HOTSPOT
Tonyo Cruz
We have been told many times that it is the Constitution’s fault that our economy is not developing. Never mind wealth and income inequality, regressive taxation, institutional corruption, regulatory capture, and the chronic joblessness as evidenced by more labor migration. The Constitution seems to be a perpetual bogeyman.
It is not as if foreign investments are not welcome in the country. They are welcome. The Constitution does not ban them.
What the Constitution does is to prioritize Filipinos in our economy. Only Filipinos can own land, for instance. Ask anyone and the answer is that that’s a sound constitutional policy. Ask any Filipino living or working abroad, and it would be familiar to them. That’s also the law in many countries: Their own people first.
In fact, the same Constitution which detractors mistakenly brand as “protectionist,” presidents and Congresses have been allowed to enact laws and policies that deregulate, liberalize, privatize and denationalize many aspects of our economy. The Senate has also ratified free trade agreements that open up the economy to more foreign participation and foreign ownership.
Meanwhile, the promises they made to Filipinos have not been delivered. Power and water rates, petroleum prices, onion and rice prices, health care service rates, banking interest rates, and mass transport costs continue to go up — and have never gone down. These are some of the aspects of economy that have been deregulated, liberalized, privatized, denationalized, and with a lot of foreign participation and foreign ownership.
I remember when “globalization” was the catchphrase of choice of mainstream economists and government officials. We were promised prosperity and millions of jobs if we let the Philippines be part of the “globalized economy.” Farmers were told to give up on rice and corn that we need, and opt to cultivate higher-priced “cash crops” to address global demand.
Fast forward to today, the economy remains too weak, too feeble, to0 small or perhaps too greedy to provide our workers decent, stable jobs with living wages. Or even to sustain Philippine agriculture and to attain local food self-sufficiency. Who would have imagined a decade ago that we would see the prices of rice, onions and vegetables to rise to today’s levels?
Take the Rice Tariffication Law as an example. The promise was stable rice prices and a more prosperous agriculture. Ibon Foundation has crunched the numbers: Rice imports has risen from two million metric tons in 2018 to three million in 2021. Rice import dependency is up from 13.8 percent to 18.5 percent. The rice trade deficit has gone up from $819-million to $1.2-billion.
Behind these figures are lots of families of farmers, and many more families of end-consumers.
A freshman member of Congress recommended that farmers give up rice in favor of “more lucrative” produce for the global marketplace. As for our rice needs, it is implied that we should just import. But whether prices would go down or be lower than they are today, nobody can say. If the world’s top rice producers know we need more rice, would it be good business for them to offer us cheap prices? The irony is lost on the congressman: We used to be among the world’s top producers, but not anymore.
How changing the Constitution to discard so-called protectionist provisions would be beneficial to us and address our economic issues, nobody has been able to explain.
Meanwhile, the government is proposing a Maharlika Wealth Fund as a seed capital for its economic programs. Its starter fund of ₱250 billion would come from state sources. The marketing schtick is that the world’s top investors would pitch in.
What the government conveniently forgets is that there are 50 Filipino families that the prestigious Forbes Magazine reports to have $71-billion (yes, that’s in U.S. dollars) in combined wealth. Why not summon them to invest more in the economy, pitch in a fairer share in taxes, and give their workers a fair share?
Standing up to this renewed Chacha drive could be an opportunity for us to take a look at the economy. Let's address wealth and income inequality, evaluate economic policy, return the promissory notes on “globalization” laws, and make the economy work for us, farmers, workers, professionals, OFWs, and the SMEs who keep it afloat.