Sen. Pia Cayetano's transcript of her Manifestation during RBH No. 6 Hearing

Thank you, Mr President. I'd like to also greet our esteemed resource persons, my professor, V.V. Mendoza, if you remember me, sir? Of course, Chief Justice Davide, we worked very closely when you were our emissary to the United Nations. And of course, Secretary Teves, who I have recently been seeing on the golf course, but then I stopped so goodbye to my golf career. Anyway, to everyone else, good afternoon. Justice [inaudible], Dr. Sikat, and everybody else.

Mr Chairman, a few questions. As you said, I am coming from my experience as the Chair of the Committee on Ways and Means, and one of our resource persons, I was by the way listening, thanks to technology, I was listening to Youtube, so I heard the opening statements of our colleagues and the statements of our resource persons. So I may not have been physically present, but some of my questions come from the statements that were made that I caught on Youtube.

One of the resource persons mentioned the flip flopping of our rules or the way we conduct business and the way we encourage the foreign business community. And that is exactly what we tackled during the hearings in the Committee on Ways and Means. And so, when we talk about flip flopping positions, as we speak, and this is no critique or anything on the ongoing hearings now, but in fact, we are reviewing again the CREATE Law. And one of the revisions... one of the proposals there is to go back to the incentives that were given to some investors that have been there for 30 years or more. And this has been thoroughly discussed. And we appreciate that the investments have been made, but it is also time for us to gain a little bit from the taxes that would have been gained. So if we are gonna go back to that, then that is our main problem, if I may? I am not the resource person, but I am sharing my experience having chaired this Committee and going back and forth, and many of our colleagues here were also present during that Congress. So that to me is the flip flopping of business policies that the foreigners have to deal with.

The other thing that I'd like to point out is, one of the examples given by my seatmate here, Mr. Africa of Ibon Foundation, is the example of the jeepney modernization. It happens to be one of my favorite topics, along with Senator Grace Poe. Because I am a proponent of electric vehicles, EV for short, but I am not a proponent of destroying this jeepney industry, which is ingrained in our culture and changing them with imported vehicles when we could very well be revitalizing this jeepney industry and then making it EV. It's a no brainer. I am sure DOST can easily do that. In fact, I've had discussions with the Department of Science and Technology. Why don't we do that? And there is no prohibition for foreigners to participate in that. But it is a lack of political will to save this industry. It is a lack of political will to coordinate between DOST, Department of Transportation, the barangays and the municipalities, and the cities that have invested their lives in building a community around this jeepney industry. It takes time. It's easier to import. That is our problem, it's just easier to import. We didn't make it hard for them. They can come in. But we're destroying this industry. So that's the second point I'd like to make.

The other one is just a quick observation. I share the observation of Mr. Dumdum that he mentioned Vietnam, but other countries, Thailand is one, China is another. They are harping on the need to improve their English so that they can capture the English-speaking market. But you don't need to change the Constitution for that. That's been my advocacy for decades. I speak on behalf of our EDCOM Chairman, members, it's part of the agenda. Let's not lose our competitive advantage by giving up on us being a dual language, or even multi-language speaking people. Many Filipinos can speak 3 languages. English, Filipino, and whatever province they come from. And we're giving that up because of various reasons, I don't have enough time to discuss that. But you don't need to change the Constitution to focus on our primary, one of our primary assets being multilingual, and English being one of them.

Just a quick observation, I think one of the resource persons said, and I asked my staff, are you ready? I just wanna put on record, according to the World Economic Forum, and this is already in the Senate... embedded in our archives because we took this up in the Committee on Ways and Means, in the debates on CREATE. Most problematic factors in doing business: number 1. Inefficient government bureaucracy, you don't have to change the Constitution for that; 2. Inadequate supply of infrastructure, don't have to change the Constitution for that; 3. Corruption, don't have to change the Constitution for that; 4. Tax regulations, we can handle that here; 5. Tax rates, we can handle that, when I say here, Congress can handle that. 6. Policy instability, I'll point to the administration, not this administration, any administration; 7. Access to financing, policy decision; 8. Government instability and coups, all this is creating that possibility; 9. Restrictive labor regulations, policy decisions, maybe Congress; 10. Poor work ethic in the national labor force. None of these requires constitutional change.

I quote not in exact words, but as I said, I was listening. Sabi ni Justice Davide, our problems are not due to the restrictive economic provisions. I humbly concur, and in my second round, I would like to get into more details. But I think it would be nice if our justices can bear with us and join us when we have other resource persons from the business side, because we'd really like to get a nice exchange, Mr Chairman, if you'll allow, what I'd like is to hear, not now, but like I said, in a succeeding hearing, an exchange of ideas where our justices who know what the Constitution allows and not allow, can hear and exchange ideas with the business community on what they feel they need, so that it either comes from the constitutional experts themselves telling them, but you don't need to change the Constitution to do that, or you do need to change the Constitution to do that. This is just my opinion, it's not my intention to put words in the mouths of our esteemed resource persons.

The other thing that I took note of is Justice Mendoza's statement, the Constitution is the alternative to a revolution. And I felt that was such an emotional statement. We are sitting here today, we are already late for our Senate session. On the floor is... I mean, we are eating into our time to work on bills... On a personal note, I was recently elected Blue Ribbon Chairman, and I had a choice to be working on this all morning or to listen to this debate. So these are the things we give up to have this debate, these are the things we give up so we don't have a revolution. Anyway, I think I will rest on that high note because I think that was an amazing statement from Justice Mendoza. I have a few more comments, observations, but I think I've made my point clear, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.