APEC and why it is good for the Philippines

This weekend marks the beginning of the APEC week.  The media has been replete with stories of cancelled flights and work. When I returned for good to Manila it coincided with the last time the Philippines hosted APEC back in 1996. The mood was buoyant with a sense that after decades of being the sick man of Asia we were finally getting well.

In other words APEC, of like any gathering of heads of state gives trade and social opportunities if we know how to use them. But we are deep in politics and political campaigns to see it that way. I remember from the first APEC as an occasion when we started our first efforts to open up the economy. What was important at that time were the efforts made to open up our economy to competition.

As an organization that unabashedly supports globalization APEC has been focusing on the opportunities it presents to small and medium enterprises. In this highly competitive global environment this is welcome news. We have immense talent in our country but they face barriers to success. We need to remove them. The Internet provides a platform for entrepreneurs to reach a global market but we need to address the fundamental infra challenges they face and remove the burdensome regulations to even just set up a business.

APEC has a role to play by enabling us to learn from others and how they have dealt with these issues in their economy and set goals to achieve. APEC might be minor inconvenience for a few days but there are benefits for us if we chose to use it well. Frankly, I welcome APEC as housecleaning days. We should have more of these – I mean, housecleaning days.

As one report said, APEC is useful even for services we need and take for granted – electricity and Internet.

Now more people have access to electricity and the mobile phone is ubiquitous. But electricity is expensive and Internet connection slow and intermittent.

The process of reform is continual even for a government of which I have been a critic seems not to think so. It  did pass some important legislation, like a competition law that will, if implemented, impose disciplines on the big companies and hopefully lower prices. The liberalization of cabotage to make inter-island transportation more competitive, lower costs, and improve standards, is another.

Some see APEC as being only for big foreign business. But that has changed. The theme of this year’s meeting is inclusive growth and that is necessary especially for the Philippines. But how this will be implemented is the question. If it is a government project, chances are it will also be exclusive to friends and relatives of officials.

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As expected, the removal of 20,000 homeless from the streets received the most criticism The outcry reminded them of the Marcos days. Whenever, remove them from sight, as if this ugly sight was the problem. When the visitors have gone it was back to normal, the slums returned and once more the ugly sight became part of the landscape the natives do not notice. Imelda Marcos erected whitewashed walls to cover the slums so the visitors would not see and smell the stench of poverty. This I find quite reprehensible because it was deception and shows how the government has not given enough attention to the needs of the marginal sectors.

Here is where the housecleaning for foreign visitors falls apart.

What may be welcome is less traffic at least in certain streets. Why should this be done only in the usually chaotic capital to speed up the shuttling of delegates for the APEC and not for the residents and taxpayers themselves? It is up to us to see that a difference can be made about the way we solve traffic problems not only during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and related meetings but also on normal days for the sake of residents. Everyday should be APEC day.

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For those who worked with him in the labor unions, there was palpable sadness when former Senator Ernesto Herrera died last week. He will be truly missed as an exemplary worker for the sake of a strong labor sector in the Philippines. At the time of his death, I noticed the urgency with which he put things together to ensure that labor and marginalized sectors would be adequately represented in the political mainstream. But it was not to be. He did not live to see his dream to see a strong labor party patterned after the Labor Party in the UK. After many talks I had with him I can say this was his obsession and unless we are able to bring in labor and the marginalized sectors, the Philippines will not move forward.

Happily the torch has passed to a man who is just as dedicated to labor and the poor.

Ruben Torres, Secretary-General of the Katipunan, has been elected president of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) to succeed Ernesto Herrera.

Torres is a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Laws, Doctor of Laws and Doctor of Public Administration.

He was the former executive secretary of President Fidel V Ramos and secretary of labor of President Corazon Aquino, chairman of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and chairman of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

He is married to Dr. Amaryllis T. Torres and they have four children, three of whom are doctors.

Torres has already begun the work of the Katipunan which has moved across the country, starting in Zambales, to gather workers, farmers and fisherfolks and provide education and training seminars so they are able to understand the mission and objectives of the Katipunan. Zambales will be followed by Pampanga and Pangasinan and other provinces. The idea is to create labor leaders throughout the country.