Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the next administration will inherit a slew of President Duterte’s “hard-won” reforms, including several economic liberalization measures that will help fuel the Philippines’ resurgence in the years ahead.
These reforms include the comprehensive tax reform program (CTRP), the flagship “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure modernization, "sin" tax reform, rice tariffication, a national ID system and the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Law, to name a few, Dominguez said.
He also cited the three economic liberalization bills recently approved by the Congress that aim to boost the competitiveness of industries, create more jobs, promote the affordability and quality of consumer goods, and accelerate growth.
These are the amendments to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act (RTLA), which has been enacted; and the respective amendments to Foreign Investments Act (FIA) and the Public Service Act (PSA), which are expected to be signed into law by the President soon.
“Let me emphasize that the Philippine economy faces exciting times ahead. We have risen from an economic downturn and opened the door to rapid expansion,” Dominguez told members of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) on Wednesday, Feb. 23.
“For our part, we promise you that President Duterte’s economic team will persevere until the last hour of this administration. We are confident that we will leave public office with the basic groundwork for continued and rapid growth in place,” he added.
The next president will inherit many hard-won reforms that will boost the nation’s economic resurgence, the finance chief said.
Dominguez underscored the invaluable contributions made by the business community in the crafting of the tax reform program and other economic measures, which, in turn, helped the country maintain financial strength to weather the worst of the pandemic-induced crisis.
He specifically cited the “actionable recommendations” submitted by the PCCI to the government during the previous 13 Sulong Pilipinas consultative workshops.
Dominguez said he expects PCCI to continue working closely with the next administration “to ensure that the right policies are implemented.”
“We commit to helping make the coming transition as seamless as possible,” he said.
Dominguez pointed out that many of Sulong’s top actionable recommendations have now become laws, “the majority of which sat on legislative shelves for decades due to the lack of political will to break the typical congressional gridlock.”
These laws have helped transform the Philippines into one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, with the country even poised to attain upper-middle-income status in 2020, when the pandemic struck, Dominguez said.
“The COVID-19 pandemic pushed our timeline back, but only temporarily,” Dominguez said.
“When the health crisis struck, your actionable recommendations had helped us gain the financial strength to weather the worst of the crisis. In any battle or emergency, preparation is always the best strategy,” Dominguez told the PCCI.