With the recent majority vote in favor of a constituent assembly (con-ass) by the House of Representatives (HOR), research group IBON warned that one of the primary reasons behind the push for Charter change (Cha-cha) is the lifting of foreign ownership caps\u200b. This will\u00a0lead to the further stunting of the Philippine economy\u200b, said the group, as\u00a0this will allow foreigners to further enroach on the country\u2019s various industries.\u00a0 Government will also give up its responsibility to provide the public accessible and affordable goods and services, leaving Filipinos at the mercy of corporations.<\/p>\n
The HOR recently passed a resolution seeking to convene a con-ass that would propose amendments to the Constitution, while a Senate version is still being deliberated. Among the proposed amendments is the removal of ceilings on foreign ownership, particularly with regard to land, natural resources, public utilities, education,\u00a0media and advertising. Cha-cha proponents claim that such restrictions curtail the entry of foreign investments into the country, thus limiting job creation and\u00a0the Philippine economy\u2019s development. They say that the Philippines should follow its Asian neighbors and do away with its protectionist measures.<\/p>\n
But IBON said that decades of neoliberal policies that have opened up the Philippine economy and benefited foreign firms and investors have resulted in the country\u2019s socioeconomic decline.<\/p>\n
Foreign direct investments (FDI) have risen from US$558 million in 2011 to US$2,082 million in 2016. Majority of these investments have gone to foreign manufacturing, business process outsourcing, commercial and residential real estate,\u00a0and transport infrastructure, instead of domestic industry and agriculture.<\/p>\n
Despite increasing FDI over the years, however, IBON estimated 11.5 million unemployed and underemployed in 2015.\u00a0 The group also noted that recent labor force data shows total job losses of 134,000 and 148,000 more unemployed in October 2017 compared to the same period\u00a0\u200bin the previous\u00a0year. This was primarily due to job losses of 1.4 million in the agriculture sector. The gross domestic product (GDP) share of agriculture has fallen from 11.5% to 9.5% from 2011 to 2015, while manufacturing has been nearly stagnant.<\/p>\n
IBON also noted that there is a trend of increasing protectionist policies particularly among the world\u2019s largest economies.\u00a0 This indicates that globalization, which calls for neoliberal policies such as lifting of foreign restrictions, is not working.\u00a0 Data from Global Trade Alert (GTA) indicates that following the 2008 global financial crisis, the number of protectionist measures implemented by all countries per year increased by 89.3% from 295 in 2009 to 585 in 2017. The 21st<\/sup>\u00a0GTA Report also stated that the largest industrialized country members of the Group of 20 (G20), which is made up of the world\u2019s largest and emerging economies, accounted for 54.9% share of the group\u2019s protectionism in 2017.<\/p>\n IBON said that for foreign investments to be beneficial to the Philippines, these must be programmed in line with the genuine development of the country\u2019s domestic industries, and closely regulated by the government. The Philippine government should prioritize national interest and public welfare, and maintain control of key industries, services, and utilities. ###\u200b<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the recent majority vote in favor of a constituent assembly (con-ass) by the House of Representatives (HOR), research group IBON warned that one of the primary reasons behind the push for Charter change (Cha-cha) is the lifting of foreign ownership caps\u200b. This will\u00a0lead to the further stunting of the Philippine economy\u200b, said the group, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[1224,12,14],"tags":[357,1225,447,442,1226,1205],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6642,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641\/revisions\/6642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}