Philippine incoming administration to focus on rural development

The incoming administration of Philippine President-elect Rodrigo Duterte will prioritize the development of the impoverished rural areas, his economic aides said Monday.

Duterte's economic team gathered about 300 businessmen in southern Philippine Davao City for a workshop aimed at fine-tuning the socio-economic agenda that the incoming administration plans to pursue. Duterte is expected to speak at the end of the two-day workshop Tuesday.

"We are going to be an inclusive (government), a government that spouses policies that have growth for everyone," incoming Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez told a news conference in Davao, stressing the need to prioritize projects outside Metro Manila.

"(We) need to execute projects in the countryside and thereby create jobs there. Those are the areas we need to prioritize," he said.

Dominguez added, "We have 42 million people who are in the workforce. And the statistics show that about 5.7 percent of them are unemployed and around 18 percent of them are underemployed ... that's about 10 million who are unemployed and most of them as we know live in the rural areas. So, it's very important that jobs are created in those rural areas."

"We are listening to the people," Dominguez said, noting that Duterte won by a landslide because Filipinos are yearning for a better life which they did not feel during the administration of outgoing President Benigno Aquino.

Duterte, who will take his oath of office on June 30, has vowed to stamp out corruption, criminality and reduce poverty in the country during his six-year term of office.

To lure foreign investors to the Philippines, Duterte has said that he is open to lifting the restrictions on foreign ownership of Philippine corporations in the Philippine constitution and that more transportation infrastructure projects will be undertaken "in every region" during his administration.

Specifically, he is looking at a Mindanao railway system in the southern Philippines.

Duterte's economic team has bared the economic policies that the Duterte administration plans to pursue.

The incoming administration will "continue and maintain the current macroeconomic policies;" however, the team said that "reforms in tax revenue collection (in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs) efforts will be complemented by reforms within the bureaucracy of these tax collecting agencies."

The team said the new administration will accelerate infrastructure spending by addressing, among others, major bottlenecks in the public-private partnership program while maintaining the target of setting aside 5 percent of the country's gross domestic product for infrastructure spending.

"(The Duterte administration) will ensure attractiveness of the Philippines to foreign direct investments by addressing restrictive economic provisions in the Constitution and our laws, and enhancing competitiveness of the economy," the team said.

The administration also vowed to "pursue genuine agricultural development strategy by providing support services to the small farmers to increase their productivity, improve their market access, and develop the agricultural value chain by forging partnership with agribusiness firms."

The economic agenda also includes unclogging the bottlenecks in the land administration and management system, strengthening the country's basic education system, improving the income tax system "to make it progressive to enable those who earn little to have more money in their pockets," and expand and improve implementation of the conditional cash transfer program.

The Duterte administration said it plans to promote science, technology and the creative art "to enhance innovation and creative capacity."

Moreover, it said Duterte will strengthen the implementation of the responsible parenthood and reproductive health law "to enable all, especially poor couples, to make informed choices on financial and family planning."

Dominguez said the economic agenda of the Duterte administration "is simply following what the electorate has spoken to us about," adding that Duterte got elected because "he stood for peace and order, no crime, no drugs, no corruption and inclusive growth."

Incoming Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia told a news conference that he predicts the economy to expand by at least 6.5 percent this year.

"Since it's the start of the new administration, we will have adjustment pains. It will not be smooth-sailing right away. There may be some adjustment hiccups," Pernia said.