The Palace announced in a briefing last Thursday, 01 August 2024, the proposed 2025 allocation for the travel expenses of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. at Php1.054 Billion.
Exactly on the same day, Social Weather Stations (SWS) released the results of its survey disclosing majority of Filipinos, at 51%, believe that these trips have little to almost no benefit at all for the country.
The SWS survey, conducted June 23 to July 1 of this year, revealed 34% of the respondents had said these trips had “maliit na pakinabang” while 17% said it had “halos walang pakinabang.”
Foreign visits, as I previously mentioned in an earlier column, have been the defining feature of the Marcos Jr. Administration; and pitching the Philippines as a soon-to-be leading investment hub in Asia has been the justification of the close to 30 overseas trips of our chief salesman, as PBBM is called by lawmakers. (See Declining Foreign Investments, 19 July 2024).
However, a week before the third State-of-the-Nation Address, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) unwittingly became a party spoiler in what ought to be a celebration in Congress.
PEZA released a statement where the investments promotion agency mentioned its approved approvements in June 2024, which is PhP8.65 Billion worth of projects is 73.4% lower than Php32.56 Billion worth of investments approved in the same month last year.
I therefore understand the sentiment of the majority wondering what have been actualized from the President’s efforts to promote the Philippines to foreign investors.
Our people are not after pledges, commitments or proposals. They are looking for actual direct foreign investment inflows.
In this connection, the challenges for the new acting Trade and Industry Secretary Ma. Cristina Roque, are huge and we expect that she will rise to the occasion. After all, she has a clear understanding of the job as a former Trade Undersecretary. I, for one, think she knows very well what the country needs to be done as the Philippines competes with its Southeast Asian neighbors for investments. We have her support.
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Dennis Ting is a former director of the Department of Budget and Management.
