Charter change to solve PH's economic shortcomings? | The Exchange - video Dailymotion

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Your business is our business. Join our senior anchor Rico Hizon on The Exchange.  Many see charter change as a solution to the country's economic shortcomings, despite existing liberalization laws.  Let's have an Exchange with constitutionalist Edwin Lacierda.  Visit our website for more #NewsYouCanTrust: https://www.cnnphilippines.com/  Follow our social media pages:  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CNNPhilippines • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cnnphilippines/ • Twitter: https://twitter.com/cnnphilippines

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:10 Glad you're staying with us right here on The Exchange,

00:12 where your business is our business.

00:15 I'm Rico Gizon.

00:16 Well, many see charter change as a solution to the country's economic shortcomings,

00:21 despite existing liberalization laws.

00:24 Let's now have an exchange with constitutionalist Edwin LaSherda.

00:28 Edwin, thank you so much for joining us.

00:30 Do we really need changes in the Constitution in terms of the economic provisions?

00:37 Honestly, I don't think we need to,

00:39 because under this administration and the previous administrations,

00:43 we have really liberalized many of the economic activities

00:46 that were deemed outside of foreign intervention.

00:50 At least we open it up.

00:52 In fact, the recent example of the Public Service Act

00:54 really just opened up a number of industries to foreign businesses.

00:58 So it's not a cure-all.

01:01 If everybody expects that economic provisions, when amended,

01:04 will cure the difficulties in whatever difficulties that they perceive,

01:09 I don't think so.

01:10 We can cure it by way of legislation.

01:12 All right. It's not only the Public Services Act, Edwin, that has been amended.

01:16 You also have the Foreign Investment Act and the Trade Liberalization Act.

01:21 But it seems like despite the amendments,

01:23 despite opening up more sectors to foreign investors,

01:27 foreign direct investments have shown the numbers

01:31 that we're still at the bottom of the heap in Southeast Asia.

01:34 Which goes to show that perhaps it's not the Constitution that needs to be amended,

01:39 but certain policies.

01:40 For instance, we were very clear during our time,

01:43 during the term of former President Benigno Aquino,

01:46 there were only two principles that we were guided.

01:50 The first one is the predictability of rules.

01:53 You don't change horses' medicine.

01:55 Once someone invests, the expectation is the same rules that propelled them to invest

02:00 will be the same rules that will govern the entire investment period.

02:04 The other thing is a level playing field.

02:07 And these are the core principles that President Aquino really insisted.

02:10 And not to say that there were no discussions during our time.

02:14 There were no overt activity politically to amend the Constitution,

02:19 but there were certainly discussions also within the Cabinet

02:22 on whether we need to amend the provisions of the Constitution.

02:26 And the proof that we were doing so well,

02:29 in fact in our time it reached 7%.

02:32 GDP reached 7%.

02:34 Which shows proof that you don't have to amend the Constitution.

02:38 7% GDP, what about foreign direct investments?

02:41 Because from 2022 to 2023 under the Marcos administration,

02:46 despite all of these foreign trips and tens of billions of dollars in pledges,

02:51 foreign direct investment numbers still declined.

02:54 Because also another principle in governance where foreign investors looked at

02:58 is what we call transparency and good governance.

03:01 And the ease of doing business.

03:04 Of course during the Aquino administration,

03:06 there was also a push for private-public partnership,

03:11 which is of course now being implemented as well by this administration.

03:15 Give us an example Edwin.

03:17 Year on year, during the six-year term of President Noynoy Aquino,

03:23 what was the rise in terms of foreign direct investments compared to our neighbors?

03:27 Well I don't have the figures then, but all I know is that we were very,

03:33 after I think the second year of our administration,

03:36 when the world saw that President Aquino is dead serious about promoting transparency

03:43 and good governance, foreign investments came in.

03:46 And also the other thing is our GDP went straight up.

03:50 There are a number of policies internally also.

03:53 One is we tried to shorten the capture of the budget.

03:57 If you remember the whole idea of the disbursement acceleration program,

04:01 that was a very controversial issue, but the whole idea is instead of declaring savings

04:08 at the year end, if there's any project mid-stream which is not working,

04:12 let's just declare them as savings.

04:13 And we were able to use the budget there, the money designed for another project

04:18 that wasn't working to good use.

