3 senatorial bets bat for a stronger economy

Three senatorial candidates batted yesterday for a stronger economy during the inaugural Manila Overseas Press Club weekly breakfast forum at the Ristorante La Dolce Fontana in Greenhills, San Juan.

Labor leader and former Sen. Ernesto Herrera called for using productivity in determining the pay of workers, in addition to the minimum wage.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel proposed a Magna Carta for Business to ensure the stability of government policies to assure investors and prevent such fiascos as the botched government takeover of Piatco‘s NAIA Terminal 3.

"The magna carta will define the rights and obligations of business and the rights and obligations of government towards business," Pimentel explained.

For his part, former Trade and Industry Secretary Mar Roxas advocated "palengkenomics" by helping small businesses to make the economy more robust and competitive and help micro and small and medium enterprises.

"There are 850,000 registered micro and SMEs," Roxas reckoned. And for every one registered SME, there are two or three which are not registered. "If one fourth of registered SMEs could be made to produce an extra job each, then you create at least 200,000 jobs," he said. SMEs are enterprises with less than P3 million in assets or sales.

"We should provide incentives not just to marquee investors like the big ccompanies but also the micro and SMEs," Roxas stressed.

Meanwhile, Manila mayoralty candidate Gemiliano "Mel" Lopez claimed that the city goverment is now technically bankrupt. "Manila has more than P800 million in borrowings plus debts owed to the Meralco, the water company, contractors and suppliers," Lopez, an accountant, estimated.

Manila’s borrowings, Lopez said, did not go to essential services like hospitals and clinics for the poor nor to educational facilities.

He said that during his watch as mayor from 1986 to 1992, he wiped out the city’s deficit and produced a surplus of more than P1.6 billion to his successor. Lopez pledged to restore the city’s financial health if elected mayor.

The MOPC breakfast forum is a weekly affair of Asia’s oldest press club and the most prestigious press club in the Philippines. It is moderated by Tony Lopez, MOPC president and editor-in-chief of BizNews Asia business weekly magazine, and co-moderated by Exequiel Garcia, MOPC governor and a Manila Times columnist.

MOPC chairman Maximo V. Soliven, Philippine STAR publisher and columnist, questioned Roxas why the government botched its takeover of the Piatco NAIA Terminal 3, but the senatorial candidate was not able to give a satisfactory answer.

Meanwhile, Herrera said FPJ will be a unifying president, one who can unite the people and spur them to greater productivity.

Pimentel said FPJ should be elected president because he has a heart and "only the heart sees what is right."

Roxas said Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo should be elected president because she is capable of undertaking major reforms amid an extremely difficult environment marked by terrorism, internal strife and economic, political and security concerns.