By Caesar Vallejos
Eagle News Service
As the 31st ASEAN Summit and Related Summits comes to a close, some delegates at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (ABIS2017) shared their reactions to how the Philippines hosted this milestone in the history of the ASEAN, and expressed their insights on how the country can move forward to maximize the gains from its remarkable chairmanship.
Power event
“Everything is fantastically organized, all the attendees are happy,” Vasyl Davydko, Chief Operating Officer of First Circle Growth Finance said. He observed the extremely high level of security that prompted no reports of untoward incidents.
“I think the Philippines is at par with other countries in organizing events of high level,” Davydko remarked.
“This puts the Philippines on the spotlight in the entire world as an emerging economy and as an emerging power. I think it is great for the country and the companies that operate here.”
Davydko’s company provides loans and short-term financing to micro-, small- and medium (MSMEs) enterprises in the Philippines. While the future looks good for the Philippines, as supported by the forecast of international organizations that the economy will continue to grow very fast, Davydko noted that “there is still an MSMEs lending gap.”
Thus, he said that “the Central Bank and institutions like ours are putting efforts to make it easier for MSMEs to have access to capital in order to continue growing.”
Concrete achievements and quick implementation
“It was great, if you look at how the organizers rolled out the red carpet to the world leaders, it’s been fantastic,” former Ambassador to the United States Jose Cuisia said.
“The leaders themselves were very impressed with the gala dinner that brought out the creativity and the artistic talents of Filipinos to the impressive barongs and Filipiniana gowns that they were provided with. Food and entertainment were world-class,” he quipped.
“Security has been quite good. It’s a huge challenge when you have 21 leaders all in one place,” Cuisia noted.
“The Philippines has done a good job and thank God, there were no untoward incidents that have happened,” he said.
Cuisia said that the Philippine government has to be credited for undertaking such a huge event with efficiency, and good and effective organization.
“All the leaders recognize that for their countries to prosper, they will have to be part of the cohesive economic community. It’s not easy, there are so many differences in standards and practices from one country to another, and different levels of development,” Cuisia said.
He acknowledged that there were many challenges and mentioned tollways and airports as examples where “we have problems in right of way that takes a project too long to get started.”
“But an event like this will make problems to surface and will hopefully bring to an agreement among the leaders,” Cuisia said.
“What I just hope is that there will be concrete achievements after this. If actions are not taken, it becomes a wasted opportunity. The agreements must be implemented as quickly as possible particularly in the trade and investments area,” Cuisia concluded.
Urban renewal and zero corruption
Palafox and Associates Principal Architect and urban planner Felino “Jun” Palafox Jr. said that the ASEAN proceeding was “an affirmation of what I have been advocating for the past 45 years…about connectivity and context for urban renewal and development.”
“We can learn from the heads of state even in the areas of real estate and urban planning,” Palafox said. “The big mansions and those with high-density enclaves have higher carbon footprint if they are in the middle of the cities,” he explained.
He noted that developers are allocating to themselves “prime urban land resources, preventing more families and employees to be closer to their place of work, encouraging more urban sprawl to encroach into the forests and into the farms.”
Also, Palafox shared his experience that in President Duterte’s time, it is now possible to get government projects going without corruption.
Palafox said that he heard about 5 to 7% during Marcos’ time. “Under Pnoy, it’s 40% on the average. Today, there is good news. We won the urban planning design competition of Metro Davao at zero corruption.” He also announced winning the competition for the master plan of Clark. Again, “zero corruption,” Palafox reiterated.
Booming Philippines
“It is very nice,” Mr. Harbans Singh of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry commented on the manner the Philippines hosted the ASEAN Summit.
“Any business that you will start in the Philippines will boom. It is because the people of the Philippines are educated and they like to grow and they like everything new,” he said.
He described Filipinos to be “very polite, they respect everyone.” He added that Filipinos are also obedient and dedicated. “They understand everything and are studious,” he added.
Mr. Singh also praised President Duterte for his governance and encouraged people to support leaders who they have elected.
‘Helping more people move up in life’
Reacting to the positive pronouncements of the delegates at the ABIS2017, the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (BAC) Chair Jose Concepcion said, “I guess everybody sees the value of what we are doing, trying to help more people move up in life.”
“Creating more prosperity for everybody, that’s what we are trying to do here in this event,” the ASEAN BAC Chair said.
Earlier at the 20th ASEAN Coordinating Council (ACC) Meeting at the Marriott Hotel, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers congratulated the Philippines for its stewardship of ASEAN for 2017 that enabled the Association to move forward various initiatives and action points in line with the Philippines’ thematic priorities and the pursuit of realizing ASEAN Community Vision 2025.
