Carpe diem!

PRAHA — It was sheer coincidence we caught up with Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) director-general Lilia de Lima here at Praha, the capital city of Czechoslovakia. By the way, Praha is internationally called Prague. We nearly bumped into her in Warzawa (or Warsaw), the premier city of Polska, the international name of Poland.

The play on the local names of countries is interesting in the light of recent debate about proposals to change our country’s name. Malacañang Palace, through an agency under the Office of the President, reportedly recommended to change the international name of the Philippines to Felipinas. This was, as argued by officials of President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III, consistent with our history being discovered in 1521 by Spanish conquistadores who named our country after King Felipe of Spain. 

By whatever name our country has, the PEZA chief could not hide her dismay that the Philippines is hardly known among the EU states except in a few EU countries. This she personally discovered when she embarked on this mission to promote the Philippines to potential locators in our country’s economic zones and industrial parks spread all over the islands in the Philippines.

We would learn later from De Lima this was the last leg of her six-nation investment promotion mission among selected European Union (EU) states. It was almost a two-week swing that took her to Norway, Denmark, United Kingdom (UK), Poland, Hungary and now here in Czechoslovakia. 

We were in Poland when we were told by our Philippine ambassador Patricia Paez that De Lima along with her lone staff, her executive assistant at PEZA, conducted marathon meetings with leading members of the Polish Chamber of Commerce. The business forum was held at Warsaw where we attended last week the annual Renewable Energy Expo that Poland hosted this year.

One of our senior colleagues with us at the Expo is Loreto Cabanes, the business editor of the Bulletin Today who turned out to be De Lima’s nephew. When we arrived here last Friday night, he was able to get in touch with De Lima. She gladly stopped by the next morning in our hotel to give us an impromptu press briefing of her just concluded investment mission before she flew back to Manila later that day. 

It was Paez who told us about De Lima’s presence here. Paez noted with great satisfaction that the PEZA chief’s attendance generated so much interest among EU states she visited, many of which obviously have very little or no knowledge at all about the Philippines. In fact, Paez disclosed, the Polish Chamber of Commerce will send a trade delegation to Manila early next year.

From Poland, De Lima flew next to Hungary where Paez is the concurrent non-resident ambassador and also to Lithuania and Estonia. When we finally got hooked up here at Praha with De Lima, of course, the first thing we asked her was if Czechoslovakia’s Inekon joint venture on a Metro Rail Transit (MRT) project that has gone kaput due to corruption scandal has cropped up as an investment issue here. 

The Inekon tried to participate in the bidding of this $300-million joint venture project to deliver new and modern coaches to the new MRT line. Our original Light Rail Transit coaches and technology of elevated commuter trains came from Czechoslovakia which has a very efficient commuter train system here.

The Czech executives of Inekon reportedly backed out due to alleged attempts to solicit bribes by certain Aquino administration officials at the MRT, an attached agency under the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC). Through their ambassador in the Philippines, Inekon subsequently filed formal charges against the concerned officials led by MRT general manager Art Vitangcol and several others. But after serving the preventive suspension, Vitangcol has gone back to work even as formal charges are now pending against him.

The case of alleged attempt to solicit bribe is still being investigated by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). The NBI is an agency of the Department of Justice headed by Secretary Leila de Lima who happens to be a niece of PEZA chief De Lima. So we could not help but ask the PEZA chief if her niece has given her any update on Inekon’s case before she came here to invite Czech companies to locate their businesses in the Philippine economic zones.

“I told them there is no corruption in PEZA. I don’t behead them (while making a gesture of cutting her neck), I remove them,” De Lima said, turning feisty at the slightest hint of corruption.

De Lima was less than candid though if the bribery case that supposedly turned off a potential locator at PEZA was a big deal here. But she did admit being irritated on the briefing about the Philippines as presented at the business forum by a former Czech ambassador who served in the Philippines 20 years ago. She noticed the retired Czech ambassador was obviously still speaking from his memories of the Philippines two decades ago during his watch.

Though she did not go into details, De Lima was aghast at how time-warped the ex-Czech ambassador portrayed the Philippines as still in a backward state. She could not recall the name of the ambassador at that very moment of her irritation. 

All she remembered was standing up at the forum when it was her turn to speak and showed a power point presentation that included the latest sights and destinations not just for doing business but also for tourists from Europe. There’s more fun in the Philippines, if I may add.

As for investments in the Philippines, De Lima cited there are at present 337 European companies registered in PEZA economic zones, 306 of which come from 18 EU members, including Czechoslovakia. The bulk of PEZA registered companies, 110 of them, are from the UK.

Two Czech companies, in particular, are PEZA registered companies. These are, namely, Elementz Interactive Inc., an I.T. software development; and, Janty Inc., an on-line marketing.

When she was appointed PEZA chief in 1995 — which was then known as Export Processing Zone Authority — there were only 16 economic zones with 331 registered companies. At present, there are over 3,000 companies distributed in 293 economic zones and light and industrial parks all over the Philippines, through her 18 years now as PEZA chief. 

As I’ve said before what’s the use of being rated investment grade by international ratings agencies like Fitch and Standard & Poor’s if big companies and businesses abroad do not even know the Philippines exists in our part of the world. P-Noy’s economic managers and Palace drumbeat about the Philippines making investment grade as a vote of confidence and trust to the performance in office of the present government after almost three and half years now.

But the Aquino administration must make extra efforts not just to earn it. They must do every effort needed to seize the opportunities and bring fresh and big capital outlays locally and from abroad, especially foreign direct investments.

More jobs will be generated and thus greater income will be created for the Filipinos to bring about P-Noy’s economic mantra “inclusive growth” for all and not jobless growth up to now. Carpe diem!