FOREIGN INVESTMENTS NOT WELCOME IN THE PHILIPPINES

      As far back as I can remember, the Philippines, through succession of governments, has been exerting efforts to invite and attract foreign investments to come to the country and help develop our economy.  But  up to now we have not been successful in attracting any significant share in foreign investments to push appreciable progress in our economic growth.  What we have been getting are superficial and minimal investments in service and product imports, processing and business process outsourcing that do not really go to the core of real economic development as would industrialization and other capital and income intensive ventures do.

     There are the obvious reasons that inhibit if not prevent foreign investors from coming here such as: the constitutional limitation on foreign ownership and exploitation of identified industries, laws reserving certain commercial enterprises to Filipinos only and the unpredictable changes in government policies and regulations on foreign investments consistently criticized by would-be investors and economists.  These are indeed obvious obstacles.  But while other countries have done away with similar impediments and in have progressed in the process,  proposals to revisit and change those legal and policy obstacles in our system continue to be ignored by our legislators and government policy-makers.  They continue to be captives or paid guardians to homegrown vested interests, whose economic preserve and dominance must forever be protected in the name of national patrimony and nationalism (the catch phrases they usually belabor) by what many believe to be useless discriminatory prohibitions against foreign investors in this age of globalization.

      It took sometime but it is finally clear to me, that behind the posturing and rhetorics of our past and present leaders, foreign investments are not really wanted here and so we do not provide a level playing field for them, ostensibly invoking nationalism and national patrimony while around us other countries march on to development fueled by foreign investments.  By saying we, I do not refer to the Filipino masses of which I am a part.  I refer to the Filipino super rich, the industrialists and the taipans that own and control 90% of the economic lifeblood of this country.  The patrimony of the nation must continue to be protected and reserved for them to own and exploit.  Foreign investments should not be freely allowed to come in (unlike in many developed and prosperous countries) lest they weaken or threaten the economic and political powers of the homegrown exploiters.  Foreign investors must only be allowed to come in  only as minor partners or in ventures our taipans and super rich are not interested in; they can come in for the crumbs and that investment environment must be perpetuated in the name of preserving the national patrimony and fostering nationalism.  With their money and power and bought political leaders and policy makers in tow, they astutely and quietly wage this battle while occasionally joining in inviting and promoting foreign investments.

          Many of these taipans and super rich joined P-Noy in his state visit to China and I wondered what really was their participation and purpose.  One that I can imagine was to show the Chinese that our President and government are backing their investments in China which by all accounts already reached billion of dollars.  It could not have been for the purpose of inviting foreign investments from China because such a position would be incongruous and hypocritical vis-à-vis the fact that if these taipans and their kind had enough measure of patriotism and decided to use part of what they have invested in China, in Vietnam and elsewhere, for more development here, the Philippines would not anymore be in much need for foreign investments.  Really, the charade goes on...