Yes, that is what capitalism is all about. More profit for every dollar invested. Squeezing the host country dry by demanding perks, tax holidays and even national treatment, or else their money will fly away, even if in most cases, the so-called “foreign capital” is sourced from the domestic banking system. Give them an inch and they will take a mile.
That is what this debate about House Bill No. 10755 amounts to, being generous and too hospitable to the plutocrats, the 0.6% of the global population that holds 39.3% of the world’s wealth, and swallowing their guff that investments should be sacrosanct, even superior to the law of the national jurisdiction and must be protected by the courts, particularly when intellectual property rights (IPR) are concerned. Its companion legislation, Senate Bill No. 2898, will complete the façade of protection for foreign capital.
There is something terribly wrong in the mindset of our lawmakers since they are quick to yield to the demands of the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce for special privileges but do nothing about the more pressing demands of improved telecommunications services, streamlined regulatory rules, reduced red tape, and uniform rules from the national government down to the local government units (LGUs.) There have been complaints about extortion by bureaucrats and lawmakers, harassment by local officials, and even high electricity and water service costs. Add in freight rates, and the horrendous customs and quarantine procedures. These are issues that the bureaucracy could address sufficiently if it bothers to address them at all.
Foreign investors want more bang for the buck, earning twice, thrice or 10 times their initial investments. They are not concerned about morals and ethics or better business practices since it is the bottom line that matters to them. “There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery,” Karl Marx reminded workers in Europe. The same rotten social system exists and it exists to maximize the private appropriation of the social product.
During the unlamented Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regime, the Philippines lost both Intel and Texas Instruments as major investors who established their manufacturing hubs in the country, all because the government was not keen on extending their tax holidays, their reduced tariffs on raw materials and ancillary products. Due to their highly-automated operations, the two corporations were not big employers and their workers were paid less than their US counterparts. Both companies upped their sticks and deserted their economic zones. Vietnam profited after offering them more generous terms.
Since both Senate President Francis Escudero and Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez are on the same page on this legislative rigmarole, let us look deeply into what the uber-hospitable bit of legislation amounts to. First, the proposal seeks to amend Republic Act No. 7652, known as the Investors’ Lease Act of 1993, and raise the period of lease of privately-owned land to 99 years from the present 50 years. Technically, the state cannot lease public land, so the solution is to privatize more public land, subject them to agrarian reform and consolidate them into agricultural plantations, or approve a Land Use Code that allows agrarian reform farmers to part with their small parcels of land. If Escudero and Romualdez think that foreign investors would swarm the country because of their liberalized land lease scheme, they should go back to their drawing boards.
The only ones who wanted to lease Philippine agricultural lands were the Chinese, particularly corporations from Heilongjiang, and they formally sought up to 1.4 million hectares of land during the unlamented incumbency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The Netherlands does not need agricultural plantations in the Philippines as it is already the leading agricultural exporter in Europe. Only the Malaysians and the Indonesians want to have their environmentally-destructive palm oil plantations in Palawan and in Negros Occidental (courtesy of the Consunjis, who lost their Chinese condo buyers after the POGO fiasco.) The Arroyo grand land lease program for the Chinese was shot down.
There is no clear showing that the Americans and Europeans would come in droves with their trillion-dollar investments should the proposed law be enacted. There are just so many foreigners and their wives or girlfriends owning condos all over the country that they do not need to have farms to cultivate. Both Gabriela Women’s Party Rerp. Arlene Brosas and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) chairman Danilo Ramos are correct in criticizing the land lease proposal. Land being finite, it is penny-wise and pound-foolish to let aliens accumulate land, even those deemed to be fertile, and deny farmers the chance to feed their compatriots. Look at the US, which is now agonizing over the possible takeover of US Steel by Nippon Steel. Land, like steel, is crucial to national security. The sea also is, as the continuing dispute with China shows.
