MAJOR ISSUES FACING THE PHILIPPINE ECONOMY

IN LINE WITH FOREIGN INVESTORS AND COMPARISON TO SINGAPORE

Government agencies and diehard defenders of the new administration can say whatever they
wish on the issue of international confidence in and respect for the Philippines, but inflows of
investment, capital, trade and assistance are not enhanced by shows of animosity and
disrespect towards international institutions, foreign governments and foreign leaders.
It is a mistake to attribute the emerging signs of international backlashespecially the decline of
the Phisix (Philippine Stock Exchange index) and the depreciation of the pesoto international
market trends solely.
Foreign governments and private investors are highly sensitive to bad governance,
administrative irresponsibility and erratic behavior on the part of national leaders.
There is no such thing as an unnecessary or dispensable industry in todays Philippine
economy, where unemployment and underemployment rates remain at naggingly high levels.
For instance:
- MINING INDUSTRY, which produces a number of key mineralsincluding gold, copper,
nickel and chromiteand some of whose components have been operating for close to
a century.
- Considering that todays Philippine economy needs all the jobs that it can get its hands
on, the object of government policy should be the raising of the operating standards
especially the waste disposal practicesof the mining companies, not their suspension
or closure.
- RESPONSIBLE vs IRRESPONSIBLE MINING
The authorities should go hammer-and-tongs against the irresponsible mining
companies but give all-out support to the responsible ones.
Entrepreneurs boils down to:
(1)
not renewing the contracts, at endo time, of contractual employees whose
renumeration they can no longer afford or
(2)
violate the new prohibition against the endo practice, knowing that DoLE
(Department of Labor and Employment) lacks the capability to effectively enforce
the prohibition.
Being still a middle-income Third World economy, the Philippines is in no position to reject
any unconditionally proferred foreign aid.
The Filipinos who comprise the 26.7 percent comprising this countrys poor dont want
Malacaang or Congress to tell aid donors to stop giving the Philippines economic assistance.
Philippines is independent: The Senate vote in 1991 to not renew the Military Bases
Agreement and thereby close down the US military bases in this country.
WHAT THIS COUNTRY SHOULD STRIVE, IN ITS POLICYMAKING, IS REAL, NOT PHONY,
INDEPENDENCE:

the kind of independence that the likes of South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan to the position of
international respect and economic prestige that they enjoy today. In getting to where they are
those countries leadersthe Chiang family, the South Korean generals and Lee Kuan Yew
treated international institutions and foreign leaders with civility and maturity, not
insolence and bluster.
To keep its vulnerable economic development process going,
The Philippines needs to pursue an independent foreign policy that seeks to make new
friendships without straining or ending tried-and-tested ones.