Business bets on ‘disruptive leader’

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry is placing confidence in a “disruptive leader” who has reached out to the business community even before he was inaugurated into office.

The effort of President Duterte to touch base with the private sector creates more optimism among PCCI members that their recommendations will be heard this time, PCCI president George T. Barcelon said Wednesday on the sidelines of the 42nd Philippine Business Conference.

Barcelon admitted that the issues being raised by PCCI and the recommendations being put forward to the incumbent administration every year during the Philippine Business Conference were mostly the same, particularly inadequate infrastructure and high power costs. This only means the issues hounding the business sector have not been adequately addressed.

“But this administration, even before they were inaugurated, they were already asking to hear from us during Sulong Pilipinas. That kind of approach wherein they want to hear from us gives us optimism that (President Duterte) would move forward our suggestions. I’m not giving any rating for now because I think three months were too short. We need to give them time. But what we see is that a comprehensive tax reform is being done and energy is also being discussed, particularly regarding how to get the industry become more competitive with lower rates,” Barcelon said.

“The issues besetting our country are not new to us. It has been the same issues. What we have now is a disruptive captain of the ship. He’s thinking out of the box. There are a lot of things happening now that are being implemented with a different approach and I think we are changing for the better.”

Sulong Pilipinas is the Duterte administration’s battlecry of transforming the country’s consumption-led growth into the more sustainable and inclusive investment-driven economic development.  Under Sulong, the 10-point socio-economic agenda emphasizes policies and programs that aim to lower the cost and improve the ease of doing business to ensure competitiveness, attract new investments and promote the expansion of enterprises.

The PCCI, however, is pushing a bigger budget for the Department of Trade and Industry and greater access to financing for micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs). These will be included in the recommendations to be submitted to President Duterte today.

The PCCI earlier submitted to the Duterte administration a list of priority issues dubbed as “Giant Steps.” This acronym stood for good governance, infrastructure, agriculture, new era of manufacturing, tourism (Giant), Science, technology, education and people skills (Steps).