Two experts say not time to scrap limit on foreign ownership in advertising, media, education and land
It is not time to remove the limit on foreign ownership in advertising, media, education, and land, two experts said at a Senate hearing on Charter change on Monday.
The Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes held its second hearing on Monday on Resolution of Both Houses No.6, which seeks to lift the “restrictive” economic provisions of the Constitution, including the cap on the ownership of foreigners on land and businesses in the advertising, media, education sectors.
Economist Bernardo Villegas, a member of the Constitutional Commission under former president Corazon Aquino’s administration, said he opposed the amendments of some economic provisions of the Constitution since many sectors have been opened by the Public Service Act (PSA).
“We do not need to amend the Constitution, especially as regards (to) media, advertising, education, and ownership of land at this stage of our development,” Villegas told lawmakers.
“If we open advertising, media, and education, they will be literally chicken feed. They are not capital intensive and they will not impact poverty as (much as) infrastructure, manufacturing...have been. So it is clear that it is not time to have an amendment of the Constitution,” he added.
He said that the government can achieve its goal of reducing poverty by eight percent if agricultural production grows by at least three percent per year and if the country gets $15 to $20 billion worth of foreign investment.
Villegas noted that of the $72 billion President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. gained in his international trips, $15 billion have been implemented. He added that of the $15 billion, $14 billion was allocated to manufacturing, infrastructure, and alternative energy, which were sectors that “were 100 percent open to foreign investment”.
Villegas argued that opening other sectors was “not critical” since more large corporations see opportunities to earn in agriculture.
“More and more corporations see profit as possible in agriculture. Those are the things that have been made possible by the amendment of the PSA. Therefore, I don’t think we need to change. In the future, I may agree that probably we should open all the rest. But they are not critical. Therefore, I do not think that we need Cha-cha today,” he said.
Former Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio denied the economic provisions were restrictive, saying that the Philippines has one of the most liberal foreign investment laws in Asia.
“There appears to be a lack of understanding by our national leaders of the extent of foreign ownership, under the law, of businesses in our country,” Carpio said.
Carpio also said that the amended Public Service Act had reclassified several businesses as public services open to full foreign ownership.
Senator Grace Poe, chairperson of the public services panel, said that lawmakers should thoroughly study the proposed changes to the Charter since it took several deliberations and years before the PSA was amended.
“Amending the Public Service Act took several Congresses and decades of data gathering and study, countless hours of debates, amendments, and discussions to craft just one particular carving out in our Constitution,” Poe said in her opening statement.
“We really studied the need and the effect of opening each sector (to foreign investors). If the 86-year-old Public Service Act had to go through the eye of the needle, we need to scrutinize even more the amendments to our 37-year-old Constitution,” she added. Jaspearl Tan/DMS
