P-Noy: How to put our economy in the reverse!

It’s that time of year that the media from the Visayas and Mindanao attend the Annual Shareholder’s meeting of Globe Telecom which showed that for 2010, its consolidated 4th quarter revenues was P16.7 billion, one of the highest in Globe Telecom history, a surge driven by the core mobile business that was 13 percent higher versus the last quarter. Hence the year ended with service revenues of P62.6 billion, slightly higher than 2009’s P62.4 billion.

We had dinner with Globe President Ernest Cu last Monday evening and most of the questions thrown at him was the effect of the PLDT Smart merger with Digitel. But Globe’s Ernest showed an uncanny confidence pointing out that “Globe is about the customer”, we are a service provider, a phrase he repeated in his report during the Shareholders meeting. No doubt this merger has turned the three Telecom giants into a duopoly. But Globe Telecom officials are rolling out innovative new products and services anchored on personalization, led by the ALL New My Super Plan that gives their customers a monthly service fee suited to their respective budgets, which has boosted postpaid subscribers and addressed market reality and client needs.

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With so many troubles plaguing the nation like the return of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) from the still troubled Middle East, or the continuing earthquakes, a tsunami and a spreading radiation in Japan, one of our major trading partners, understandably we expect global growth to slow down this year. Now Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III should motivate local business to invest in our country especially in areas outside Manila. However, this entails removing any stumbling block to our economic growth.

During the Marcos years, when the conjugal Marcos Dictatorship was accused by the opposition of corruption, he allowed the Integrated National Police (INP) to do their own “money-making petty criminality” called the Anti-Carnapping (ANCAR) permits purportedly to prevent carnapped vehicles from being shipped out to other places. Unfortunately, none of the Manila-based columnists cared to write about this huge anomaly because you can drive your car in five regions from Aparri to Matnog without the police asking you whether your car was stolen or not?

But for the Visayas and Mindanao, shipping vehicles around the islands was good for business. Trucks carrying sea products from Zamboanga City are brought to Negros and Cebu on a daily basis. But few would bring their cars across the islands because of the need for an ANCAR permit, where you have to prove to the Highway Patrol Group that your car wasn’t stolen… even if there was no official report that someone stole your car?

Hence, the people from Mindanao and the Visayas believed that the unnecessary bureaucracy called the ANCAR permit prevented their economic growth just because the Highway Patrol wanted to catch a few carnapped vehicles. I have written about the illegality of the ANCAR permits as it violates the most basic and fundamental and constitutional right of innocence until guilt is proven. What the ANCAR permit does is to consider each and every vehicle in this country as stolen, until you prove that it wasn’t. This was the Traffic Group’s lazy way in trying to catch carnappers.

Yet despite having the bureaucracy of the ANCAR permit, it did not prevent carnapping, and stolen vehicles still ended up in used car lots in the Visayas and Mindanao, thanks to the carnapping syndicates who had connections within the Land Transportation Office (LTO) and the Highway Patrol Group now known as the Traffic Management Group (TMG).

I learned that last week, Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III was about to sign the return of the ANCAR permits, but the meeting was rescheduled owing to the fact that the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) was against it and rightly so, the PPA never had brisk business since the ANCAR permits were removed during the time of then DOTC Sec. Pantaleon Alvarez who met with me in Cebu to seek our advice. Since then, it has become then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s backbone program and her most successful one, dubbed Strong Republic, Nautical Highway (SRNH).

I strongly advise Pres. P-Noy to slam the brakes on this nonsense, lest he create an economic downturn in the Visayas and Mindanao, just to satisfy a few officials of the TMG, who want to “profit” from this bureaucracy. It’s bad enough that under the P-Noy government the Philippines isn’t moving forward; but bringing back the ANCAR permits would put us in the reverse. I strongly urge all LGUs to demand P-Noy to stop this nonsense as it would stunt their growth and prevent the growth of local tourism. Makes me wonder what Tourism Secretary Albert Lim says about this. He seems to be so contented these days having gotten his dream of Open Skies policy.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected] or vsbobita@ gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through http://www.philstar.com.