BERNARDO M.

VILLEGAS
March 28, 2008

AMENDING THE PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION

If the House of Representative under a new leadership really wants to contribute to

Philippine long-term sustainable development, its members should seriously consider the

clamor from the Philippine business community to amend the Philippine Constitution to

make it more friendly to foreign investors. Trade and Industry Secretary Peter B. Favila has

echoed the request of the members of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry to

remove existing restrictions found in the 1987 Constitution (which I had the honor of co-

authoring with 48 other commissioners).

In the Constitutional Commission created by then President Corazon Aquino in 1986, I

was elected Chairman of the Committee on the National Economy and Patrimony. I saw at

very close range the dynamics that led to the overly protectionist provisions enshrined in the

Philippine Constitution that was ratified by more than 70 percent of the electorate in 1987.

The mood prevailing among the majority of the Commissioners was an almost emotional

overreaction to the abuses of the martial law regime under the late President Ferdinand

Marcos. Since there was the perception by many of the Commissioners that the Marcos

Administration had been too open to foreign investors, there was a widely shared view that

foreigners' right to participate in the national economy should be curtailed, starting with the

issue of land ownership. This overreaction to the Marcos years was reinforced by some very

vocal leftists and nationalists who were always suspicious of foreigners. I still remember a

comment of one of the nationalists who wanted to prevent foreigners from owning

telecommunications facilities in the Philippines because "the foreigners may listen to our

secrets, jeopardizing national security." Even then, I found the reasoning naive since it was

already obvious that in the worldwide web of the internet, there are no secrets.
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I also had the honor of serving in the Philippine Commission on Constitutional Reforms

(PCCR), a body with thirty members from various sectors of society created by Executive

Order 43 by then President Joseph Estrada in 1999. The PCCR was tasked to "facilitate the

study of proposals on economic reforms that can be accomplished through constitutional

amendments." We in the PCCR concluded that the restrictive provisions against land

ownership and foreign participation in media, telecommunications, and education should be

removed from the Constitution to give more flexibility to policy makers to adapt to changing

circumstances in the national, regional and global economies. If restrictions have to be put in

place for security and other reasons, it is the task of legislators to impose these restrictions by

law.

Take the present circumstances that are relevant to the issue of foreign ownership of

land. The Philippines is terribly handicapped by the still primitive state of our infrastructures

compared to such emerging markets as China, Vietnam and Indonesia. The amount of

Foreign Direct Investments China attracts every year has already become legendary, $60

billion or more annually. Both Vietnam and Indonesia are receiving $l0 billion each annually

at this time. The Philippines just hit the $3 billion mark, thanks to the significant opening up

of the mining industry. We can compensate for our handicap by allowing foreigners to own

the land on which they build their factories or their residences, even if some of our more

successful neighbors still limit foreign ownership of land. We should be flexible enough to

create a mix of incentives that may be necessary at a given point of time. Congress can

always introduce future restrictions once we are awash with foreign investments. But the fact

is today, we are having a hard time to grow at the 8 to 10 percent being attained by our

neighbors because we do not have sufficient capital from our domestic savings. What is

ironical is that a country like China saves 50 percent of its GDP (compared to our less than 30

percent). Even with their high rate of savings, the Chinese are still able to make use of $60
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billion of FDIs annually. That is why they have been growing at double-digit rates for

decades.

The case of media is especially complex. Although it is not a very capital-intensive

sector in itself, media is converging with telecommunications and information technology

into one industry. It is hard to tell what is a media enterprise as distinguished from telecom

and information technology as can be gleaned from the Murdoch global enterprises, the

Microsofts, Googles, Yahoos, Time-Warners, Apples, etc. Our limiting foreign ownership in

any one of these industries will leave us light years behind in a converging sector where

technological change is happening at a breathtaking pace. Instead of limiting ownership in

these sectors, our legislators should frame competition policies so that monopolies and

oligopolies do not injure the consumers. What actually happens because of the limit to

foreign participation in these industries is that the Filipino-owned enterprises are sometimes

able to earn monopoly or oligopoly profits. All public utilities should follow the example of

the electricity industry where there is more leeway for foreign ownership of specific

enterprises in the value chain.

Education is another sector which should be opened up to foreign investment. There

are world-class universities from the U.S. and Europe that are seeking a strong presence in

the emerging markets where the university-age population is still growing very rapidly.

Especially in Europe, because of the very low fertility rate, there is a very pronounced decline

in the number of students going to the universities. In fact, many schools have closed for

lack of students. Some of these educational institutions are already running campuses in

Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and China. There is no reason why the Philippines should be

closed to such foreign-owned universities that can do much to improve our university

education, especially in engineering and the sciences. The answer is not in partnering with

local universities. From my conversations with some of these universities in Europe, they
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would want to have complete control of the educational policies. Their experience with

partnering with local investors has not been positive. Maintaining the high quality of

education is a very demanding task. Being forced to have local partners can straightjacket the

foreign groups that want to invest in education. Again, what our legislators should do is to

pass laws that will ensure that these foreign-owned universities will truly contribute to the

education of our youth as productive citizens of the nation.

Let us challenge the Philippine Congress to focus on these few changes in the economic

provisions contained in the Philippine Constitution. They can make the amendments without

the need for a Constitutional Convention. They can just constitute themselves into an

Assembly that can propose the changes limited to the economic provisions. These changes

can then be ratified by the electorate in the general elections in 2010. I hope Speaker

Nograles and the House he leads are listening to the voices of the business leaders. It is

inspiring that the Filipino business community is shedding the ultra-nationalistic and

protectionist spirit that has prevailed in the Philippines for almost half a century. It is clear

that our business leaders are not afraid of foreign competition. They can compete in a truly

globalized environment. For comments, my email address is bvillegas@uap.edu.ph.