Another misfiring LEDAC agenda

The Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council’s (LEDAC) list of priority bills for the 20^th Congress, much like those in past administrations, are strikingly unsuited to the country’s structural ills.

The agenda sidesteps the urgent central task of moving the Philippine economy away from overdependence on low-productivity services, foreign capital, and imports. A progressive vision would place redistribution, agricultural development, and Filipino industrialization at the heart of lawmaking.

Missing development

Even the few seemingly positive elements are much too small relative to the magnitude of the problems at hand.

The proposals for agriculture, for instance, are tokenistic. They ring hollow because there are already so many laws for agricultural modernization and rural development – yet the sector still receives just a paltry 4% of the national budget. Even basic agrarian reform is neglected with billions of pesos still unspent from stalled land distribution.

Industrial policy is conspicuous by its absence. Instead, there is the proposal Masterplan for Infrastructure and National Development – more a sales pitch to foreign investors than a real blueprint for progress.

A more sensible tack would be to scrutinize foreign investments for their contribution to Filipino industrialization, and for any risks to the nation’s security. Legislation could also require that investment agreements genuinely prioritize technology transfer, strengthen domestic linkages, and contribute meaningfully to Filipino industrial development.

Wooing foreign capital should not define the country’s investment climate. Rather, investment policies ought to focus on creating the conditions that allow Filipino industries and domestic manufacturing to flourish. Yet, what remains missing are laws that safeguard small farmers and local enterprises, guarantee access to credit and technology, and uphold social services as a right instead of a privilege.

Corporate capture

Instead, many proposals risk deepening corporate capture of public services.The Department of Water Resources proposal is more likely to entrench private control over water than to expand public provision and democratic accountability.

The universal health care amendments purport to widen benefits and coverage, but actually reinforce expensive private profit-seeking health care. Health care would deliver greater benefits if anchored on a robust public system, with private providers relegated to a supplementary role.

Genuine reform also means undoing the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) which has saddled Filipinos with high electricity costs and unreliable supply, through tighter state regulation – or even renationalization already. A truly game-changing pro-people reform would be redefining water, energy, and transport as essential public services that should be under public control.

Populist, elitist and corrupt

Other measures smack of populism – expanding ayuda programs buy short-term political favor but do little to address the roots of poverty. Worse, they perpetuate patronage politics by keeping the poor dependent on politicians’ largesse. Such stop-gap programs would scarcely be needed if agriculture and industry had been properly developed.

Some proposals merely reinforce the status quo. Tax amnesties, repeatedly rolled out since the 1970s, signal to evaders that cheating pays. Far from improving compliance, they encourage tax avoidance and grant impunity to tax evaders. They reward the wealthy whose capacity to hide and evade is much greater than of ordinary taxpayers.

Meanwhile, genuinely progressive tax reform is absent. What is needed are billionaire wealth taxes, higher income taxes on large corporations and rich families, and windfall land value taxes to capture the private gains from public infrastructure projects. Instead, regressive consumption taxes that disproportionately burden the poor and middle class persist and are made worse – such as with the excise tax on plastic bags.

Moves to relax bank secrecy laws may bolster transparency and combat money laundering, but only with strong institutional safeguards and protection against abuse. The powerful cannot be allowed to exploit loopholes while the weak are unfairly pressured.

Likewise, barring officials’ relatives from contracts, requiring civil servants to waive secrecy, and affirming the right to information look promising – though the Marcos Jr administration’s selective anti-graft campaign inspires little confidence that these will lessen corruption.

Reset

The LEDAC’s priorities for the 20^th Congress should learn from the decades of policy failures which only enriched a few, while leaving the majority poor and the economy underdeveloped.

It is never too late to reorient policymaking toward agricultural modernization, Filipino industrialization, and universal public provisioning of essential services led by a strong developmental state. This, however, seems beyond the current Marcos Jr administration, which remains captive to the elite interests that have kept the country so backward for so long.###

ANNEX: LEDAC agenda for the 20^th Congress

Disqualifying Relatives of Officials (4th degree) in Government Contracts
Requiring Civil Servants to Waive Bank Secrecy
Amendments to the Bank Deposits Secrecy Law
Amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering Act
Progressive Budgeting for Better and Modernized Governance Act

Right to Information Act

Excise Tax on Single-Use Plastics
General Tax Amnesty
Extension of Estate Tax Amnesty

Amendments to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) Act
Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS) Act
Amendments to the Masustansyang Pagkain Para sa Batang Pilipino Act
Presidential Merit Scholarship Program

Masterplan for Infrastructure and National Development

Amendments to the Coconut Farmers and Industry Trust Fund Act
Amendments to the Fisheries Code
Amendments to the Rice Tariffication Law or Rice Industry and Consumer Empowerment (RICE) Act, including AAES Act minor amendments (Comprehensive)

Blue Economy Act

Amendments to the Magna Carta for MSMEs

Amendments to the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act
National Center for Geriatric Health

Classroom-Building Acceleration Program Act
Amendments to the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act
Amendments to the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Act
Amendments to the Teachers Professionalization Act