PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been on eight foreign trips in the seven months of his term. As the country’s Top Salesman, it is one thing to make a pitch for the country and discuss his plans to foreigners. But it is another thing, albeit most important, to create a policy environment in support of opening the economy of the country. This can only be made with a certain, stable and predictable policy regime that makes clear to all potential investors the governing laws prevailing in the country, with impacts and unintended consequences measured and assessed, respectively.

In this regard, there are five laws that are crucial in positioning the Philippines before foreign investors; three are all related to investments and two are on innovations that will lead to a future Philippines that is competitive, resilient and agile. The pitch is good, but we are such a small country to have a say in the global order when we can’t even provide the basic needs of Filipinos. Local is important before one scales up. But if the local is not attended to, the best pitches will just be aspirational.

Instead of changing the rules of the game when specific laws have not yet been implemented, the Marcos administration should focus on these laws so that the needed climate is instituted than redefining things via the Medium Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) or Concurrent Resolution 4, or pursue the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), House Bill 6608, which passed on third reading at the House of Representatives before it went into holiday recess. The MTFF is a “comprehensive plan that aims to sustain the country’s strong post-pandemic economic recovery and support accelerated growth. It is a roadmap for developing the government’s annual National Expenditure Program.” MIF came after MTFF while the five laws were already there before BBM assumed office.

These so-called triumvirate of laws that were passed by Congress and signed by President Duterte seek to create a potential to attract more investments into the Philippines. These were the amendments to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act (RTLA), or RA 11595, signed into law last Dec. 10, 2021; Public Services Act (PSA), or RA 11659, signed into law March 21, 2022 and the Foreign Investments Act (FIA), or RA 11647, signed March 2, 2022. The Duterte administration didn’t benefit much from these laws, but the Marcos administration can certainly roll them out as it did the DoJ opinion allowing 100 percent ownership of renewable resources. But of course, everything boils down to a Constitution that grants an effective opening of the economy. It would seem though that BBM is not interested in revising the 1986 Constitution to shift from presidential to parliamentary and from unitary to federal as well as settle the longtime economic provisions that are barriers to our growth as a nation.

The Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of RA 11659 should have been ready six months after publication which fell on October 2022. Meanwhile, RA 11595 took effect on Jan. 21, 2022. The IRR was issued on March 9, 2022 and published in The Philippine Star on March 12, 2022. The IRR took effect 15 days after its publication, or on March 27, 2022. The RTLA lowered the paid-up capital requirement for foreign retail enterprises. RA 11647 just amended the existing IRR to reflect the amendments in the law.

Add to these, two crucial innovation laws passed by Congress and signed by Duterte that provides the needed environment to position the country post-pandemic. These laws need to be implemented even without the need for the so-called MTFF and MIF, formerly a sovereign fund before things got heated because of the potential impact it will have in terms of projects funded by the General Appropriations Act (GAA) or those funded via public-private partnership. Two questions come to mind: Do we have the money for the so-called sovereign investment fund, and is there consensus on the projects to be funded? At the end of the day, what’s in it for Juan de la Cruz?

The two innovation laws are RA 11337, or the “Innovative Startup Act,” and RA 11293, or the “Philippine Innovation Act.” The latter “aims to establish a resilient national culture of innovation that will boost the productivity of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)” while the former “aims to strengthen, promote, and develop an innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem and culture in the country. RA 11337 focuses on providing benefits and removing constraints in order to encourage the establishment and operation of innovative new enterprises and businesses crucial to their growth and expansion.”

Consequently, to choose making a pitch rather than building the business environment is problematic. Build the country first before marketing it because investors will often look at the rules of the game than the hosannas of a nation. Why is Vietnam cornering foreign direct investments (FDI) in Asean when it is a centrally controlled economy? And the Philippines, the model of Western democracy is lagging behind?

Part of building the nation is the rule of law principle. What do you do with the two Maguindanao provinces where the BARMM interior ministry is saying to Maguindanao Oriental that the local officials can’t occupy their seats because they need to approve that when it’s actually the national that should do it but since no one is acting, it causes paralysis.

We also have an intelligence agency (ISAFP) in disarray because of verbal removal of the head due to the previous executive secretary when the then ISAFP head was fit to serve. So, how can this body monitor and act on potential cybersecurity attacks? Is it coincidental that we had the blanking of our airspace in the New Year and recently, Chinese New Year? And when one hears the leader say the AFP does not need to increase purchases for their arsenal, one wonders why we set aside local in favor of global?

A 110-million nation can prevent a global economic crisis? Can be instrumental in a new global order? How can it when at the domestic front, it can’t seem to handle basic issues. Is governance a pitch game?