The Makati Business Club supports the signing of the Public Service Act by President Rodrigo Duterte and the push it will give to the economy.
“This is the latest in a series of transformative economic reforms including the revised Foreign Investment and Retail Trade Liberalization laws that we believe will result in beneficial competition and more jobs,” MBC said in a statement.
The group said it was eager to witness similar success with proposals such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) bill and commits its members to working for the approval of RCEP and to work with the next administration on this.
The Department of Trade and Industry estimates that the new law will bring in $60 to 100 billion of investments into the country in the next two years.
An influx of this scale in sectors that will be opened up will mean competition that will benefit Filipinos with better and more affordable products and services, new technology, and most importantly, more jobs, MBC said.
The group also noted that the law will help the government to fast track economic recovery, particularly for the recovery of jobs lost to pandemic. According to the World Bank, as of July 2021, 4.3 million jobs were lost due to the pandemic, about 10 percent of total employed workers.
“We trust that officials from designated agencies will properly implement provisions in the new law to protect our national security,” MBC said.
In related developments, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Ray Villafuerte is seeking a congressional
support for President Rodrigo Duterte’s newly launched 10-point policy agenda to accelerate the country’s economic recovery through the Senate’s swift passage of the House-approved P1.5-trillion stimulus package anchored on much higher infrastructure investments to invigorate the economy and speed up its bounce back from the two-year COVID-19 pandemic-driven global slump.
He lauded the President’s issuance last week of Executive Order No. 166 on a 10-point agenda on economic recovery.
He said the 18th Congress could fully support the administration’s culminating bounce-back program by passing the COVID-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus (CURES) bill designed to ramp up state spending on health, education, agriculture, local roads, livelihood, information and communication technology, and tourism infrastructure.
CURES sponsored by Villafuerte, Taguig-Pateros Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano and over 200 other legislators was passed by the House on third and final reading in June 2020, but remained pending at the Senate.
“Our senators could show their support for the speedy and robust recovery of our economy from the COVID-driven global health and economic crises by giving top priority to the passage of the Senate
version of CURES when the Congress resumes session after the May elections,” Villafuerte said.
“The passage of CURES would cement the legacy of the 19th Congress that has ably helped the Duterte administration, our people and the domestic economy survive and eventually prevail over the worst global recession since the Great Depression by writing the Bayanihan to Heal as One (Bayanihan 1) and Bayanihan to Recover as One (Bayanihan 2) laws,” he added.
Given the reopening of the economy with the placement of the National Capital Region and almost 50 other areas under the relaxed Alert Level 1 status plus the rise of the “revenge travel’ phenomenon, he said one priority under the proposed CURES to accelerate economic recovery is much higher spending on tourism infrastructure.
