I remembered writing about the late Ninoy Aquino revealing that the Marcos Years weren't a real parliamentary. He described it as a "parliamentary without a parliament". In short, it was a MOCK PARLIAMENTARY that never gave us a real parliamentary system. Instead, it was still a presidential system because a president is symbolic in the parliamentary. Now, another interesting part of his speech is about FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI). I may not espouse all his ideas but these portions from his speech are taken from the Q & A portion.
Here's what Ninoy said about FDI and it may surprise some:
Q: If you will become the next president of the Philippines, what will you do with the U.S. investments or big foreign investments in the Philippines?
A: That’s a very very good question because there is a misconception that if the opposition wins in the Philippines, we will kick out all American/foreign investments. But why should we do that? Foreign investments are in the Philippines to give employment to our people. We should watch against predatory foreign investments who are exploitative of the Filipino people. But I cannot accept that all foreign investments are exploitative. There are many foreign investments that are helpful to our country because there are many foreign multinationals that have technology which we do not have. We do not have the technology and digitals and computers. Who will teach us this? The idea is not to kick out foreign investment but to regulate foreign investment so that they will be mutually beneficial to both countries. Where they become exploitative, they should be extripated, but where they help the economy, they should be encouraged.
In short, Ninoy was NOT demonizing FDI. Instead, he mentioned regulating it. Yes, there's such a thing as a REGULATED free market even in countries that allow 100% ownership. Some countries still don't allow the purchase of land. Instead, some countries allow FDIs to rent land as tenants while maintaining land ownership for their countrymen alone. There are regulations to follow like paying taxes, labor laws, and the like. If Filipino businesses have regular regulations then why not FDI? Both Filipino investors and FDI are to follow regulations to have a fair practice in business. He calls for MUTUAL BENEFIT. That's why he said that only those who help can stay and those who don't must go. It's like a tenant who doesn't pay rent or follow rules must go. A tenant who pays rent and follows rules can renew the contract as many times as possible.
Instead, the Marcos Regime was a highly protectionist era resulting in one of the darkest ages in history. Restricting FDI under the Marcos regime resulted in rampant cronyism. Protectionism would also allow inflation, high debts, and the eventual bankruptcy of the Philippines.
Eventually, we can see that the state protectionist policy from Carlos P. Garcia down to Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. was slowly getting repealed. Fidel V. Ramos down to the late Noynoy Aquino started to regulate industries from protectionism. Ramos started the Philippine Economic Zone Authority or PEZA - something similar to what Deng started in China. Ramos' successors up to Noynoy also did some modifications.
What needs to be done now? I was thinking about the negative list getting eased down. Though, we still need to ease down on utilities to provide more affordable water, electricity, and the Internet. Ninoy was definitely right to say that FDI isn't evil per se - only the FDI that seek to exploit rather than to help!
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