Is there hope for FDI?

A former journalist friend and I were trying to analyze why the masa seem to still be infatuated with Duterte. He said he had been asking taxi drivers and waiters the same question and all of them said they felt safer during Duterte’s time.

They explained that in their neighborhoods, drug addicts harass them for money to buy more shabu. Those rascals vanished during Duterte’s reign of terror but have returned to the streets now.

The new PNP Chief has work to do.

Eric Jurado, a Filipino investment analyst working abroad sent me this message about a new study that has rated countries as to traveler safety. Not surprisingly, it found that, among Asian countries, Singapore is the safest destination to travel to this year.

Also not surprisingly, at the opposite end of the scale is the Philippines, which the study says is not only the least safe country for travelers in Asia for 2025 but also for the rest of the world. Malaysia was rated safe, Vietnam and Thailand were rated not very safe and Indonesia and the Philippines were considered dangerous.

As if to confirm that dismal safety image of the Philippines, Eric sent me the following message a few days later:

“I just read a disturbing passage from a $200 million Singapore-based investment fund’s May 2025 letter to its global investors:

‘We’ve added three investments to the fund in May 2025… The Philippines is a relatively new market for us, and we now own shares in two listed companies there. Both have net cash balance sheets; one is ultra cheap with less than 4x earnings and the other is a leader in retail.

‘The Philippines is a country and market we know less about and if you were taking a top-down view, based on the politics and the governance, it’s a place you’d avoid at all costs.

Nevertheless, when investing from the bottom-up, it is possible to find some honest operators capable of excelling within their challenging nation.

‘If you really want the low-down on the place, I suggest reading “Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country” by journalist Patricia Evangelista in which the author describes the extra-judicial killings of the Duterte era.’”

Jurado’s comment: “The manager’s candid comments mirror what many foreign investors say quietly about the country: corruption, dishonesty, violence. The perception has to change.”

Well, Eric, tell me something we haven’t been saying for the longest time. Our international reputation stinks and the closest thing to a response from BBM’s administration is asking the tourism department to run an image campaign.

But putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t change what it is. It’s the same thing with a country or a corporation or a national leader. Perception is reality and in our case as a nation, very much so.

I asked one of our more productive taipans point blank the other afternoon over coffee: May pag-asa pa ba tayo? Is there hope for the country?

He shook his head and simply said, “It’s our politicians…” and I understood.

Our politicians have ruined our country and are still busy driving us to the abyss. Our corrupt politicians are to blame for our bad international image that hobbles tourism and FDI growth.

Passing more investment incentives laws has proven useless. As PIDS said with regard to the 99 Years Lease Law, it must be complemented by reforms like streamlined land titling, reduced red tape, improved infrastructure and regulatory clarity.

Investors can pick and choose some good equity issues in our stock market but they must remember our business taipans are subject to the whims of our politicians and the corruption of the bureaucracy too. ABS-CBN was a darling for equity investors but Duterte made it vanish in an instant.

Renewable energy is now a budding failure. Veteran energy reporter Myrna Velasco of The Manila Bulletin last week had this disturbing report:

“Some foreign investors are now quietly slipping out the back door, leaving behind whispers of uncertainty, a trail of unanswered questions about what went wrong and a half-empty plate of missed opportunities.

“The grapevine is buzzing that one big-ticket foreign investor, now stealthily selling its stake in the floating solar space, was once paraded as a headline deal from President Marcos’ 2023 state visit to an ASEAN neighbor-country…

“At a recent solar industry technical workshop, the real talk at the lunch table wasn’t about RE technologies — it was about survival.

“Both foreign and local investors bluntly admitted that navigating the Philippine investment terrain means playing by the rules imposed by most local government units (LGUs) — where unreceipted ‘facilitation payments’ are business as usual, some local officials moonlight as land brokers and developers are tactically manipulated into sourcing materials from politically-connected subcontractors or suppliers just to keep projects moving.

“Sadly, that’s the real ‘ease of doing business’ in this country — grease or get stuck, one industry source frustratingly said. They added that foreign investors, bound by strict anti-bribery laws back home, often bail out the moment they spot the red flags waving across the Philippine investment scene.”

BBM must be seen busy fixing things on the ground like Sec. Vince Dizon for everyone to believe he means business. Unfortunately, his supposed “bold reset” of a cabinet revamp was anything but that. It was a dud.

I don’t know if we are hopeless. But potential foreign investors seem to think we are.

Our senators and congressmen, governors and mayors don’t care how bad our international reputation becomes. Right now, enriching themselves as if there’s no tomorrow is the top priority of our political leaders.

Everything starts with accountability. As the Management Association of the Philippines puts it, accountability “ensures a stable, predictable environment for economic growth. It builds investor confidence, attracts job-generating investments and ultimately benefits all Filipinos.”

Not going to happen…just see how they killed the impeachment trial!

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him onX @boochanco