Bureaucrats have to prove selves to investors

Economic changes appear to be accelerating. The liberalization of industry ownerships via constitutional amendments is snowballing in Congress. More and more state funds are being poured into infrastructures: from P252 billion in 2012 to P297 billion in 2013, to rise further to P403 billion in 2014, P607 billion in 2015, and P834 billion in 2016. Since March, three international monitors -- Fitch Ratings, Standard & Poor’s, and Japan Credit Rating Agency — have promoted the Philippines to investment grade. Perceived to be relatively cleaner than past ones, the Aquino Presidency’s performance ratings consistently have stayed high. All these augur well for the business climate.

Still many other things need to be done. These range from effective government communicating, to consistency of policies and programs, to judicial cleanup.

In the area of conveying messages, presidential spokesmen have to be circumspect. Whatever they say is presumed to have been cleared with their boss, so carries the weight of presidential decrees. Take, for one, the matter of the Speaker of the House of Reps leading the lifting of economic restrictions in the Constitution, to attract job-creating investors. In pooh-poohing the efforts of the fourth highest leader of the land, and ranking officer of the ruling party, the presidential spokesmen make it look like there’s disharmony in the administration.

Same with their treatment of socioeconomic indicators. Twice in three months the Malacañang bigmouths have belittled the reports of the National Statistics Coordination Board. In April they disputed the NSCB finding that poverty incidence has remained practically the same, 28 percent, in the past six years. They did it again this week, about the widening gap between rich and poor. The NSCB is under the National Economic and Development Authority, which is composed of Cabinet members, directed by the economic planning secretary, and chaired by the President. In sneering at NSCB reports, the spokesmen infer that the President is unhappy with the NEDA and the Cabinet. Or, that the executive’s left hand knows not what the right is doing. Worse, that Malacañang does not believe in figures, only in spokesmen’s propaganda.

On policy consistency, there is need to match national and local actions. Local government units should not whimsically bar investors already approved by national gatekeepers, like a new power plant in Subic, Zambales. Conversely, national agencies must not abet earth rapists legally nixed by local officials, such as unwanted pollutive small-scale mines all over Mindanao.

If investors truly are welcome, then they must be extended a helping, not destructing, hand. A simmering story these days is about the government’s impending dissolution of the Uniwide Group, which ironically had sought its aid. The P20-billion cut-price retailer and mall developer had run into dire straits during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It applied with the Securities and Exchange Commission for momentary relief from creditors while it sorted out its finances. The SEC, as receiver, conceived a rehabilitation plan that ended not in rebuilding but cannibalizing the sister companies. While extracting higher and higher work compensation and even commissions from liquidations, the SEC overseers finally came up with a French “white knight.” But instead of pumping in fresh capital, the invitee demanded the entire conglomerate for only a fourth of its worth, P5 billion, not even enough to pay off the creditors. When the deal collapsed, the irate SEC turned to dissolution.

Still on policy steadiness, the government must have only one set of rules for all. Hot topic these days too is the passing off by Greater Manila’s two water concessionaires of income taxes to consumers. The unconscionable contract proviso has been going on for years, but was discovered by consumerists only recently. The government defends the sanctity of the concession contracts, so consumers must grin and bear it. If so, business groups ask, then why have other contracts, like erections of bridges, ports, and rails, been scrapped unilaterally? And why do the subsequent re-biddings, say, in light railways or vehicle license plates, favor the highest instead of lowest foreign bidders? (See Gotcha, 10 July 2013.)

Investors recognize the power of the courts to adjudicate investment and infrastructure disputes. But the legal proceedings, if protected, tend to turn them off. There is need for the executive, legislative, and judicial chiefs to confer about speeding up the resolution of cases, including deadlines depending on contract amount.

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The Commission on Audit has ordered 11 transport officials to refund the P50 million they paid for the anomalous purchase of substandard railroad ties. Declared answerable are Philippine National Railways officers, led by general manager Junio M. Ragrario. The COA report of July 1, 2013, directed them to return the money immediately. It indicated conspiracy to pay the supplier P50 million for 11,489 ties made of Chinese larch, a soft wood. The supply specification in late 2011 was for yakal hardwood or equivalent. But from bidding to delivery acceptance and payment in 2012, the spec was ignored.

The ties were installed on railway bridges from Laguna to Albay. Weeks later PNR-Bicol field engineers noticed deep cracks along the lengths of nine in every ten ties. Counterparts in Southern Tagalog reported similar defects in five to six in every ten. The engineers have warned that the bridge ties could split, so commuter and cargo trains may derail and plunge into the ravine or river below.

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A book on the System of Rice Intensification is now available from SRI Pilipinas, for P300 including shipping. Written in Filipino, the book is for farmers and cooperatives. SRI Pilipinas also gives out free primers to individual farmers, and trainings to cooperatives: text (0939) 1178999, care of Roberto Verzola.

SRI is the rice growing method that now holds the world record in palay harvest of 22.4 tons per hectare. Confirmed by Indian authorities, the record was notched by Indian farmer Sumant Kumar in 2011.

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