... in response to Re: Investments laws in PI (holding PI B..., posted by Frank2002 on Dec 1, 2002[This message has been edited by outwest77]
The recent articles i read in the national Newspapers such as Manila times, etc, are complaining about how President Arroyo and her flawed economic policies, are running up the deficit, are ruining the credit rating of the country, and how the countrys rating as the 11th most corrupt nation is also
steering away foreign investors. Now this week the new
excuse is that the Canadian and Australian embassies closed
due to "unsubstantiated" terrorists threats, that are labeled "hogwash" by colomnists and embarrassed govt officials who blame those countries for overreacting, and unnecessarily tarnishing the phils image in the worlds eyes.
The Phils government and media has , in my opinion, a huge blame the other guy mentality, and seems to have no rhyme or reason to its policies and seems to engage in endless drama and accusations as to why the country cannot seem to dig itself out of its current economic dilemma, and also as to why the peso is still falling at an unprecedented rate.
When i was there for two months in August to Sept I was continually amazed and bewildered by the almost comical bickering that goes on in the newspaper columns , Its almost like watching a bunch of gossiping housewives, and the government seems to spend 90% of its time and energy defending itself from bribery and corruption accusations.
Investments will never flow there in mass, under the present laws and political climate, because of a few major reasons.
1)The banking laws are too loose to make foreign companies feel secure about their investments.
2)The foreign ownership rule is deadly to capital flowing in, who wants to partner with a local in order to invest there. In a country that is already so loosely managed, a foreign company wants all the control it can get of its assets, in order to protect its investments.
I recently saw an article that in one of the provinces on Luzon i think, the government just decided that , the large Farm conglomerates were using too much land, and they just came in and basically took the land, from these huge companies and gave it back to the people. Its borderline socialism. I was shocked to see that, and any foreign company that was aware of policies that are that absent minded, and to people like myself, should be illegal, would never invest money in a country that would promote such anti business insane ideas.
3)The corruption is so rampant, that i changed my mind about starting a company there a few months ago. The corruption even permeates the presidential palace with the previous predident Estrada now jailed, and Arroyo is no better. One of the high government officials, Arroyos right hand political appointee, Justice Secretary Hernando Perez was recently under the gun for accepting a 2 million dollar(not Peso) Bribe from a foreign company who wanted to secure a huge contract with the Phils government. Arroyos administration refused to even consider investigating him, which made the media keenly aware of how
deeply involved the Presidential palace was in the mess, And the guy recently skipped the country. Thats what i mean about how high up the corruption goes
All in all a sad state of affairs. A nation of bright,
courteous, charming, english speaking, hard working citizens, who cant seem to dig their way out of the hole economically and compete with even countries in the region who you would think have no chance, like Vietnam.
I think it would take a total overhaul of the laws in the Phils to change the perception that foreign investors have of doing business there,
but that would take a monumental effort on the governments part to even
agree on what laws to change. The most simple one to change would be the foreign ownership rule, but national pride seems to be linked to that one, and the fact that a system works well in many other countries, does not make any difference.
Even if that law were changed, that, in itself, would still not be enough to overcome the corruption stigma. But i think if the law for foreign ownership were changed, it would still bring billions of
dollars and many companies would flock there.
Regardless of all this, I absolutely love the Philippines and its people.
