Capital flight worries Villar

Speaker Manuel Villar expressed serious concern yesterday over reports of a major nosedive in the Philippine Stock Exchange and the massive sell-off and flight of foreign shareholders.

He said he was also worried about domestic capitalists either freezing expansion plans or even sending off and salting funds abroad. He added that his staff was also studying the drop in the remittances of overseas Filipino workers or OFWs, which he heard had shrunk to almost half the original $7 billion a year.

Villar underscored that while Congress can't directly influence any turn-around in this discouraging situation, since it is not the executive branch and merely legislates, he vowed that the still-pending Securities Act of 1999 would be given more teeth, with safeguards and strictures inserted that would help create a more dependable, responsible and credible Philippine Stock Exchange.

He stated that he was inclined to urge his fellow solons to retailor the draft measure (the Senate already passed its own version) to more closely approximate the United States law government Wall Street and other stock market activities.

Villar pointed out that since he assumed the speakership in July 1998, the Lower House has already passed 386 bills, franchises and resolutions.

On the other hand, he explained, "we're not in a rush to pass more and more laws." The country, he explained, already has 16,000 laws on its statute books.

When asked why the House appeared to be passing so many new tax measures, such as the so-called "Road Users Tax" and other Malacañang sponsored tax bills, he asserted that the House had, in fact, "sat down on most of the tax bills submitted by the Palace." The Speaker roundly denied that the House of Representatives was becoming a "rubber stamp" body slavishly followings the directives of President Estrada.

The occasion for the Speaker's remarks was yesterday morning's weekly forum of the Greenhills Walking Corp. (an organization of early morning "brisk walkers," joggers, and coffee addicts) held in the Ristorante la Dolce Fontana in Greenhills.

Also participating in yesterday's dialogue was Rep. Joaquin M. Chipeco, Jr. (2nd District, Laguna) and former Pangasinan Governor and ex-Agrarian Reform Minister Conrado Estrella.

With regard to the so-called "Power Bill," Villar underscored that it was being subjected to further truly and debate, since any legislation involving an expenditure of P150 billion in more should not be rushed to completion. "It's no use passing one law after another without the appropriate funding being available," he noted, "since we already having uselessly on our books no less than P420 billion worth of laws which can't be set into motion for lack of funding. "This is a ridiculous and embarrassing situation," Villar deplored.

Among the principles to be clarified in finalizing a "Power Bill," he stated, is whether a company like the Meralco, or some similar institution, should be permitted to be the "generator" of electricity and power, while being, at the same time, its distributor to the end-users and consumers. "Would this not result in a monopoly?" Villar added, "which is what some congressmen are asking."

Regarding the "divorce" bill, both Villar and Chipeco said that they didn't believe it could pass the house, at least this session.

"When it was first passed around," the Speaker recalled, "so many signatures had been attached to the measure that I thought it would be handily approved." As the weeks were on, however, there were fewer and fewer advocates of the "divorce" idea. He presumed that pastors, bishops, and religious and lay organizations had been buttonholing their respective members of Congress to argue against a "divorce" law.

What was interesting was that it was the male members of the House who seemed to be less and less enthusiastic as time were on about a divorce measure. (Out of the 221 members of the House of Representatives, 26 are women).

"I don't want to start a quarrel with the Senate," Villar quickly said, even as he pointed out that of the 386 bills approved by the lower chamber, "less than 30 had passed the Senate."

Then, he reminded his listeners, "there is still the third chamber, the 'Bi-cam' or bicameral committee composed of Senators and Representatives " which must hammer the different bills passed by each chamber into final form for submission to the President for signature.