Deputy Speaker and Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza has tagged domestic shipping as one of the restricted industries that should be liberalized through reforms in the economic provisions of the 1987 Constitution.
“We are one of the world’s largest archipelagic states, and yet we also have one of the world’s least developed maritime industries,” Atienza said.
“We are supposed to rely heavily on highly efficient inter-island shipping to move people and goods. However, our shipping costs are very high while many of our passenger and cargo vessels are outdated,” Atienza said.
“We should allow foreign investors to come in, modernize our domestic shipping fleet and reduce transport costs to achieve greater economic productivity,” Atienza, former three-term mayor of Manila, said.
Atienza cited the case of elevated pork prices in Metro Manila, which depends heavily on limited supplies from hog growers in Central Luzon and Calabarzon.
“Lower shipping costs will encourage hog farmers from as far as Mindanao to increase production and establish new markets in Metro Manila, thus increasing supply and making pork products more affordable to Filipinos,” Atienza pointed out.
Atienza also expressed confidence that a liberalized maritime industry “is bound to spur a domestic sea travel boom that will help create jobs in other economic sectors, including tourism.
At present, domestic shipping is lumped among the industries considered as public utilities or services and thus restricted to entities at least 60% owned by Filipinos.
“Very few Filipinos are willing to invest in a big way in new shipping operations anyway,” Atienza said.
Mass media & telecommunications
Besides shipping, Atienza also wants to encourage foreign investments in mass media and telecommunications.
The mass media and telecommunications industries are currently restricted to entities 100% and 60% owned by Filipinos, respectively.
“These foreign ownership thresholds have become superfluous in the face of rapid technological advances,” Atienza said.
“We are now living in a virtually borderless world when it comes to mass media and telecommunications,” Atienza said.
“Whether we like it or not, because of the Internet and satellite TV, Filipinos are able to freely access programs or content produced by mass media entities wholly owned by foreigners,” Atienza said.
“Foreign majority ownership of media and telecommunications entities is not an issue because they will still be individually franchised by Congress and supervised by state regulators,” Atienza said.
