Philippines | Incoming government to continue high-growth path

The transition team of Rodrigo Duterte, the presumptive Philippine president, said yesterday his administration will continue the macroeconomic policies of his predecessor that put the Southeast Asian nation on a high growth path.
Duterte’s team says they also plan to stamp out corruption in revenue collecting agencies, adjust income taxes, lift restrictions on foreign investment and accelerate infrastructure spending as part of their 8-point economic agenda.
Carlos Dominguez, a former agricultural secretary likely to be part of Duterte’s cabinet, said the new administration will continue Aquino’s target of spending 5 percent of gross domestic product on infrastructure and will remove bottlenecks to private-public partnerships projects.

Front-running presidential candidate Mayor Rodrigo Duterte clenches his fist during a campaign sortie at Silang township, Cavite province south of Manila

The new government will also focus on eliminating corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs through reforms in the bureaucracy. It will adjust income tax tables to inflation that will lower taxes for lower-income earners. The current income tax rates have not been adjusted since 1997 and are among the highest in the region.
“This will fulfill the president-elect’s promise that there will be less corruption in the government,” Dominguez said of the revenue agency reforms.
To ensure the attractiveness of the Philippines to foreign direct investments, he said the government will address restrictive economic provisions in the constitution and laws, cut red tape and reduce crimes to increase the security of businessmen and consumers.
It will also focus on supporting small farmers’ productivity, improving market access, forging partnerships with agricultural business companies and encouraging more agriculture processing in agricultural areas as part of a rural development strategy.
“We are going to focus on the two-thirds of the population that are poor and who live in the rural areas,” Dominguez said. “This also means that we are going to promote tourism in the rural areas.”
Dominguez said basic education will also be strengthened and college scholarships offered. The new administration will also expand and improve the implementation of a program offering direct cash aid to poor families on the condition they keep their children in school and have them get health check-ups. Aquino has said that program has lifted 7.7 million Filipinos out of poverty. AP