THE GOOD – if not the best – news delivered to former President and current Pampanga 2nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on her birthday last Tuesday was the banner story of this paper that day: “GMA left correct economic legacy.”
Indeed, GMA beamed when ace reporter Joey Pavia gave her a copy as she went around greeting well-wishers over a sumptuous early lunch at the parish hall of St. Augustine church in Lubao.
The Punto! banner in some way offset the screaming headlines of the Manila dailies that day – a number of the Morong 43 filing a P15-million suit against GMA for alleged torture and other violations of their human rights.
“An economic direction in the right path.” Economist Bernardo Villegas termed what he deemed as the legacy of the Arroyo administration to the nation in a forum last week with the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Pamcham).
That, in effect, vindicated the fundamental soundness of the economic policies of GMA, coming as it is from an economist highly esteemed here and abroad. For those not-in-the-know, Villegas is senior vice president and dean of the School of Economics of the University of Asia and the Pacific.
As I was not at the forum, I could only surmise that the “economic directions” Villegas talked of are the same that made the Philippines least affected by the global economic crunch two, three years back.
Anyways, our banner said Villegas credited GMA for her expansive infrastructure program throughout the archipelago, particularly the establishment of a nautical highway through the “roll on-roll off” ferries that boosted inter-island transport, trade and tourism.
A particularly incendiary issue during Arroyo’s term that Villegas suggested the Aquino administration should pursue is Charter change “exclusively to amend outdated economic provisions.”
“We have the most backward Constitution,” Villegas said, citing restraints on foreign investments as the 40 percent limit of shares and the prohibition to own lands which prevents the Philippines from “levelling up” to the progress achieved by Indonesia and Vietnam.
“Of course there should be some limitations on foreigners, but why should we bar them from owning lands where they could build factories and homes?” Villegas asked.
Which reminds me of the wisdom of our neighbourhood economist: “Why, can foreigners take to their home countries the land they own in the Philippines, or the homes and factories they build thereat?”
Villegas is urging the Aquino government to convene a constituent assembly by 2013 to be able to amend solely the outdated economic provisions in the Constitution.
He reasoned that a constituent assembly can set the right economic provisions in place and effect economic growth that by the end of the Aquino administration in 2016, the nation would be in a better position to call a constitutional convention to amend other provisions of the Charter.
Villegas’ may have cast his reasoning to the wind. With the Aquino administration seemingly hell-bent in prosecuting, if not persecuting, its predecessor, it would not touch, not even with the proverbial ten-foot pole, anything remotely connected to the latter.
Shame.
Indeed, GMA beamed when ace reporter Joey Pavia gave her a copy as she went around greeting well-wishers over a sumptuous early lunch at the parish hall of St. Augustine church in Lubao.
The Punto! banner in some way offset the screaming headlines of the Manila dailies that day – a number of the Morong 43 filing a P15-million suit against GMA for alleged torture and other violations of their human rights.
“An economic direction in the right path.” Economist Bernardo Villegas termed what he deemed as the legacy of the Arroyo administration to the nation in a forum last week with the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Pamcham).
That, in effect, vindicated the fundamental soundness of the economic policies of GMA, coming as it is from an economist highly esteemed here and abroad. For those not-in-the-know, Villegas is senior vice president and dean of the School of Economics of the University of Asia and the Pacific.
As I was not at the forum, I could only surmise that the “economic directions” Villegas talked of are the same that made the Philippines least affected by the global economic crunch two, three years back.
Anyways, our banner said Villegas credited GMA for her expansive infrastructure program throughout the archipelago, particularly the establishment of a nautical highway through the “roll on-roll off” ferries that boosted inter-island transport, trade and tourism.
A particularly incendiary issue during Arroyo’s term that Villegas suggested the Aquino administration should pursue is Charter change “exclusively to amend outdated economic provisions.”
“We have the most backward Constitution,” Villegas said, citing restraints on foreign investments as the 40 percent limit of shares and the prohibition to own lands which prevents the Philippines from “levelling up” to the progress achieved by Indonesia and Vietnam.
“Of course there should be some limitations on foreigners, but why should we bar them from owning lands where they could build factories and homes?” Villegas asked.
Which reminds me of the wisdom of our neighbourhood economist: “Why, can foreigners take to their home countries the land they own in the Philippines, or the homes and factories they build thereat?”
Villegas is urging the Aquino government to convene a constituent assembly by 2013 to be able to amend solely the outdated economic provisions in the Constitution.
He reasoned that a constituent assembly can set the right economic provisions in place and effect economic growth that by the end of the Aquino administration in 2016, the nation would be in a better position to call a constitutional convention to amend other provisions of the Charter.
Villegas’ may have cast his reasoning to the wind. With the Aquino administration seemingly hell-bent in prosecuting, if not persecuting, its predecessor, it would not touch, not even with the proverbial ten-foot pole, anything remotely connected to the latter.
Shame.
