Business leaders urged the national government to help in eliminating or reducing what they called the “hidden cost” of doing business in the country, particularly at the community level.

During the Pilipinas Conference 2023, a forum facilitated by think tank Stratbase, Ayala Corporation President and CEO Cezar Consing pointed out that these costs are weighing heavily on businesses that have low margins.

“What we find here is there are a lot of unwritten hidden costs to doing business. More recently, I see them more at the local level. And if you're a firm that is trying to do business nationwide, it's those costs that are so hard to quantify,” he said.

“I think that is a real issue because in many of these businesses, margins are very thin. And you need leverage on top of that. The room for error is actually not that wide. If you're guessing your costs, and you don't know what they are, and they surprise you, I think it's a real detriment to investing,” Consing added.

International Container Terminal Service Inc. (ICTSI) Executive Vice President and Global Corporate Head Christian Gonzalez noted that these costs are due to “friction regulation from intertwined bodies of government.”

“Everything down to the barangay level,” Gonzalez said, noting Metro Manila’s traffic experience in 2014 when the government had prohibited container trucks from traversing Manila during daytime.

“So you're talking billions of dollars of investment from the public and the private, over time, an industry that's so critical, effectively the economic heartbeat of the country," he said.

“And one guy, you know, with a mandate…can shut the place down. So we need government at the highest levels, to look at the weakest point in the chain that we're all involved in. Understand what is creating the weakness in those particular links, and use political will to solve it,” he added.

For her part, Insular Life Executive Chairman Nina Aguas said that the government should push more for accountability and transparency.

“In terms of regulations, for example, I want things to be more simple. Just the tax regime alone. It's just too complicated. And having experience how it was working in Singapore, for example, or like, our business is opening in Singapore, you talk about hidden cost of setting up, it takes only two or three hours to be able to start a business within the day. So it's not days, 30 days,” she said.

Aguas, particularly cited taxes especially in the filing of individual tax return. "In Singapore, you're audited before you start to pay. And then you're given a year to pay for the whole thing. So that there's no corruption, it’s all like technology driven. So that makes it a lot easier, a lot easier. It's very transparent. The process is very simple. So I'd really like that for the Philippines,” she explained.