The Federation of Economic Freedom (FEF) said that the Philippines may have to amend its structure to nip corruption within the bud, as the dearth of a powerful political party system is incentivizing politicians.
“What we’d like is to vary the structure, establish a powerful political party system, and even change the economic model, which is predicated on Filipino-first and Filipino-only [policies],” said FEF President Calixto V. Chikiamco on the sidelines of the Pilipinas Conference on Friday.
“I’m recommending that there be elections for a Constitutional Convention in 2028, (along with) presidential elections, after which they might be given a maximum of two years to give you a brand new structure,” he added.
He said that corruption shouldn’t be a singular issue within the Philippines, citing events in Vietnam and Malaysia.
“It’s just that the magnitude has gone up. But when you wish to stop it, now we have to vary our political and financial system,” he said on the sidelines of the Pilipinas Conference on Friday.
A robust political party system, he said, will help remove the incentives enjoyed by government officials in the present political system.
“We’d like a powerful political party system with state financing of political parties in order that a person politician doesn’t should steal from the federal government to have the ability to campaign,” he added.
The political party system is supposed to exchange family dynasties, which have been cited amongst the basis causes of corruption.
“We don’t have a powerful political party system; our legislators flip parties on the drop of a hat,” he added.
He said that he shouldn’t be particular with what type of party system it’s, whether it’s a two-party system or a multi-party system.
“But there ought to be laws against party switching, for turncoatism,” he said.
“Those are among the things that we are able to do to vary our system because merely putting people in jail is not going to change the incentives of our legislators to maintain on stealing money,” he added.
On the economic side, he said that there’s a must remove all of the Filipino-first and Filipino-only policies, as neighbors including Taiwan, Japan, and China have already opened their doors to foreign investors.
“There’s nothing incorrect with the influx of foreign investors because they’d be employing people, especially in the event that they export,” he said.
“How do they protect their local industry? They protect it from the exchange rate since it is costlier to import stuff in case your exchange rate is weak,” he added.
He said the Filipino-first provisions only lead to monopolies and oligopolies, thus the necessity for constitutional change.
At the identical time, he said that economic reforms are needed to make local industries more competitive.
“We have now to be globally competitive. Which means we’d like to scale back the value of food in order that labor costs won’t be so high also,” he added.
He also cited the necessity to make the structure simpler to permit room for changes.
“We have now considered one of the longest constitutions on the earth, so it is vitally difficult to make changes when technology and other conditions change,” he added.
Mr. Chikiamco’s statement got here amid the federal government’s probe on alleged corruption in flood control projects starting in August.
In recent revelations, top government officials have also been named as having played a job within the alleged corruption.
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Nonetheless, Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chair George T. Barcelon said that the federal government should first address the difficulty of flood control before moving to constitutional change.
“We face this challenge; let’s address this primary,” he said. “‘(The) structure, possibly down the road, we’ll take a look at what are the essential issues in our structure that now we have to tweak.
He said that amending the structure requires proper timing.
“We have now this concern right away, and in a way it’s a really serious situation. Now, for those who open up the Pandora’s box on constitutional change right now, you possibly can’t say who has vested interests,” he said in a combination of English and Filipino.
He said that addressing the difficulty at hand is significant, because the country is currently behind the curve so far as foreign direct investments are concerned.
“We are actually on the radar of the individuals who want to take a position. We just don’t have the landing lights for them to actually put their money in our country,” he said.
Meanwhile, Makati Business Club Chairman Edgar O. Chua warned in regards to the possible effects of a complete rehaul of the structure.
“While we don’t have an ideal structure, I believe the method to address it shouldn’t be to vary the entire thing, just parts of it,” he said.
“I believe it is de facto how we strengthen the political party system. Because right away, our politics is personality driven,” he added in a combination of English and Filipino.
He said that he can be concerned about who might be changing the structure.
“I consider that we are able to operate throughout the framework of our current [constitution],” he added. — Justine Irish D. Tabile