Inviting investors or killing local firms? VP bets spar over restrictions on foreigners

MANILA, Philippines — Three vice-presidential candidates sparred over recently passed laws easing restrictions on foreign investments, with one of them arguing that these new policies would hurt small businesses.

Asked at the CNN Philippines vice presidential debate about what they plan to do for micro, small and medium enterprises which account for over 90% of businesses in the country, Partido Lakas ng Masa candidate Walden Bello said there is a need to repeal laws that liberalize foreign investments.

Bello then took a swipe at Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto III of the Nationalist People’s Coalition and Sen. Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan of the Liberal Party for having supported these measures, particularly the amendments to the Foreign Investment Act and the Retail Trade Liberalization Act which lowered the threshold for the entry of foreign capital into the country.

"We have had all of these foreign-oriented laws that have been passed recently, and Senate President Sotto was the one who pushed them through Congress and Senator Pangilinan also signed. So paano yan? Sinasabi niyo for Filipino kayo, and then you’re liberalizing [with] all these laws (You say you are for Filipinos but you're liberalizing with all these laws)?" Bello said.

Sotto and Pangilinan said they backed the passage of these policies to open up the economy to foreign investments.

"We have lowered the threshold for those who would want to invest, foreign investments, because that is the way to open up the economy," Sotto said.

Pangilinan added that they introduced a P100-billion fund to support small businesses to balance the effects of the laws.

"Kinakailangan nating balansehin. Hindi pupwedeng bawal lahat ng foreign investment or restrictive to the degree na hindi na lalaki ang ating ekonomiya dahil nakakadagdag naman ito, sa totoo lang, sa trabaho," he said.

(We need to balance it. We cannot just ban foreign investments or be too restrictive to the degree that our economy won’t grow when, in reality, it creates jobs.)

But Bello was not convinced with their answers.

"They’re opening up SMEs and small enterprises to be eaten up by putting down the threshold by foreign entrepreneurs and businesses. And then they say that they’re protecting SMEs and medium enterprises?" he said.

He continued, "Let us not kid ourselves. You’re sending this country and our SMEs to the hands of all these foreign enterprises that will eat them up."