Catching up

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago has brought excitement to the presidential race. In the coming days she must allay the greatest concern of her supporters  that she will back out at the eleventh hour and say she’s only joking and having fun. People will be working to make her win and their time and effort should not be wasted.

At the same time, Senator Miriam should watch her back, and perhaps even hire a food taster. She has just thrown a monkey wrench into the strategy of daang matuwid and the Liberal Party to ensure “continuity” by eliminating, short of murder, all serious contenders for the presidency, making the LP standard bearer win by default.

If Senator Miriam surges in the surveys, she, her relatives, friends and even their dogs and cats should prepare to fend off the kitchen sink. Just ask Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who’s had a taste of what’s in store following his strong showing in the surveys. He might yet become the substitute presidential bet of his party, but he’ll enjoy two months of relative peace (he thinks) from smear campaigns before the deadline for substitution comes around. So will Mayor Joseph Estrada, now running for reelection, but who has said he will be the substitute candidate in case both Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Grace Poe are KO’d before election day by the administration.

Now that decisions have been made and 2016 aspirations have been officially declared, we should find out each candidate’s road map for economic progress including the stand on Charter change.

Cha-cha even for economic provisions is dead under daang matuwid. President Aquino guaranteed its demise under his watch, by announcing, each time it looked like Congress appeared poised to undertake economic Cha-cha, that he would seek reelection, which requires a rewriting of the Constitution.

Cha-cha’s death was sealed in the Senate after its main proponent, Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, was arrested and detained for plunder. If the respondent is a member of the opposition, he’s held without bail over the pork barrel scam. If the respondent belongs to the Liberal Party and his father heads a religious voting bloc, the respondent becomes an LP candidate for senator.

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The restrictive economic provisions of that precious Constitution prevent the country from entering into free trade agreements and joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Earlier this month the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries became the founding members of the TPP.

Although there are still contentious issues and the TPP needs legislative approval in the 11 countries, the pact is expected to boost trade among the members, which account for more than 50 percent of global economic output and 40 percent of world trade. Those worried about Chinese reef-grabbing and island-building in the West Philippine Sea will also like the exclusion of China from the TPP – probably among the reasons why Vietnam readily joined the trade pact.

Apart from Vietnam and the US, the other countries in the TPP are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore.

Last June in Washington, Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo said the Philippines was committed to joining the TPP. But Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario told me a week ago that membership is by invitation only, and so far the Philippines has not been invited.

Those in charge of the invites are surely aware of the restrictive economic provisions in the Constitution. Philippine officials, for their part, are reportedly concerned about the fate of state-owned enterprises and certain protected areas in agriculture (plus, left unsaid, the fate of their supporters’ monopolies and oligopolies).

The globalized economy, however, is inexorably moving toward free trade. The sooner countries embrace it, the better – as China found out over the past three decades, to its great success, and as Myanmar is finding out.

But first, governments must work with the private sector to ensure that their citizens are ready for global competition. Many countries are investing heavily in education and training programs designed to encourage innovation.

At the same time, they are constantly working to lift policies and rules that restrict the free flow of goods, funds, labor and ideas, to stimulate both local and foreign investment, encourage local entrepreneurship and generally make their nations an easier place to do business.

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Despite improvements in the Philippines’ global ranking on ease of doing business and despite our investment grade, investors still find it easier to do business in other countries in the region.

In 1967, the Philippines became one of the five founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. At the time the Philippines was at the top of the Southeast Asian heap and, among the Asian-Pacific states, second only to Japan in terms of economic and human development indicators.

Today, despite being Asia’s fastest growing economy after China last year, we’ve been left behind by the ASEAN-5, with late member Vietnam likely to overtake us following its membership in the TPP.

We used to have Asia’s most modern airport, we had the first airline, the miracle rice was developed in Los Baños, and Asians attended our universities to learn from the region’s best.

Today I think my alma mater the University of the Philippines is still doing well, despite its place in the annual Quacquarelli Symonds or QS World University Rankings (whose methodology and results UP administrators question). But even UP can use an upgrade, and even more so the other Philippine institutions of higher learning.

The Manila International Airport, now named after Ninoy Aquino, hasn’t changed much, which is its problem: it failed to evolve and modernize, like the other Asian gateways, two of which are now rated the world’s best – Incheon in South Korea and Singapore’s Changi.

Philippine Airlines could not compete with the state capitalism that powered the likes of Singapore Airlines and the Middle Eastern carriers to the top of global aviation.

Red tape, weak regulation, poor enforcement of contracts, a compromised judiciary, political protection for monopolies, inadequate infrastructure and inefficient logistics in the Philippines are compounded by the most expensive and unreliable power supply in Asia plus personal safety risks including kidnapping and the region’s highest homicide rate.

Among the five founding members of ASEAN, the Philippines has become the laggard in many economic and human development indicators including GDP, per capita income, tourism and foreign direct investment.

Changing this sorry situation should be a key objective of the next president.