LILIA B. DE LIMA: IRON LADY
The Head of the Philippine Delegation to the APEC WE 2015 Fora is the country’s most bemedalled economic ambassador, Lilia B. de Lima.
De Lima, largely known as the Director-General of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), has raised the bar of public service long before the “Daang Matuwid” mantra of the Aquino administration was coined.
Proof to that is the fact that De Lima has transcended politics. She has served four government administrations, including the current PNoy administration.
As the government’s administrator of economic zones throughout the country, De Lima has her own mantra at PEZA of absolute honesty, integrity and utmost service when dealing with investors.
“No corruption, no redtape, only red carpet to investors,” De Lima would always tell PEZA investors. The PEZA Brand: One-Stop-Shop, NonStop-Shop.
As soon as De Lima stepped into PEZA, she did a complete overhaul of the organization. She restructured the inherited bloated bureaucracy from 1,006 personnel of the now-defunct Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA) to the current 483 lean and efficient staff of the PEZA.
PEZA has decided to stop developing ecozones, instead it passed on the task to the private sector. Because of this game-changing policy, all PEZA operating economic zones were built and operated by the private sector without using any public fund.
Corollary to this, PEZA stopped putting up factory buildings – which is not its core competence and again left this job to the private sector. From this policy arose the Ecozone Facilities Enterprises that construct buildings for lease to locators.
The second most pivotal PEZA policy was to recommend the proclamation of Information Technology Parks. Ancillary to this, even stand-alone buildings were later proclaimed as IT Centers.
The rest as they say is history. IT Parks and IT Centers have proliferated nationwide, even in small cities and towns. The Philippines is now No. 1 in the voice and No. 2 in the non-voice IT sector worldwide.
In 2003, De Lima had pushed for the automation of its import and export documentation, and implemented e-payment system for transparency and ease of doing business. It registers medical tourism, tourism economic zones and agro-industrial ecozones.
In 2010, PEZA became the first and only government agency so far to be granted ISO 9001:2008 Certification not just for one or some but for all processes at all levels in all its offices nationwide.
As of December, 2014, PEZA has a total of 316 operating economic zones hosting 3,447 companies with total investments of 2.862 trillion, total exports of $563 billion and cumulative direct employment of more than 1.170 million workers.
“If we add indirect jobs generated at a conservative multiplier of 5 for every direct job generated, some 5.8 million direct and indirect jobs have been created by these economic zones benefitting close to 30 million Filipinos,” said De Lima, who served as a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention representing the then 2nd District of Camarines Sur. She was one of the 13 women out of 320 elected delegates.
As a government-owned agency, PEZA does not receive any budget from the national government.
As a good corporate citizen, PEZA religiously pays taxes including the 30 percent regular corporate income tax and VAT. Nonetheless after 20 years, PEZA has remitted a total of P15.663 billion representing taxes, 50 percent dividends to the national government and payments of previous loans incurred by its predecessor agency.
Her name has become a by-word in foreign direct investments.
For all her efforts, De Lima received the “The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star” Awards, the highest award given for bringing hundreds of Japanese investors to the Philippines. The first foreign recipients of the award were the three astronauts of the Apollo Space Rocket in 1969.
With her popularity among foreign and local businessmen, this lady lawyer became the first and only woman to win the prestigious “Management Man of the Year Award” of the Management Association of the Philippines in 2010. Other awardees include the country’s leading tycoons and captains of industries. De Lima was also named the Outstanding Woman in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS) in the field of Law, among other awards. (BCM)