National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan has echoed President Marcos' take on the proposed economic reforms in the 1987 Constitution, saying that adjusting it would open up opportunities for the country in terms of investments.

Balisacan has agreed with Marcos' statement that the 36-year-old Charter was not written for a globalized world.

"I think that our President has mentioned that the Constitution was designed for a period that perhaps not responsive to the current states of the world now," Balisacan said in a Palace briefing on Friday, Jan. 26.

The NEDA chief stressed the Philippines needs to make itself competitive by eliminating restrictions that prevent potential investments from entering the country.

He believes that the country has a chance of attracting foreign investors if the proposed economic provisions in the Constitution were to be pursued.

"[W]e need to make the country more competitive, we need to eliminate those restrictions, unnecessary restrictions and foreign investments that we have chance of attracting foreign investments because as we have seen by the last couple of decades now, most of those big investments are going to our neighbors which you know we could have that opportunity to draw them to our shores but those restrictions are seen as impediments," Balisacan pointed out.

However, he said, there are also a lot of other things to be done apart from amending the Constitution to "get the full benefits of removing those economic restrictions in the Constitution."

"So, we need to address those, remove those but also underscoring that apart from eliminating those restrictions we need to do also a lot of other things because that’s not the only problem that we face as a nation when it comes to economic development – we need to address the ease of business issues that are always mentioned, the high cost of certain inputs like energy and the predictability of our policies, regulatory or otherwise," he said.

While nothing is final yet, Balisacan expressed hopes that lawmakers would reach a common position quickly in amending the economic provisions, stressing that uncertainties could also prevent investors from considering the country.

"Well, I hope that they can agree very soon because we don’t also want those uncertainty because one of the factors that inhibit investments whether it’s domestic or foreign is a state of uncertainty. So, we hope that our leaders will come to a common position quickly so that we can move on," he said.

In a 24 Oras interview on Jan. 23, Marcos underscored the need to adjust the Constitution "so that we can increase the economic activities in the Philippines and we can attract more foreign investors."