It’s time everyone helped

Last week I wrote about the initiative of the Foreign Chambers to suggest actions and reforms that could take this country forward.

The government too has released various plans and programs, but not in such a concerted fashion.

What I’m concerned about, though, are not the plans but the actions. Get action and you get results. How though do you get action from a government that’s been institutionalized to resist it? How do you get action when you’ve got a Judiciary that seems determined to block it? How do you get action when you’ve got a Congress so focused on inquiries it has no time to pass the laws you need to move forward?

If the Supreme Court wishes to dispute my claim, let me quote a few judgments that went against national interest (and the split vote on each shows they could have found either way. They could have been supportive of public interest if they so chose).

• It ruled that Executive Order No. 1 which creates the Truth Commission is unconstitutional. According to the SC, the EO “violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution as it singles out investigation of graft and corrupt practices in the previous administration”

• Voting 8-3, the Supreme Court issued a “status quo ante order” preventing the House of Representatives from proceeding with the impeachment case against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierez

• It issued a status quo order on the implementation of EO No. 2 (Revoking of Arroyo Midnight Appointments). This reinstated National Commission on Muslim Filipinos head Bai Omera Lucman who previously asked the High Court to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent Malacañang from enforcing the order

In the first case, there was enough evidence to suggest the need to at least look into the controversies. Which was all the Truth Commission was going to do. Is the Supreme Court going to tell the Bureau of Internal Revenue that it can’t investigate tax evaders unless it investigate everybody?

Of course you single out suspects to investigate, that’s what the law is all about―catching the criminals.

As to stopping the impeachment of the Ombudsman, the Congress is a co-equal, INDEPENDENT (caps mine) body. It has every right to investigate someone suspect of dereliction of duty.

In both the above cases, if the parties are innocent, they’d want that innocence brought into the light and their name cleared. Someone who tries to hide I immediately presume guilty, until proven innocent.

In the third case, Article VII, section 15 of the 1987 Constitution stipulates that “two months immediately before the next presidential elections and up to the end of his term, a President or Acting President shall not make appointments, except temporary appointments to executive positions when continued vacancies therein will prejudice public service or endanger public safety”. When applied to last year’s May 10 presidential elections, the ban covers the period March 11 to June 30.

Lucman was appointed by Arroyo on March 8, took her oath 2 days later and assumed office on March 26. Executive Order No. 2 provides that those appointed before March 11 but assumed office after that date are considered midnight appointees.

It’s an arguable point, but however the law interprets it, common decency says you don’t rush to put people in place just before you leave. You have the courtesy to let the new president select the people he’ll work with for the next six years. A Supreme Court caring for the national interest would have taken that into account.

Other recent Supreme Court decisions with negative impact on business and, hence, on the growth of the Philippine economy for its people are:

• It sustained Manila Council’s reclassification of Pandacan as residential/commercial area. It required the relocation of oil depot of Chevron, Petron and Shell. Despite the fact that the pipeline was there first, the “squatters” came later of their own volition. And despite the fact that it could prove it was perfectly safe even if, in the very remote eventuality, a tank went up.

• It nullified fiscal incentives granted to Clark ecozone locators. Despite the fact that government had made that promise and investors came in good faith.

• It canceled a rate increase by Meralco as it was based on a formulation the court disallowed, although it was a formula previously agreed to and had undergone public scrutiny. The Court even claimed, incredibly, that tax was not a business expense that could be passed on to consumers.

• It nullified the agreement between Public Estates Authority and Thai-based Amari on the grounds that reclaimed land is public land.

• It ruled that a naphtha cracker facility should be built in Bataan, as petitioned by a politician to have the project in his hometown, not in Batangas as the Taiwanese investors preferred based on their business assessment. They left the country, as they certainly should. What right does the Supreme Court have to mandate where you must invest?

As to the legislative department, in the previous Congress only 21 significant business and economic bills were enacted. Important measures such as Freedom of Access to Information and Rationalization of Fiscal Incentives were not passed. Some significant bills have been languishing in Congress since 1992. Maybe now we’ll see some action, if they can cut down on the inquiries that anyway almost never lead to legislation as they claim.

Then there’s the bureaucracy itself, stuffed with people politicians appointed. They have no experience for the job. There are career officers who’ve learned that the safest course is to block everything. Making a decision could only get you in trouble, so best not to make one. And with the way they get attacked if a decision offends someone of influence, I don’t blame them.

So what does P-Noy do? He’s hostage to a system that has brought this country to the bottom in Asia. And it will stay there if he doesn’t take some bold moves. The Philippines in the totality of its society must see a dramatic, fundamental shift in its makeup if it’s to get anywhere.

Ramos started to, Erap didn’t even know what day it was, Gloria blew it (she was someone who could really have done it) so it’s up to P-Noy. He’s got the most important ingredient, the overwhelming support of the people. No one has had +88 percent support before. It says people want change. They want his empathy for the people, his simple lifestyle to translate into reform that gives them decent jobs where they can educate their kids. (A manageable number now, if his praiseworthy support for the RH bill results in success), somewhere to live that isn’t rusty G.I. sheets—at best, cardboard boxes more often. And a pride that the Philippines is at the top of the heap (where it belongs) not at the bottom where it’s been for ever so long now.

Can he do it?

I remember holding one of my Roundtables with former President Gloria Arroyo a couple of months into her ascendancy. At her invitation we held it at the Palace; close to 200 CEOs showed up. At the end of her presidency, if I’d tried it again, almost no one would have.

P-Noy is almost the reverse, you can’t get him to a meeting with business despite they’re the ones, the only ones really, who’ll provide the jobs to break the poverty trap. Being the antithesis of GMA isn’t a bad thing; it’s a good thing. But some exception should be made, meeting with business must be one of them. In his seven months he’s met with business once. I exclude cutting ribbons that’s photo-op stuff and where there is no useful interchange.

We need huge levels of investment. Just imagine the impact on people’s lives if we could just match the levels of foreign investment Vietnam has received in the past six years. Some US$23.4 billion has poured in. In the Philippines it was half that, US$12.1 billion.

If we could get that US$23.4 billion in Aquino’s term that could create about 7.8 million decent paying jobs. That could lift GDP by 2.3 percentage points, per year. But businesses need to know the President, they want to feel he understands and supports what they need beyond just rhetoric. Interaction does it.

He needs to interact. -Peter Wallace, Manila Standard Today