Let’s get to work

The Philippines got practically everything right when it hosted the 45th Annual Meeting of the Asian Development Bank two weeks ago. Things worked so well that many delegates almost forgot that the event was being hosted by a developing nation more known for missteps than the right moves.

For four important days, it seemed that the government was able to pull everything off in an effortless manner. The special ADB lanes for delegates at the airports worked, transportation in between venues (in the form of clean, air-conditioned shuttle buses) were aplenty, and vehicular traffic in the metropolis was manageable, volume notwithstanding. Even the Internet service at the newly refurbished Philippine International Convention Center was fast and reliable.

In those crucial days, certain areas in the Philippines were like uber-efficient Singapore (including the humidity), but we did it with more warmth and a genuinely welcoming attitude.

The international media even lent us a helping hand when CNN aired a weeklong series on the Philippines, while the government launched its new tourism campaign on the same network simultaneously.

Never mind that the government had to erect huge billboards in an apparent (but exasperating) effort to hide the shanties in Pasay City from the delegates’ eyes. We had to put our best foot forward, and that we did.

The Aquino administration pulled off a dramatic “coming-out party,” as Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima had put it. Now if only it would apply the same mental framework it used so effectively in hosting the ADB event to move the broader economy forward.

The administration claims that it is doing all it can to grow the economy, but many economists would disagree. It has been moving with uneven urgency on issues, and certain issues, like the all-important anticorruption drive, have clearly taken the lion’s share of President Benigno Aquino III’s political capital. But in going forward, it would help Malacañang to also remember that its reforms would only be sustained beyond 2016 if it helps ensure that Filipinos are well fed, clothed and schooled. For the people to stick to the President’s “Daang Matuwid” beyond his term, that path has to be concretized, not only through a corruption-free system, but also through paved highways, gleaming international airports, and power stations that provide cheaper electricity—all of which help generate jobs and put food on the table.

For this country perennially “on the verge of takeoff” to finally take off, the administration has to make its zeal for the four-day ADB event stretch to four years. Nowhere is this more important than in the much touted Public-Private Partnership program, about which would-be investors have grown weary listening to government officials talk. The fact is that to date, the administration has bid out only one of the 10 projects it promised investors. And at P4 billion, the only project to get off the ground so far is considered relatively small property play given the Philippines’ need for massive investments to get the economy to move faster.

To this end, the administration should also use yet another lesson learned from the ADB annual meeting, where the Philippines’ largest corporations came together and contributed the funds that the state did not have. With investment rules long having been put in place, the government should get out of the way and let the private sector do what it does best: allocate capital to where it is needed most—our crumbling infrastructure.

Like it or not, the investments flowing into the country today is due, to a large degree, to the extremely low interest rates implemented in the West in its bid to fight off the global financial crisis. The things our government officials are crowing about, like low local interest rates and a strong peso, are due more to global liquidity and less on our own merits. The flow will reverse at some point, and it will be then that the men will be separated from the boys, so to speak.

We have to work fast because global liquidity will not remain favorable to the Philippines forever.

Indeed, when we set our minds to making things work, even force majeure events like natural calamities stay away. Even the eye-popping Mon-Raymart-Claudine airport tussle—potentially embarrassing for a country hosting 4,500 international ADB delegates—chose to happen one day later.

So let’s get to work.