Today, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will face the nation, not just the Congress of the Philippines at the opening of its regular session, as mandated by the Constitution. Modern communication technology has made it possible for the President to engage the lawmakers through his State of the Nation Address (SONA) and at the same time beam the message across the entire nation.
The fact that various sectors—the youth, academic community, business groups, urban poor, professionals, the mainstream and social media, the perennial critics, religious community and many other sub-sectors, groups and individuals except perhaps Vice President Sara Duterte—are genuinely interested on what Bongbong Marcos has to say proves that this speech is important to our life as a nation.
The fact that the Vice President is not interested to attend, hear or watch the President’s third SONA makes her a compleat isolationist and detached from the relevant issues of the day.
VP Duterte has banned herself from listening to more and more sectoral groups that are coming out of the woodwork and airing their ideas on how best the government could serve their sectors.
The farmers want more irrigation facilities, subsidized inputs, and existing tariffs on imported rice. The fisherfolk need fishing vessels and implements, and access to an even bigger fishing grounds in the South China Sea and Philippine Rise.
Teachers and youths both desire quality education, with the former asking for wage increases, too. The labor sector demands the P100 legislated hike in the minimum wage, or even higher if both the government and the business community agree, and rejects the measly P35 increase offered by the Wage Board.
Every group has its own demands and requests for their own benefit, unmindful of the consequences or impacts these might have on other sectors in the economy.
The business community has also made its presence felt in this rush to get the attention of the President as the SONA hour nears.
The Makati Business Club has aired its wish for the passage of these bills: the Apprenticeship Program Reform (Senate Bill No. 2491), Enterprise-Based Education and Training Framework Act (SB No. 2587), Philippine Downstream Natural Gas Industry Development Act (SB No. 2247), People’s Freedom of Information (SB No. 1006), and Right-of-Way Act Amendments.
Meanwhile, other business groups are pushing for the passage of 21 critical legislative measures that will drive economic growth, enhance global competitiveness, and promote inclusive development.
The Philippine Business Groups and the Joint Foreign Chambers (PBG-JFC) have written to Marcos to request for support in enacting specific reforms that have been pending in Congress.
The PBG-JFC’s prioritized legislative agenda are the following:
Liberalization of foreign equity restrictions in the Constitution; the Konektadong Pinoy Bill which seeks to lower barriers and cost to entry for data service providers, promote sharing of infrastructure and efficient use of resources, and lower internet costs for Filipinos;
promotion of digital payments which mandates the use of safe and efficient digital or electronic mode of payments by all government agencies;
Amendments to the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises and the Philippine Economic Zone Act for hybrid/flexible work schedules to allow locators greater flexibility in setting work from home arrangements; Freedom of Information Act; Capital Income and Financial Taxes Reform which will simplify taxation of passive income and financial transactions, harmonize tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains, and rationalize the documentary stamp tax to reduce costs and improve compliance;
Amendments to the Secrecy of Bank Deposits Law which will allow the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to examine deposits under certain conditions related to unlawful activities; National Unemployment Insurance which will protect workers from income loss due to job loss by providing unemployment benefits while they seek new employment; creation of a Department of Disaster Resilience;
Amendments to the E-Commerce Act to align with treaty obligations and international best practices for electronic signatures, contracts, communications, and documents; Pandemic Protection Act; Holiday Rationalization Act which will determine the number of non-working holidays comparable to other Asean countries and reduce business cost;
Creation of the Philippine Airports Authority which will handle the regulation and operation of all airports and improve safety and efficiency; amendments to the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) Charter; amendments to the Intellectual Property Code to comply with treaty obligations and adopt international best practices; strengthening of the Philippine pension system, including its portability, to allow employees to grow their pension fund even if they change employers; reforms to the apprenticeship program to make it more attractive to both enterprises and prospective apprentices; and easing of agricultural land ownership by increasing the landholding ceiling on agricultural land from 5 hectares to 24 hectares and rationalizing the process on agricultural land transactions.
Some of these proposals are pro-labor as well as they are pro-business, and therefore the President and his economic team would do well to seriously consider these items, during the SONA and especially in the days after.
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