Congress should support business, not block it!

Indeed most of the people I have talked to are very optimistic that the Year 2007 would be a good year for Filipinos. This of course includes the very optimistic Francis Monera, the new president of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Inc. (CCCI) who issued such a statement during the Chambers’ year-end report. Well, the first week of the New Year isn’t even over yet and the peso has finally dropped down to around P48.50 vis-à-vis the US dollar. This shows a robust economy ahead of us and we can only hope and pray that we could sustain this growth. But cross your fingers!

But as we’ve always experienced about the Philippines… things never get smooth, so expect a lot of monkey wrenches thrown into our path to drag us back to stagnation. A case in point is that one-page newspaper ad splashed in all the national dailies entitled House Bill No. 345: A Trojan Horse in Disguise. An Appeal by the Business Community to Discard House Approved Across-the-Board Wage Increases. This house bill mandates a P125 per day across-the-board wage increase over a period of three years, retroactive from Oct. 1, 2006.

I don’t know who sponsored this house bill, but it is the first time that I have heard that a law becomes retroactive when it is passed. I don’t know if many of our laws have changed since my days in Law School. But I would like to believe that time honored concepts do not change. Laws are never retroactive… never!

Opposition to this bill was signed by Philippine Business stalwarts like Mr. Donald G. Dee president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Inc. (PCCI) Mr. Francis Chua president of the Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (FFCCCI) Mr. Rene Soriano, Pres. Of the Employers Confederation (ECOP), Ramon del Rosario of the Makati Business Club (MBC), Miguel Varela of the Philippines, Inc. Mr. Jose Ng, vice-president for the Visayas of the PCCI and all the chambers of commerce throughout the country.

Why are the big business organizations against this bill? Simple! If Congress pushes this, the Philippines would lose its global competitiveness and instead of bringing in more investments to the country, those corporations with deep pockets would opt to go to newly developed markets like Vietnam or Cambodia… if not China. The problem really is, Congress forgets that the Philippines is not alone in this world. Any mandated increases in our wages has a ripple effect in investments coming here and just when we are able to bring in more new investors to the country this House Bill will surely drop a monkey wrench to our growth.

Congress should find new job opportunities for our countrymen, many of who are leaving this country for greener pastures abroad. Unfortunately, Congress has failed the Filipino people in providing more jobs to our country and the business community has accepted this responsibility. So the least we expect Congress to do is not torpedo the plans of the business community to bring in more jobs to our doors. I hope to God that Congress would listen to the pleas of the business leaders.

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Once more Cebuanos are in preparation frenzy, checking out the minute details that we overlooked prior to the cancellation of the 12th ASEAN Leader’s Summit. But with no typhoon expected early this year, it’s all systems go for Cebu’s hosting of the ASEAN Summit. No, the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) is ready for this event. It has become a non-issue. On Monday, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting is expected to go full steam ahead of the main ASEAN Summit on Jan. 11.

But many details have to be re-checked. For instance the bright red paint that the DPWH painted on major intersections a little over a month ago has already disappeared. With the New Year’s revelry just passed, many of Cebu’s major thoroughfares need to be cleaned once again of the debris from pyrotechnics. Some lights I gathered are already busted.

I heard that when President Arroyo was in Cebu a couple of weeks ago to inspect the Summit facilities, she wasn’t thrilled with the landscaping, not because we didn’t prepare for it properly. Rather it is because this was really the first time that many of Cebu’s major thoroughfares tasted a landscaping. Like what we’ve been saying all along, Cebu’s Tourism boom has brought in a lot of tourists into our shores (We expect to get a record three million tourists in the year 2006) and therefore, Cebu should no longer be good enough for us Cebuanos. It should be good for our guests and the tourists who come here.

Because she is a woman, I’m glad that President Arroyo could see those small details because we really need to fix all of them. The President have seen Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Vietnam or Bangkok and those cities have beautiful landscaping and flower arrangements strewn along their major thoroughfares. With the exception of the landscaping of Juan Luna Ave. and Osmeña Blvd., Cebu direly needs more flowers in order to impress our visitors.

For those of you who have satellite television, I’m sure that you must have seen the great tourism advertisement of Malaysia claiming to be "Truly Asia." Well, I just read a full-page ad in the national papers of another Malaysian advertisement entitled, "Flora Fest 2007" Colours of Harmony, which will be held from Jan.20 to Feb. 4. Malaysia is giving flowers top billing in their tourism industry and we can only sigh with envy that we cannot host such an event simply because the only time Cebuanos buy flowers is during Valentine’s Day or during All Saints and All Souls Day or kalag-kalag.

It is for this reason that we wrote about coming up with a yearlong beautification program for Cebu, which would mean putting landscaping and flower arrangements on all major thoroughfares, while giving jobs to the people who live in the mountains of Cebu. When all of this comes to bloom, then Cebu can have its own Flower Festival like what Malaysia is doing. More importantly, we will be hitting two birds with one stone, giving Cebu a new and fresh colorful look, while giving jobs to the poor mountain folk.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow entitled, "Straight from the Sky" shown every Monday only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 on SkyCable at 8:00 in the evening.