nurses.
After all, if Kentuckians and Filipinos have to dream about economic empowerment, should they/we dream big, if not supremely great and gigantic? And reduce the dreams into feasibility studies.
