PCCI lists priorities for next President

PCCI: Bring electricity prices down first before burdening consumers again with FIT rates for renewable energy projects.

The country’s biggest business organization has sought to gather the economic advisers of presidential candidates next month as the group hopes to sound off five key issues that it wanted the next administration to prioritize.

George T. Barcelon, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), said on Thursday that they have invited the economic advisers to the group’s general membership meeting next month, where the PCCI will be submitting a wish list containing the issues they seek to be prioritized as well as the recommendations needed to resolve these concerns.

According to Barcelon, the group’s position paper would focus largely on five main areas, namely infrastructure, agriculture, micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs), tourism and education.

“We know that the presidential candidates will be busy campaigning so we’re inviting their economic advisers to the forum. We’ll be presenting our papers concerning some of the more urgent issues that must be addressed and we hope that the panelists, as economic advisers to the presidentiables, can react to these,” Barcelon said.

“We already all have an idea of what needs to be done for the country but it’s a question of having the political will. We’re hoping that these advisers can give a timeline on how their presidential candidates plan to address those issues,” he explained. “Moving forward, we think the new administration should look at and prioritize all these concerns so that all of these can be resolved, such as the issues on the public private partnership (PPP) program. A lot of PPP projects remained pending and these are infrastructure projects that affect (the business environment).”

The PCCI chief said that he was weighing heavily upon the experience of a presidential candidate as such an exposure to the inner workings of public service was crucial in sustaining the strong economic growth that the country has been enjoying.

“What we want in the next president is for him or her to hit the road running. He or she must already know the issues, what should be done and how to master the resources. That’s why I would heavily consider experience, or who has been here before,” Barcelon said in an earlier interview with the Inquirer.