JV: Cha-cha mistakes costly

Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito yesterday expressed concern about the proposal to amend the 1987 Constitution to relax policies that would open public utilities to foreign investors.

“Is Charter change needed at this point now that two pieces of legislation have already been passed that are intended to improve our utilities and others?” Ejercito asked.

He identified one of the two measures as the amended Public Service Act.

“We have to be very careful about these things. We can’t rush, we can’t put deadlines, we can’t be pressured because it’s not very easy to amend the Constitution. So we can’t make mistakes,” he said.

Senator Risa Hontiveros expressed the same concern, stressing that the same law would allow future Congresses to “give away” the country’s critical utilities.

“I am also interested to find out if the problem really is the lack of foreign investments, or our chronic failure to address anti-competitive monopolistic behavior,” Hontiveros said.

She warned that opening the public utilities to foreign investors might worsen the situation.

Senator Grace Poe, who chairs the Senate Committee on Public Services, said cha-cha proponents should tread carefully.

“Do we really need cha-cha just to say that we’re open for business? They say the economy is closed, but in reality, we have always been open to foreign investors,” she said.

“Would amending the public utilities provisions in our Constitution open the economy or open a can of worms?” she added.

Poe said the country has made great strides in the past years “liberalizing the economy without compromising national security or leaving behind Filipino businesses.”

Citing Republic Act 11659, or the amended Public Service Act which she authored, the lawmaker encouraged new players in the airport, railway, expressway and telecommunications sectors “without changing the Constitution.”

“Guided by the long line of cases decided by the Supreme Court as to what ‘public utilities’ really are, we carved out public utilities which will remain covered by the 60 percent Filipino ownership requirement from public services that were opened up by the PSA to full foreign investments,” she explained.

For Senator Sonny Angara, it would be more practical for the government to focus on legislating laws that would be more advantageous to foreign investors rather than amending the economic provisions of the Constitution.

“It appears that it is more practical to craft laws when it comes to the specific policies concerning foreign investments than amending the Constitution,” Angara told reporters in an ambush interview.

“These laws can be changed easily. If it were in the Constitution, it would be more difficult to change. The House of Representatives itself said that since 1987, there have been over 300 proposed amendments, but none of them have been passed,” he said.

The Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes resumed its discussion on Resolution of Both Houses No. 6, which proposes amendments to economic provisions of the Constitution that concern public services, education, and the advertising industry.

Among the agencies represented at the hearing were the National Economic and Development Authority, Department of Finance, Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Information and Communications Technology, Philippine Competition Commission, National Security Council, Department of Trade and Industry and Philippine Economic Zone Authority.

During the resumption of the hearing, senators expressed concern over the proposed relaxation of the public utilities provisions for foreign investors.