PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte said he wanted to break up monopolies and duopolies in the country to bring down the costs of electricity, communication and utilities in the country.
“The only way to have these things cheaper —actually, electric and telecommunications —is to open up for competition. So we’ll just do away with monopoly in the sense that you allow other players outside to enter into the picture. And that would lower everything, including energy. I’m sure of that,” Duterte told businessmen in a speech Monday night.
“I am ready to open these things about public utilities, especially energy and technology,” he added.
After a big cargo operator in the Port of Manila expressed intention to handle international cargo, Duterte expressed his openness to competition in the cargo industry.
“Yes, we’ll have—I said—competition. But you must have something there also big enough to accommodate all players. That is why, for example, whatever it is in the import-export business, or in the handling of … everything, you must have something there bigger than what you have now.”
In the same interview, Duterte assured the business process outsourcing industry it had nothing to fear from his administration amid his barrage of anti-American rhetoric.
Asked if there would be changes in his policies and investment incentive structure, Duterte underlined “changes for the better, not to kill businesses.”
“This is a democracy, we follow free enterprise,” Duterte said. “There will be changes for the better.”
“I am duty-bound by the Constitution. About the outsourcing (sector), I even guarantee to you that the Philippines will honor its contractual obligations, unlike the previous administration,” the President said.
Duterte likewise took a swipe against the previous Aquino administration, saying it “bent some rules” for certain companies.
Duterte told the executives it’s only his critics who say his pronouncements and policies are anti-business.
In particular, Duterte scored the practice after it honored some contracts with the private sector, something he promised would not happen under his presidency.