DoF, DEPDev back fresh House push for economic ‘Cha-cha’

THE PHILIPPINES’ finance and socioeconomic planning departments backed fresh moves to amend the 1987 Constitution, saying changes were needed to ease investment curbs to boost foreign capital in one of Southeast Asia’s most restrictive economies.

- By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio

The government is seeking to attract more foreign investment by building on earlier economic reforms, and Charter change (Cha-cha) may help draw in capital amid shifting trade relations and growing protectionist trends in the global economy, a Department of Finance (DoF) official said on Wednesday.

“We're at the stage where we want to encourage foreign investments through these liberalization reforms we've done in the past,” Undersecretary and Chief Economist Domini S. Velasquez told lawmakers at a House of Representatives hearing. “Unfortunately, we have not seen much of the fruits of these liberalization and incentive reforms just because of the uncertainty in the global environment.”

The Philippines is hard-pressed to attract foreign capital to boost jobs and funding for development projects.

Foreign direct investments (FDI) in Southeast Asia rose by less than a percent to $230 billion in 2023, the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said in a 2024 report. Of the total, the Philippines drew in $9.5 billion, only better than Malaysia ($8.8 billion), Thailand ($4.5 billion), Cambodia ($4 billion), Myanmar ($2.2 billion) and Laos ($1.8 billion). Manila’s capital inflow ranked behind Singapore ($159.6 billion), Indonesia ($21.6 billion) and Vietnam ($18.5 billion).