Noynoy urged to embark on early state visits

NEWS RELEASE

Rep. Elpidio F. Barzaga Jr. (Lone district of Dasmariñas City, Cavite)

Suite 402 RVMB, House of Representatives

Contact: COS Aisa D. Sango @0917-4181305

June 21, 2010

Noynoy urged to embark on early state visits

To lure new capital, create jobs

President-elect Benigno Aquino lll should embark on state visits inside his first 12 months in office to aggressively "sell" the Philippines to foreign investors, Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. said Monday.

"Mr. Aquino is highly respected abroad, partly because his late parents are icons of peace and democracy. He will surely receive numerous formal invitations to visit other countries, and would do well to instantly seize the opportunity to lure much-needed foreign capital," Barzaga said.

Barzaga was reacting to Aquino's statement that he is not inclined to travel abroad, and that he would rather send lower level missions overseas.

The country's high unemployment rate poses a huge challenge to the new administration, and one sure way to check it would be to bring in fresh investments, particularly in labor-intensive industries such as electronics, garments and business process outsourcing, according to Barzaga.

The Constitution mandates the State "to promote full employment" and the President, as head of government, is duty-bound to secure as many jobs as possible for Filipinos, he said.

Last week, the National Statistics Office (NSO) reported that the number of able-bodied Filipinos totally without work rose to 3.1 million as of April, up 300,000 from 2.8 million in January. The 8 percent national jobless rate was the highest in two years, the NSO said.

Besides the unemployed, the NSO said another 6.3 million Filipinos were underemployed or working only part-time and actively looking for full-time jobs.

"There's nothing wrong with the chief executive traveling abroad, as long as the trips involve a fairly small delegation, mostly of local businessmen looking for foreign partners and spending their own money," Barzaga pointed out.

In the past, he said the issue was not so much that the chief executive traveled frequently, but that the trips often involved a large party of mostly politicians.

"People got the impression the trips were mere costly junkets at the expense of taxpayers," said Barzaga, who himself joined an overseas presidential trip only once on his first term.

"This won't be the case if Mr. Aquino travels with a modest entourage of mostly entrepreneurs seeking equity partners or clients, and exporters looking for buyers," he added.

This early, the country's electronics and business processing industry groups have lined up a global marketing campaign to coincide with Aquino's foreign trips.

Meant to sell the Philippines as a highly desirable investment hub for information technology-enabled services, the campaign would involve roadshows and advertisements for release in the U.S., Japan, Western Europe and Australia.

The ads would be placed in cable TV channels such as CNN and CNBC as well as international magazines such as Forbes, Fortune and Time.

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