04:20 But then the Supreme Court said that it was unconstitutional,

04:23 not criminal, but unconstitutional.

04:25 From your current reading of the landscape for charter change,

04:29 particularly economic provisions, do you think it will now materialize

04:33 with this intramurals and this fight between the Senate and the lower house?

04:38 Because before the Senator signed the manifesto against the push for people's initiative,

04:42 Senate President Migs will be re-filed the resolution proposing amendments

04:46 to the charter's economic provisions.

04:49 The push being done by the house is strictly political because although everyone starts with

04:56 we need to amend the economic provisions, that's a good start.

04:59 I mean, in a way, people will not get angry about it.

05:04 It's just being used as a front.

05:06 It's always been used as a front.

05:08 In any push to amend the Constitution, they've always started with

05:11 let's amend the economic provisions of the country because they say it's outdated.

05:15 But look, during the time of President Aquino, even during the time of President Duterte,

05:20 our numbers rose up.

05:22 And during this time also, you can see that why do you need to amend the Constitution

05:26 if our numbers are going up?

05:28 Because there are certain principles that they are observing,

05:31 ease of doing business, liberalization, transparency, and good governance,

05:35 can add up without--it can improve the numbers,

05:38 can improve foreign direct investment, even without amending the Constitution.

05:42 In your point of view, are we seeing these three important factors playing out

05:47 for investors to come into the country--ease of doing business, transparency, and good governance?

05:53 The most difficult, I think, is the ease of doing business.

05:56 But there have been significant improvements already.

05:59 But that's the hard part because you're dealing in government.

06:02 It's not a monolithic whole.

06:04 You have to deal with the national government.

06:06 You have to deal with the local government.

06:08 So, for instance, just to give an example of the permitting process for the telcos, the towers,

06:13 it used to be some--I got a briefing somewhere around more than 60 permits.

06:19 Now it has been reduced to four.

06:21 And, of course, another major red flag in doing business in the Philippines is corruption.

06:28 That's a big problem.

06:30 And it hasn't been resolved?

06:32 You know, we have grown so insensitive to that.

06:37 Whenever you talk about government, the first thing that people will say,

06:42 "Any government is the same. They're all corrupt."

06:45 The mindset of Filipinos is that we have a corrupt government.

06:48 But we can prove that wrong by making sure that we really walk the talk.

06:53 We also joined during our time the Open Government Partnership,

06:56 which was started by President Barack Obama.

06:59 And we really practice open government, meaning open government, meaning transparency and accountability.

07:03 We are still a member of Open Government Partnership, but those are principles that we can use.

07:09 And to the credit of President Marcos, there's really attempts to really be transparent.

07:16 But that's a big problem because of the different chambers of branches of government.

07:21 In previous administrations, there have been talk, a lot of moves to change the Constitution.

07:29 Do you think that this administration will succeed in 2024?

07:35 There's a novel attempt right now, doing the People's Initiative.

07:42 However, the People's Initiative touched on a very seemingly harmless provision,

07:49 which is changing the voting structure from jointly and separately.

07:54 In the eyes of the many, that's very harmless.

07:57 But when you go to the brass tacks, it will go up to the Supreme Court,

08:01 because obviously the Senate and the House will not agree.

08:04 On that front, the House proponents will face an obstacle before the Supreme Court.

08:09 And after assuming that you got that passed, you changed the Constitution,

08:15 what now then are the fundamental provisions that you want amended?

08:19 We are not there yet.

08:21 We are not there yet.

08:22 So once they lay down the provisions that they want to amend, political, economic,

08:27 then there's another thing, referendum.

08:29 I'll put you in a spot. Yes or no, we're going to see charter change in 2024?

08:34 In terms of final?

08:36 Yes, final.

08:37 No.

08:38 No.

08:39 Thank you so much, Edwin, for this Constitutional Law Exchange.

08:43 Constitutionalist Edwin LaSherda joining us on the exchange.

08:47 And straight ahead on the exchange, where your business is our business,

08:51 how would foreign chambers take action if economic charter change pushes through?

08:56 The American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines joins us next here on CNN Philippines.

09:01 News you can use, news you can trust.

09:04 [Music]

Charter change to solve PH's economic shortcomings? | The Exchange

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