Reciprocal rights vital to Cha-cha, says Carpio

Antonio Carpio

Reciprocity should be central to any proposal to end Filipinos’ Constitutional entitlements to exclusive ownership of strategic industries, retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said on Friday.

During a public forum on Charter change (Cha-cha) at the Ateneo de Manila University, Carpio said that if the country’s vital services, such as public utilities, are opened to foreign ownership, then Filipinos must also be able to own the same services in those countries.

“It would be crazy to open up but we cannot buy into their companies,” Carpio said. “There are 12 billion Filipinos currently outside the country and they cannot even buy companies in those countries.”

The retired jurist said he remained skeptical of the need to amend the 37-year-old Charter without first addressing systemic problems, such as bureaucratic red tape, corruption, and lack of rule of law in the country, but he was also open to the idea.

This was echoed by lawyer Antonio Abad, who pointed out that the constitution “must not legislate what the legislature can legislate.”

“There must be a certain dynamism to the Constitution,” Abad said. “There is no hard and fast rule, but when you start putting very specific provisions, that’s already legislating and taking away from the legislature.”

Carpio noted that in other countries in Asia, such restrictions are not embodied in their Charter but in their legislation, which is why he supports amending these provisions by including the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law.”

Other Asian countries

He cited the case of Vietnam and China, where foreigners are not allowed to own more than 49 percent of critical services, like airports, telecommunications, and electric companies.

This is not the first time Carpio has insisted on a reciprocity clause when amending the Charter, which he first brought up during the House committee of the whole deliberations for Resolution of Both Houses No. 7.

At the time, Carpio said that if Congress would allow 100 percent foreign ownership of these sectors, then Filipinos must also be able to own 100 percent of the same businesses in the countries of these investors.

READ: The last cha-cha

Such a clause, he said, was not new as this was already included in the amendment to the Public Service Act, which prevents foreign nationals from owning more than 50 percent of capital in critical infrastructure unless their respective countries accorded reciprocity to Philippine nationals. INQ