THE PRIORITY AGENDA lined up by the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council for the 20th Congress is unsuited for the country’s structural ills as it only enriches a few while leaving most of the people in the margins and the economy underdeveloped.
This was IBON Foundation’s analysis of LEDAC’s priority bills that are “much like in the past administrations,” as the agenda sidesteps the urgent central task of moving the Philippine economy away from overdependence on low-productivity services, foreign capital, and imports.
A progressive vision would place redistribution, agricultural development, and Filipino industrialization at the heart of lawmaking.
Ibon said the “proposals for agriculture are tokenistic and hollow because there are already so many laws for agricultural modernization and rural development – yet the sector still receives just a paltry 4% of the national budget. Even basic agrarian reform is neglected with billions of pesos still unspent from stalled land distribution.”
Industrial policy is conspicuously absent even with a proposed Masterplan for Infrastructure and National Development, which it described as “more a sales pitch to foreign investors than a real blueprint for progress.”
SENSIBLE TACK
Ibon said the more sensible tack is to scrutinize foreign investments for their contribution to Filipino industrialization, and for any risks to the nation’s security. Laws must also require that investment agreements “genuinely prioritize technology transfer, strengthen domestic linkages, and contribute meaningfully to Filipino industrial development.”
Wooing foreign capital should not define the country’s investment climate but policies must be focused on creating the conditions that allow Filipino industries and domestic manufacturing to flourish.”
Still missing are laws to protect small farmers and local enterprises, guarantee access to credit and technology, and uphold social services as a right instead of a privilege, Ibon noted.
SERVICES BY FIRMS
Dominant in LEDAC’s agenda are proposals that risk deepening corporate capture of public services such as the Department of Water Resources proposal, which is more likely to entrench private control over water than to expand public provision and democratic accountability.
Another is the universal health care amendments that supposedly widens benefits and coverage, but actually reinforces expensive private profit-seeking healthcare. Healthcare would deliver greater benefits if anchored on a robust public system, with private providers relegated to a supplementary role.
Genuine reforms to undo the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA), which saddled Filipinos with high electricity costs and unreliable supply, must be done through tighter state regulation – or even renationalization.
“A truly game-changing pro-people reform would be redefining water, energy, and transport as essential public services that should be under public control,” Ibon said.
POPULIST, ELITIST, CORRUPT
Other measures smack of populism – expanding ayuda programs buy short-term political favor with no impact on addressing the roots of poverty but only perpetuates patronage politics by keeping the poor dependent on politicians’ largesse. These stop gap measures would be useless if we properly develop the agriculture and industry sectors.
Proposals that merely reinforce the status quo are tax amnesties, repeatedly rolled out since the 1970s that signal to evaders that cheating pays and encourages tax avoidance and grants impunity to tax evaders. “They reward the wealthy whose capacity to hide and evade is much greater than of ordinary taxpayers,” Ibon emphasized.
The genuinely progressive tax reform is absent. “What is needed are billionaire wealth taxes, higher income taxes on large corporations and rich families, and windfall land value taxes to capture the private gains from public infrastructure projects.”
Instead, regressive consumption taxes that disproportionately burden the poor and middle class persist and are made worse – such as with the excise tax on plastic bags.
Ibon said moves to relax bank secrecy laws can bolster transparency and combat money laundering provided they come with strong institutional safeguards and protection against abuse. “The powerful cannot be allowed to exploit loopholes while the weak are unfairly pressured,” it added.
Barring officials’ relatives from contracts, requiring civil servants to waive secrecy, and affirming the right to information look promising but the Marcos Jr administration’s selective anti-graft campaign inspires little confidence that these will lessen corruption.
NEED FOR RESET
Ibon said it is never too late to reorient policymaking toward agricultural modernization, Filipino industrialization and universal public provisioning of essential services led by a strong developmental state.
This, however, seems beyond the current Marcos Jr administration, which remains captive to the elite interests that have kept the country so backward for so long.