* This is my article in BusinessWorld last Friday, April 26, 2019.
The Philippines’ tourism sector is among the more dynamic
ones in the economy. The Department of Tourism (DoT) targeted 89.2 million
domestic tourists in 2022 but this was already surpassed in 2017 with 97
million.
I checked tourism data from the Philippine Statistics
Authority (PSA) and I was happily surprised with what I discovered — all
indicators like foreign and domestic tourism expenditures as percent of
household consumption and exports, tourism employment as percent of total
employment, are increasing from 2000 to 2017 (see table).
Those are the good news. The bad news is that recently
the country has been experiencing some hiccups in public utilities —
insufficient water in Metro Manila due to high demand, insufficient power
supply in the Luzon grid due to unscheduled shutdown of several old but big
power plants, and even short-period unscheduled disservice by one local telecom
firm.
These are bad news for both locals and foreigners,
especially short-term visitors. And this prompted the Senate leadership to
announce prioritizing the amendment of the 82-year-old Public Service Act (PSA)
via SB 1754, when Congress resumes sessions for three weeks after the May
elections. The Senate Committee on Public Services is chaired by Sen. Grace
Poe, currently running for reelection.
Both the House and Senate versions intend to remove
transportation (sea, land, air) and telecommunications from the list of “public
utilities” where foreign capital is either banned or limited to 40% maximum of
corporate equity. Only three sectors will be retained as public utilities —
electricity transmission, electricity distribution, and water supply and
sewerage system.
While there is general agreement in Congress and the
public to liberalize transportation (more bus lines, more shipping lines, more
airlines competing), there are many doubts and reservations about liberalizing
telecom because of the entry of China telecom via the third telco Mislatel.
A compromise solution perhaps is to drop telecom for now
and proceed with transportation liberalization as this will greatly help boost
the country’s tourism and investment environment. More competing shipping lines
and airlines will attract more businesses and passengers into the country.
This compromise may not be easy because Malacañang is
gung-ho about becoming much closer to Beijing. So Malacañang will settle this
issue quick with the Senate leadership as time is too short to enact the PSA
Amendment bill into a law.
After the PSA Amendment and liberalization law, next
steps would be to have more airports, build bigger airports with two or more
passenger terminals to include budget terminals and attract more budget
airlines, domestic and foreign. Have more big and new conventional power plants
that can give stable, 24/7 electricity at competitive prices, more wide roads
going to airports, improved peace and order nationwide.
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See also:
BWorld 316, MORE IPR protection, April 24, 2019
BWorld 317, MORE Senators for rule of law, April 25, 2019
BWorld 318, Earthquakes and MORE sturdy buildings, April 26, 2019
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