Asset sale to raise funds amid Covid-19 premature–senators
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto raised concerns, however, that government may be disadvantaged by a rush sale.
“It is premature to sell government assets at this time. You do not sell when prices are low,” Recto said on Monday, adding: “Government has many tools in its arsenal. It can use both monetary policy and fiscal policy to save and create jobs.”
Sen. Joel Villanueva had a similar concern about selling assets at the wrong time. “I think it should be the last resort. Government has other options to raise money to fund Covid. I prefer borrowing again from the BSP instead of selling the assets.
I fear we might get just bargain prices for them, most likely,” Villanueva said in a mix of English and Filipino.
In a text message to Businessmirror, Recto, a former Neda director general, recommended that “government must prepare an economic resiliency plan for the next two to three years.”
“We can afford 10-percent GDP deficit for the next two to three years. But we have to act fast. Test, isolate, treat. Allow those who are immune and negative to start working. Slowly allow businesses to operate. Provide long-term interest- free loans to MSME [micro, small and medium enterprises], and reduce taxes,” the Senate President Pro Tempore added.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III, meanwhile, was cool to the idea of asset sale, saying: “I don’t think he [Duterte] means it literally. For me, he is simply emphasizing that he will do whatever it takes to keep the Filipino healthy and safe.” The President had dangled the notion of asset sale in a late-night address to the nation last week, where he raised the possibility of government eventually running out of funds to help those impacted by the pandemic and the resulting lockdown.
Neither he nor his Cabinet has made any firm proposal to sell assets at this point.
Transparency
SENS. Panfilo Lacson and Ronald
“Bato” de la Rosa, responding to separate text queries from DW IZ on Monday, both stressed the need for complete transparency in any transaction in such sale.
De la Rosa referenced the serious questions raised about full details of the government’s sale of prime lands in Fort Bonifacio two decades ago, amid concern the proceeds did not all go to upgrading the Armed Forces.
“I am okay with that [sale of government assets] as long as there is complete transparency in every transaction, in order to avoid another failed promise of AFP modernization from the sale of Fort Bonifacio,” said De la Rosa.
For his part, Lacson said: “I agree with PRRD [President Duterte] that all options should be considered because what is at stake is our people as well as the country’s survival.”
Lacson and de la Rosa, both former National Police chiefs, aired their views a day after Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon backed Duterte’s notion of disposing of government assets, if need be, given the need to raise trillions both to fund the fight against Covid-19 and help businesses impacted by the lockdown, especially MSMES.
Reacting to a suggestion to sell military golf courses to fund a P1-trillion stimulus package, Lacson said this is viable. However, he stressed authorities must ensure that “the physical security of military facilities will not be compromised if we cut the golf courses inside the military camps and sell them to private developers.”
Lacson added: “I am all for it as well as other out-of-the-box ideas. As I said earlier, these are extraordinary times that call for extraordinarymeasures, including quick and harsh punishments for gross incompetence but especially against those who steal and take advantage of public funds intended to save us from the
Covid-19 pandemic.”
While De la Rosa stressed transparency, Lacson called for quick and harsh punishments for gross incompetence, but especially against those who steal and take advantage of public funds intended to save us from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Earlier, Drilon had suggested over the weekend that President Duterte’s economic managers mount a “speedy review of State assets that could be sold off immediately to generate funds for Covid-19 crisis and counter the growing budget deficit due to the pandemic.”
In a statement, Drilon recalled that just last week the President himself indicated readiness to sell goverment properties’ citing the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the Philippine International Convention Center.
The Covid-19 crisis could be “turned into an opportunity to better utilize government assets. Better utilization of these State assets is long overdue as a national policy,” said Drilon.
He noted, for instance, what he called “low-hanging fruits the government can immediately tap to provide the much-needed resources for our country to survive this pandemic.”
Apart from the examples cited by Duterte such as the CCP and PICC, the Senate Minority Leader likewise listed the privatization of the gaming industry, projecting that this option “will generate funding for the government to provide more relief to affected Filipinos and, at the same time, manage the country’s growing budget deficit.”
Drilon recalled that during a Senate Committee on Finance’s hearing on the budget of the Department of Finance (DOF) last year, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III himself admitted that privatizing the gaming industry will yield around P300 billion in additional revenues yearly.