Erroneous priorities

Shortly before Congress adjourned on June 5, the House of Representatives approved the Dual Citizenship Bill on third and final reading. Senate President Franklin Drilon called it “another tribute” to the overseas Filipino community, whose annual remittances of up to US$ 8 billion have kept the local economy afloat.

Solons believe that the measure will usher as much as US$ 10 billion in equity investments from Filipino-Americans who will be encouraged to pump their money into the country. The measure would allow natural-born Filipinos who have become naturalized citizens of other countries to enjoy the rights and privileges reserved only for Filipino citizens. The bill is expected to be signed into law by July or August this year.

While the bill’s aims are lofty, it is not a guarantee that expatriate Filipinos will scramble back home once granted citizenship. Government ought to remember that these Filipinos, at one point in their lives, had willfully renounced their citizenship and have opted to embrace another country. Congress should rather address the issues that have prompted these Filipinos to jump ship in the first place and never look back. Focus should center on why Filipinos back home would rather leave their beloved families for menial jobs as domestics and construction workers abroad.

The latest Global Competitiveness Report released by the World Economic Forum showed that the Philippines has slipped 13 steps to the 61st spot out of 80 countries covered. Foreign investors are reportedly becoming increasingly restless over the slow pace of reforms urgently needed to improve the country's difficult business climate and check eroding competitiveness.

Among their other concerns are infrastructure bottlenecks, bureaucratic corruption and tax avoidance, antiquated labor legislation, slow pace of formulating laws and insufficient implementation, security problems, out-of-control population growth, large budget deficit, lack of consistency and transparency in investment policies and decline in English proficiency, the premier competitive advantage of Filipino workers. The list seems endless.

So if a Filipino expatriate leaves his comfortable home in the suburbs to invest his hard-earned dollars or yen in the Philippines, go through a labyrinthine bureaucracy laden with snakes from top to bottom, and be choked by Manila’s traffic and pollution, only one thing is crystal clear.

There is something loose in his head. *

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