By Al S. Mendoza

 

INVESTMENTS, like gas pedals to our cars, spur, if not speed up, economic growth.

No country will survive without investments, both local and foreign.

Local funds help gun up commerce two-ways, as in Filipino businessmen working their butts out for the ultimate benefit of fellow Filipinos.

For one, the moneyed going to trade stuff instantly provide employment, becoming grand allies of government tasked to make living easy for all.

Foreign investments always take a grand scale insofar as economic stability is concerned.

They usually dwarf the overall operations of local investments, given that they are here on huge dollar reserves.

With investments, the economy hums like a well-oiled machine.

With investments pouring in unimpeded, jobs become a-plenty, ensuring economic stability and a bright future for generations to come.

Investment and government—they complement each other, like horse and carriage, like green mango and bagoong.

That’s a given as true as the sun setting in the west by day’s end.

That’s why I’m surprised over BBM’s seemingly hostile approach—initially, that is—to the Aerocity project of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) in Bulacan province.

Well, to be fair and for the record, what BBM had thumbed down was the Economic Freeport Zone inside the airport complex, citing as reason taxes getting possibly compromised.

The P750-billion state-of-the-art airport has been on construction mode, its legislation platform already overwhelmingly approved in January.

No less than a couple of world-class banks of Netherlands have entered into joint ventures with SMC, which stupendously delighted SMC President & CEO Ramon S. Ang, known fondly as RSA.

So that despite the initial setback suffered by the economic zone, RSA is highly optimistic it will be approved in the long run—his “Aerocity” admittedly a game-changer in the race for economic prosperity.

“My vision for the ecozone could still be realized since this would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, boosting the country’s economic growth,” RSA said.

RSA has always been known in the industry as a tough nut to crack and is renowned not to surrender that easily.

“We respect and abide by the government’s decision,” RSA said.  “We thank President Marcos for recognizing where the proposed free port bill can be further improved, and we look forward to working with his administration toward perfecting this.”

For his part, bill proponent, Rep. Joey Salceda of Albay, promised to introduce safeguards in the “corrected” version of House Bill No. 7575 creating the Bulacan ecozone to be housed inside the 2,500-hectare airport set to have four runways similar to the world’s leading airports like Dubai, Singapore and Shanghai.

Salceda said he would call Congress to address BBM’s fiscal tax risks and other economic concerns on the ecozone creation.

“I am also telling potential investors and other proponents to give us a sense of their plans so that we can already weigh the costs versus benefits,” said Salceda, who added he considered BBM’s take “as valid, so we have to take heed.”

In short, a little tweaking here, and a little tweaking there, could still save RSA’s baby from the abyss of nonsense being peddled by charlatans.

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