Balisacan is a good choice for NEDA

P-Noy made a good choice in selecting Dean Arsenio Balisacan of the UP School of Economics to head NEDA in place of Dondon Paderanga who resigned for health reasons. Arsi, also the vice chairman of the Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), is a quiet, unassuming expert on development economics who has shown particular interest on poverty incidence. He had previous stints in government as undersecretary for agriculture.

No wonder he immediately declared that he will look into poverty reduction and inclusive growth as his priorities in his new assignment as the country’s economic planning secretary. Arsi has time and again expressed concern about the lack of inclusiveness in our growth, a concern also recently voiced by an ADB economist working on the Philippine desk. 

He told Business World “We need to break away from past patterns of growth, which largely failed to benefit the poorest rungs of our society.” This is also a theme that is constantly being emphasized by another FEF fellow, Dr. Mahar Mangahas of the Social Weather Stations.

The latest SWS poll conducted last March 10-13 showed that an estimated 11.1 million families or 55 percent of the total claimed to be poor, an increase from 9.1 million or 45 percent in December. Hunger, meanwhile, reached a record high with 4.8 million families (23.8 percent of respondents) who claim to have experienced “involuntary suffering due to the lack of anything to eat,” the SWS said.

Arsi is well respected by his peers for his work in agricultural and development economics. He has a doctorate in economics from the University of Hawaii. He taught development economics, agricultural economics, and special topics on poverty, inequality, and institutions at the UP School of Economics.

Hopefully Arsi hits the ground running, so to speak, so that he won’t need a long time to understand how NEDA works. A number of urgent infrastructure projects need NEDA review and Arsi should not allow the line agencies like DOTC to use a bottleneck in NEDA as the excuse for the slow delivery of projects, specially those under the administration’s PPP program.

 Visas and tourism

One of the more amazing things I saw during my Holy Land Tour two weeks ago is how Egypt, Israel and Jordan have relaxed visa requirements for tour groups. Given the volatile peace and order situation in the region, one would expect these countries to be super paranoid about visitors. But our group of 184 Pinoy tourists was allowed visa free entry in the case of Israel and Jordan and visa on entry in the case of Egypt.

We entered Egypt by air, Israel and Jordan by land. In all instances, the whole process was a breeze. It is even more stressful for a Filipino to enter the Philippines because of those long immigration lines and less than friendly immigration officers.

We were not hassled at all in all the borders we crossed, no long interrogation and the immigration officers proved to be models of politeness. That’s simply the civilized way of encouraging tourism even in troubled countries.

I cannot understand why in our case, our immigration rules and procedures are so damn cumbersome and bureaucratic. This is one reason why we are losing out to tourist destinations in our region.

We are so paranoid particularly about the Indians and the Chinese. In some cases, we are worse than the American immigration officers in Honolulu.

I have brought out this problem with Tourism Secretary Mon Jimenez and he agreed that we have to do something about it. The secretary promised to deliver reforms soon, as he said he was in talks with the DFA and the immigration bureau about being more tourist friendly. Mon is advocating the general norm of visa-free entry for tourists, particularly those who are part of tour groups.

Come to think of it, even super paranoid Russia, allowed us visa-free entry some years ago when my wife and I visited St Petersburg as part of a North European cruise. All we had to do was present our passports. In other ports of call, we didn’t even have to show our passports… the identification card issued by the cruise ship sufficed. And in Croatia, we got visa on arrival.

A quick revision of our visa policy is urgently needed now that we have this problem with China that resulted in the mass cancellations of Chinese tour groups that would impact our local industry way beyond July or even as late as October. Stella Arnaldo of Business Mirror reports that the local tourism industry is urging the government to rush the lifting of visa restrictions for other Asian and European nationals who can fill the gap created by a projected decrease in Chinese tourists.

Marceline Clemente, president of the Tourism Congress (TC) told Ms Arnaldo, “the government needs to fast-track the relaxation of visa requirements for countries such as India and Russia, so we can adjust our promotions to them to fill the gap that will be created by the Chinese market.” Clemente also reported that “The Department of Foreign Affairs said it was working on offering visa-on-arrival for these countries.”

That’s welcome news. I earlier heard that DFA is having second thoughts because any relaxation of the visa policy will mean less income for the agency. Apparently, visa fees earn DFA a few million dollars a year. But protecting that revenue stream goes against the greater national objective of earning a lot more and creating thousands of new jobs if more tourists do come and visit us.

Among the new visa policies agreed upon in Mon J’s meeting with Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr., are the increase in the visa-free privilege for 166 countries-territories from 21 to 30 days, granting of a 30-day visa-free stay to Chinese nationals traveling to the Philippines as part of a tour group handled by a DOT-accredited Philippine tour operator, and a 14-day visa-free stay for Indian nationals who have a valid American, Japan, Australian, Canadian, Shengen, Singapore, or United Kingdom visa.

Unfortunately, no timetable was given when government plans to implement this new visa rules. The DFA and Bureau of Immigration have already issued their respective circulars to this effect providing for the rules and guidelines.”

The thing with dealing with government is to get them to say a specific date, a specific timetable… “soon” is never good enough when dealing with the bureaucracy that is often stymied by severe inertia. The way I see it, if we are serious with tourism promotion, we have to change the mindsets of our bureaucrats and make them think like the Egyptians, Israelis and Jordanians when it comes to tourists and visas.

I don’t see any justification for paranoia on the matter of letting tourists in visa-free or visa-on-arrival, specially because I saw countries in an infinitely more volatile region act with less paranoia than us. Besides, a liberal visa policy will also help this administration remove one more source of corruption at the immigration bureau. This is a policy that must be implemented right away.

$10 million

The revelation of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales of a finding from our Anti-Money Laundering Council that indeed, Chief Justice Renato Corona has millions of dollars in 82 hidden accounts confirmed our worse suspicions. The best that the defense of Mr Corona can do now is to question the legality of the AMLC probe, but that is irrelevant to the fact that he has funds he had not declared.

Even if Mr Corona chooses to resign at this point, this government should pursue cases against him for corruption proven by that hidden wealth. The BIR should likewise include the revelation in its on-going investigation. Mr Corona’s goose is cooked.

With this development, this country may yet be given a rare chance to clean up its judiciary. Notice is served on bar and bench that the dispensation of justice is its only and most sacred mission and any attempt to earn personal gains will not be tolerated by an incensed citizenry.

 Banks

Atty Sonny Pulgar sent this one.

A young college co-ed came running in tears to her father. “Dad, you gave me some terrible financial advice!”

“I did? What did I tell you?” said the dad.

“You told me to put my money in that big bank, and now that big bank is in trouble.”

“What are you talking about? That’s one of the largest banks in the state,” he said. “there must be some mistake.”

“I don’t think so,” she sniffed. “They just returned one of my checks with a note saying, ‘insufficient funds’.”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco