Foreign businessmen give Gibo high marks

Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, the candidate for president of the administration party in the May 10 elections, would make a good president, according to foreign business executives in the country.

Peter Wallace, the chief executive officer of Wallace Business Forum QRT, on Thursday led the expatriates in citing Teodoro’s sound appreciation of the business setting and climate in the Philippines.

Besides, Wallace said, they find “reassuring” the platform of government of the standard-bearer of Lakas-Kampi Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD).

“He [Teodoro] obviously understands the issues very well,” he added.

Teodoro, a former Defense secretary, during a forum held at Shangri-La Hotel in Makati City (Metro Manila), talked about his platform and his plans to safeguard the nation and its business community if he is voted as successor to President Gloria Arroyo.

The forum tackled corruption in the government, threats to internal security and proposals on economic development, among other issues.

“I don’t think there was any thing that he said that we would disagree [with],” Wallace said. He gave Teodoro a grade of 7 or 8 out of 10 for the presidential candidate’s grasp of the concerns of business movers, both local and foreign.

Corruption, the administration bet told the forum, could be dealt with by increasing monetary incentives for government employees and throwing the book against perpetrators caught engaging in graft red-handed.

Battling threats to internal security, Teodoro said, could gain from recruitment of a bigger number of soldiers.

Infrastructure, he added, could trigger economic growth in the countryside.

The Wallace business group’s primary goal is to help the president of the country identify, anticipate and manage external changes more effectively.

“To that end, we monitor and forecast changes in the political, economic, regulatory and industry-specific environments. And, if required, we can analyze the impact of such developments on individual clients,” Wallace said.

The business group holds conferences and roundtables to give business executives an opportunity to meet with government leaders and other influential decision-makers and discuss common problems among themselves.

Meanwhile, Teodoro also on Thursday urged the government to take advantage of the El Niño weather phenomenon for massive declogging activities in all of the country’s heavily silted and polluted waterways to prevent flooding when La Niña starts.

Such preemptive measures, he said, would assure that low-lying areas would not be inundated again by floodwaters when storms in the same magnitude of Ondoy and Pepeng hit the country again during the rainy season.

According to Teodoro, also a former chairman of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, the silt removed from water tributaries would be ideal materials for buttressing up earthen dikes and causeways making them more resistant to rampaging floodwaters.

He suggested that farmers who would be displaced by El Niño be hired for the clean-up to provide them with decent means of livelihood during the lean season.

In Lagazpi City, Albay province, Teodoro’s platform of government also was cited by Gov. Joey Salceda on Thursday as reason for the province likely voting for the administration standard-bearer.

Salceda told local radio station dzGB that Albay folk find Teodoro as the most intelligent among the nine candidates for president.

He noted that Bicol region, of which Albay is part, has been opposition country for decades but, in the 2004 presidential elections, Mrs. Arroyo ranked second behind Bicolano candidate former Sen. Raul Roco. –JEFFERSON ANTIPORDA Reporter with report from Rhaydz B. Barcia, Manila TImes