Some good news (Sabong News)
Author
Senator Sonny Angara
Date
MARCH 27 2022
For the past two years or so amid the pandemic, good news has been very difficult to come by. But in recent weeks, the tides appear to be shifting once again with new Covid-19 cases continuing to slide and the Department of Health (DOH) affirming that all regions are now at minimal risk case classification. The path to recovery is in sight. And while worries persist and people are rightfully called to be cautious, other developments give a measure of hope and firm up the belief that things will get better for the economy.
For one, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently projected that the Philippines is set to grow the fastest in Southeast Asia this year at 7 percent, outpacing the forecasted 6.5 percent for Vietnam, 6 for Malaysia, 5.6 for Cambodia, 5.2 for Indonesia, 4.6 for Laos, 4 for Singapore, 3.8 for Thailand, 3.5 for Brunei, and -0.3 for Myanmar.
To be clear, this is most probably due to a base effect, where after several quarters of diminished performance, the loosening up of restrictions is suddenly freeing up the energies of our economy. Heartening is the fact that while the pandemic really set us back, our fundamentals appear to remain strong, showing that we still have the basic components to allow us to catch up in the coming years.
What will be critical is that all sectors of the economy act in step of each other, and contribute what they can to push our performance back up. In this regard, President Duterte rightly provided a rallying call when he recently signed and issued Executive Order No. 166.
Said EO, which was proposed by the cabinet’s economic cluster, outlines a 10-point agenda for sustaining and accelerating economic recovery and driving broad-based expansion amid the pandemic, This includes the following: 1) Strengthening healthcare capacity; 2) Accelerating and expanding the vaccination program; 3) Reopening the economy further and expanding public transport capacity; 4) Resuming face-to-face learning; 5) Reducing restrictions on domestic travel, and standardizing local government requirements; 6) Relaxing requirements for international travel; 7) Accelerating digital transformation through legislative measures; 8) Providing enhanced and flexible emergency measures through legislation; 9) Shifting focus of decision-making and government reporting to more useful and empowering metrics; and 10) Medium term preparations for pandemic resilience.
Aside from this, President Duterte also recently signed into law R.A. 11659 which enacts key amendments to the 86-year old Public Service Act. With these amendments in place, previously restricted public service sectors—including telecommunications, railways, subways, airlines, expressways, tollways, and domestic shipping—are now open to full foreign ownership and hence to enhanced competition.
It is hoped that by liberalizing these sectors, more investments will come in and improve basic services to the benefit of Filipino consumers. Trade and industry secretary Ramon Lopez said that with the law in place, US$60 to US$100 billion in investments are projected to come in, providing much needed fuel to our economic recovery. In fact, within a day of the law’s signing, the European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines said that Starlink, the foremost satellite broadband internet technology provider of Elon Musk, is eyeing to service the Filipino market very soon, including households in far-flung, hard-to-reach areas.
The Amended Public Service Act is the third of the administration’s major economic liberalization reforms, which President Duterte signed into law over the past few months. One of these is R.A. 11647, which amends the Foreign Investments Act of 1991 to allow qualified non-Philippine nationals to invest up to 100 percent of their capital into a domestic enterprise or set up their own small and medium-sized enterprises. The other is R.A. 11595, which opens up the country’s retail sector to more foreign businesses by lowering the latter’s required paid-up capital for entry.
Hopefully with these reforms in place, and with the world witnessing what is possibly the tail-end of the pandemic, the Philippines will be able to attract some much-needed investments and fuel its recovery. Of course, whether or not we are able to truly recover will depend largely on the actions of whoever wins in the coming elections. But with the policy steps that the outgoing administration has already taken, the incoming leadership has already been provided a boost. And that is definitely good news.
