Philippine president urged to approve critical policy reforms

Philippine and foreign business groups on Tuesday urged President Benigno Aquino III to approve critical policy reforms aimed at ensuring inclusive growth as he enters the final 12 months of his administration.

The Philippine Business Groups and Joint Foreign Chambers (PBG- JFC), a coalition composed of 18 local and foreign business groups, sent a letter to Aquino containing the list of reforms, which was the product of a month-long consultation process with participating organizations.

"Focusing on institutionalizing integrity and good governance, accelerating infrastructure development, ensuring massive job generation, facilitating trade, increasing foreign investment and boosting competitiveness" were among those cited by the groups that need executive action.

Specifically, PBG-JFC said Aquino has to immediately appoint qualified, credible, and experienced public servants to the vacant posts in the Civil Service Commission, Department of Energy and the Philippine National Police.

They said the Aquino needs to establish a public-private Energy Council composed of credible electricity experts who will formulate and regularly update a detailed energy security and price competitiveness roadmap and to intensify efforts to implement with minimum delay critical land, air and sea transportation projects, among others.

As a complement to the proposals, the PBG-JFC also called for the executive's support for the swift passage of at least seven legislative measures, such as amendments to the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution, Public-Private Partnership Act and amendments to the Right-of-Way Act and Fair Competition Act. Endi