A country for others

A country for others

March 7, 2024

By Marvyn Benaning

Vantage Point II

The House Committee of the Whole has approved the Resolution of Both Houses No. 7 (RBH 7) that seeks to amend the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution by inserting the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” in Articles XII, XIV and XVI that allows Congress to prescribe the extent of foreign ownership in public utilities, education and advertising after holding hearings six times and apparently dismissing warnings aired the framers of the Constitution, former justices of the Supreme Court (SC) and former Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares.

In short, the approval proves in no uncertain terms that Filipino lawmakers can sign bills and resolutions in pitch dark, and that what passes off as public hearings are mere trimmings to the long-agreed decision that the Constitution had to be changed. Discussing the errors of their pet legislative agenda is like talking to the deaf; what had been planned decades ago to smother the 1987 Constitution is being brought to fruition under the Marcos II administration, whose President likes the 1987 Charter like a hole in the head.

It bears noting that the approval of RBH 7 is a gift to Speaker Martin Romualdez and his cousin, whose latest interview with Australian investigative journalist Sarah Ferguson was a disaster during which the interviewer found nothing funny on her question about Marcos Jr. returning the money that his father and mother had plundered. Marcos equivocated and said his family had not been adjudged as liable for amassing between $5 billion and %10-billion in ill-gotten wealth. Ferguson reminded him of a slew of cases when Switzerland returned part of the loot and when Philippine court declared that the family had stashed away at least $850-million.

At any rate, these congressmen had been “laboring” gratuitously to show that in line with the globalist agenda, all hindrances to the flow of capital must be sundered, and that what is sauce for goose is also sauce for the gander under a borderless world. Yet, we have to see that this demented gall to open all of the country’s economic sectors to foreign control is but an expression of the colonial and neo-colonial mindset that pervades at the Batasang Pambansa. Consider the fact that from 1521 to 1898, the Philippines was subjected to the rapacity of Spanish colonialism, followed by the exploitation by the US under its wondrous “benevolent assimilation” until 1946, with the 1942-1945 interlude under Japanese fascism working under the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

So, technically, the only period when Filipinos can claim to have a country of their own started with 1946, and yet the Americans had their air and naval bases to ensure that the Philippine government toes the line and parity rights ensured that Bob Stewart of Channel 7 and tobacco magnate Harry Stonehill would be treated more as Philippine nationals rather than Americans. Even beyond 1972, when Marcos declared martial law, the issue of Filipino majority control over strategic economic sectors was never questioned.

By amending the 1987 Constitution, these congressional geniuses think the country would be drowned by the unlimited flood of foreign capital. They all forgot to think that the Philippines already has the most liberal investment laws in Asia, as what former Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio informed them on Feb. 12, 2024, and this came about without touching the 1987 Constitution. “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 senators.

Carpio noted that Marcos Jr. was wrong when he declared that he wanted the economy to be opened as wide as possible for foreign ownership “except in critical areas such as power generation.” He explained that “power generation from coal, oil, and gas plants has been open to 100%t foreign ownership for the longest time.” Moreover, the recently-amended Public Services Act has has allowed 100 percent foreign ownership in telecommunications, air, sea, and land transportation except public utility vehicles and airports. Under Republic Act 10641 (RA 10641), banks are now open to 100% foreign ownership. Legal trade is open to 100 percent foreign ownership under the amended RA 8762. As to renewable energy — solar and wind – it is now open to 100% foreign ownership under the Department of Energy (DOW) circular amending the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of RA 9513. All these laws were deemed to be magnets for foreign direct investments (FDIs), but the fact remains that moneybags worldwide have not plunked their money here and only the Marcos boast of billions of dollars of pledged investments has materialized. It is not the 1987 Constitution that is to blame for this fiasco. These legislators are terribly cross-eyed. They should have asked Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Rodrigo Duterte to testify why investors avoid the Philippines