Executive Order 758 Equals the Impact of Foreign Investment Code and Omnibus Investment Code
Posted on December 8th, 2008
In President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s State of the Nation Address, she mentioned that jobs in the next years must be generated. But a year after her SONA, results from Statistics seem to be in opposition with her statement.
A recorded 7.3 million underemployed and 2.7 million unemployed Filipinos in July shows that the President’s promise is not implemented. Though, on the other hand, an effort was made by the government to remedy this seems to be a lifetime problem of the country.
Executive Order 758 was signed by Mrs. Arroyo. This Executive Order states that the Philippines will grant a Special Visa on Employment Generation (SVEG) to foreign investors provided that they will employ at least 10 Filipinos and comply with the qualifications. The SVEG will also be given to the unmarried sons and daughters and as well as the spouses of the Investors.
But it seems that this effort of the government is not contributing anything to the solution of the problem. In the Omnibus Investment Code, a lot of incentives to Foreign Investors (e.g. tax haven, tax holiday, etc.) are given to promote employment in the country but this did not appear to be a help as shown in the rates of unemployment in the past years.
More so, this EO 758 is not seen as a good initiative to remedy unemployment by some. It’s objectives are the same with that of the existing Foreign Investment Code and Omnibus Investment Code. And some of the provisions in these codes were not carried out by the people from the government.
Statistics show that annually, 1.0 to 1.5 million new Filipino workers join the labor force and the figure shows that investors or implementation of this Executive Order may not help reduce the rate of unemployment.
Former Foreign and Domestic Investors decided to close down their business because of poor governance. As a result, employees were laid off and source of government revenues diminished. In this regard, the government’s policy towards its economic and political development, is believed to be, must be enhanced. The other way to ease the burden of the people in this present dying condition is to make the value of the peso competitive .
