It's more than time to consider the reality of Constitutional Reform's priority of what should come first. What's the use of having a federal-parliamentary government if the whole country is still LOCKED UP in the nonsense grid of economic protectionism by the oligarchs? It would be basketcase like India in the past when a federal-parliamentary system was useless because of protectionism. It was only when India decided to open up its economy that it became a major world player in economics.
A country's economic success is not always based whether it has parliamentary and federalism. Some countries that aren't federal-parliamentary managed to have a good economy thanks to the use of free trade. China, Taiwan and South Korea are semi-presidential and unitary countries yet their economic success is due to one factor called ECONOMIC LIBERALIZATION. Deng Xiaoping lifted up China from the pits of poverty by getting rid of Mao Zedong's nonsense protectionism. Japan may be a unitary country until today (while having a parliamentary form of government) started getting more and more successful after ten years of the end of its empire through economic liberalization. These countries aren't necessarily a combination of federal-parliamentary but they succeeded in spite of that. It's all because they understood that it's all about economic policies that gives badly needed revenues to the nation.
The priority would be to get rid of the unnecessary negative list and excessive tariffs in the Philippine business environment. Allowing competition into the Philippines would soon give out the message that either local industries will shape up or be destroyed. The local businesses will have to learn to look not only at the threats of foreign investors but also the opportunities that they carry along with them. This can also mean that they can have a fair deal of 50-50 should an investor desire to work with a Filipino partner. This would also mean small and medium Filipino businesses may grow through possible FDI partnerships, new customers and new service providers. The only restrictions that will be given are reasonable ones such as paying one's taxes, treating one's employees right and not establishing businesses in areas not allowed by the law.
So how can removing economic protectionism benefit the Philippine economy? More competition in the business means more taxes for the government to collect. Foreign businesses are still required to pay taxes based on the current Philippine tax table. This would mean more money for the government to collect from in order to finance several projects such as infrastructural and agricultural development. After all, you need to account for the source of money, right?
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