Amending the economic provisions of the Constitution will not result in revenue losses for the government unlike the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives (CREATE) bill where P1.073 trillion in revenues would be lost once the pending is passed, according to economist congressman Joey Sarte-Salceda.

Salceda presented a metric that compares the economic impact of CREATE vs. the resolution or RBH2 filed by House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco at the House of Representatives 9th Regular Meeting on Constitutional Amendments,

 RBH2 seeks to amend several economic provisions of the Constitution that prevent foreign ownership of land and businesses in the country. He said the economic metric was a result of his consultation with various industries, estimates from the Department of Finance and Department of Labor using some economic models.

The economic metric also showed that CREATE is also expected to attract foreign direct investments of P288 billion under a best case scenario while the RBH2 could bring in P330 billion.

In terms of jobs, the CREATE would create 1.4 to 2 million jobs over a ten-year period as against 6.6 million jobs by RBH2 of the same timeframe.

On impact to gross domestic product, Salceda said CREATE could contribute 1.01 percent at best case while RBH2 has a higher contribution of 1.86 percent on the average annually.

Economist Bernie Villegas, who was one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, also called for the

amendments of the economic provisions of the Constitution stressing that Constitution was crafted haphazardly under the most unconducive environment as Filipinos just came out from the traumatic EDSA Revolution that deposed former President Marcos.

He said that the 1987 Constitution was actually a very long piece of legislation which should not be the case for an organic law of the land.

He stressed the need to provide more sweeteners to entice foreign investors to invest in the country as he cited the country being the laggard in the region in terms of foreign direct investments flows.

For instance, Villegas suggested a legislation that would allow foreign investors to own the factory or residence or commercial enterprise that they had built on. Other than that, he said, foreigners cannot own land in the Philippines.

International lawyer Anthony Abad said it is not about the right time to amend the economic provisions of the Constitution stressing “it is always the right time to amend the Constitution,” the amendment of which has long been overdue.