Gov’t plans revolution in agriculture

DOMINGUEZ: This is first and foremost an opportunity to bring private sector participation in nation-building. INQUIRER PHOTO

A REVOLUTION in agriculture and massive investments in education and health services are part of the new administration’s economic agenda, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said on Sunday.

Dominguez said the economic managers of President Duterte would work to “revolutionize Philippine agriculture to raise rural productivity and also pour massive public investments into human capital to improve the country’s educational system and widen public access to health services.”

In a statement on Sunday, he said “[w]e seek to rapidly decentralize our economy, improve the productivity of our agriculture and temper the population growth rate.”

“The front-loading of our infrastructure investments intends precisely to achieve the more strategic goals of dispersing economic opportunities, improving our nation’s logistical backbone and meeting the employment needs of our young population,” he said.

Traffic, tax system

Big business should also expect the Duterte administration to deal with heavy traffic and an inequitable tax system.

Speaking before businessmen on June 29, or two days before he officially took over at the Department of Finance, Dominguez pointed out that Filipinos should directly benefit from the robust economic growth being enjoyed these past years.

He described the new administration’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda as a tool “to arrest the public disenchantment that had propelled Mr. Duterte to the presidency, arising from the majority’s belief that they have yet to reap the fruits of high growth.”

He noted for instance the chronic traffic congestion in Metro Manila that has been turning off investors, hence the need to declare a traffic crisis and grant the President emergency powers to quickly resolve the problem.

“We intend to take the traffic crisis by the horns not only because of the grave economic costs of congestion but also because of its adverse effects on the health and quality of life of our labor force,” Dominguez said at a forum organized by Yuchengco-led Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.

The forum was attended by about 200 business and political leaders, including former President Fidel V. Ramos and former Prime Minister Cesar Virata.

Fair, equitable economy

The economic strategy of the Duterte administration will be to resolve not only the short-term concerns but also the long-term needs of the country—that is a fair and equitable economy, Dominguez said.

“Both the short-term goals and the longer-term strategies must cohere and deliver palpable results. Otherwise, we could reap more profound disenchantment,” he said.

The finance chief added that the new administration will pursue an enhanced public-private partnership (PPP) program, an initiative introduced by the Aquino administration but was widely criticized for its slow rollout.

Dominguez said the PPP program would be used more to fill in the country’s infrastructure gap than to generate money for state coffers. “I assure you that both the concept and the execution of the PPP program will be dramatically reviewed. This should only secondarily be a tool for raising revenues.”

“This is first and foremost an opportunity to bring private sector participation in nation-building. The PPP program will, in the new dispensation, no longer be merely a PowerPoint presentation,” he added.

CCT program, ID system

Dominguez also said the Duterte administration would review the implementation of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, as businessmen lamented at a consultative workshop in Davao City last month that the initiative “promotes dependency on the government.”

“One concrete suggestion of the business leaders who took part in the Davao meeting was to establish a national ID system to properly target public services and subsidies,” he said, referring to the “Sulong Pilipinas: Hakbang Tungo sa Kaunlaran” meeting between Mr. Duterte’s economic managers and the business sector.

Dominguez said the past administration “had lavishly funded a conditional cash transfer program but had been basically blind because there were no means to specifically target such assistance.”

Socioeconomic agenda

Mr. Duterte’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda calls for the following:

Continue and maintain current macroeconomic policies, including fiscal, monetary and trade policies.

Institute progressive tax reform and more effective tax collection while indexing taxes to inflation in line with the plan to submit to Congress a tax reform package by September.

Increase competitiveness and the ease of doing business, drawing upon successful models used to attract business to local cities such as Davao, as well as pursuing the relaxation of the constitutional restrictions on foreign ownership, except with regards land ownership, in order to attract foreign direct investments.

Accelerate annual infrastructure spending to account for 5 percent of the gross domestic product, with public-private partnerships playing a key role.

Promote rural and value chain development toward increasing agricultural and rural enterprise productivity and rural tourism.

Ensure security of land tenure to encourage investments and deal with bottlenecks in land management and titling agencies.

Invest in human capital development, including health and education systems, as well as match skills and training to meet the demands of businesses and the private sector.

Promote science, technology and the creative arts to enhance innovation and creative capacity toward self-sustaining and inclusive development.

Improve social protection programs, including the CCT, to protect the poor against instability and economic shocks.

Strengthen the implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law to enable, especially poor couples to make informed choices on financial and family planning.