The view from across the street ~
By chance I was able to land at Lori Baltazar's Food Blog Dessert Comes First and learned about this dessert haven in Bacolod called Felicia's. She wrote about her trip to the place with so much gusto that she had me redoing my whole Saturday to-do-list to squeeze in a "gotta taste it to believe moment."
We attend Joy and Manolito's wedding last Saturday, 10th of October. Everybody dressed up to the nines as the motif was Black Tie. Even the hubby had to forego his usual denims and collarless shirt for the polo, slacks and dapa which he only gets to wear once in a blue moon. As for me, there was nothing fancy in my closet so I settled for my little black dress, which turned out to be not so little anymore LOL!.
The workings of the trash compactor robot named Wall-e has been discovered near the peaceful Rolling Hills Memorial Chapel in Bacolod City. Is it not that it is supposed to start doing its work on 2105? Have we been fast-tracking our wasteful ways thereby laying the grounds for the establishment of a super-mega landfill that necessitates the abandonment of the earth we live in and the death of all life forms? Has doomsday come before Christmas?
World Bank Publications brings us Doing Business in 2010: Reforming Through Difficult Times. This year’s Annual Report (now on its 7th) investigates the regulations that serve as enhancers and constraints to growth of business activities in over 183 economies.
This year’s top reformer jumping from the 143rd spot to 67th is a country that relies on subsistence agriculture and known as The Land of a Thousand Hills, Rwanda. It implemented reforms which was able to reduce start-up business procedures from 8 to 3 thereby cutting the processing time from 14 to 2 days. Rwanda also improved regulations to facilitate easy access to credit through the enforcement of 2 laws which allowed a wider range of assets to be used as collateral and made out-of-court enforcement of movable collateral available to secured creditors. Trading across borders was improved through longer operating hours and less complicated documentary requirements. Significant reforms in registering property and paying taxes reduced transaction time by 255 days.
Where does this leave the Philippines?
Pegged against our ASEAN counterparts, we ranked 7th. (See Table 1 below). For two years in a row we’ve been huddling with Cambodia among the bottom 50 on the list of the rated economies. We’ve managed to consistently position ourselves among economies where doing business is difficult.
Table 1. Rankings on the Ease of Doing Business in 183 Economies
| Country | 2010 | 2009 | |
| Rank | Rank | ||
| Singapore | 1 | 1 | |
| Thailand | 12 | 12 | |
| Malaysia | 23 | 21 | |
| Vietnam | 93 | 91 | |
| Brunei Darussalam | 96 | 94 | |
| Indonesia | 122 | 129 | |
| Philippines | 144 | 141 | |
| Cambodia | 145 | 139 | |
| Lao PDR | 167 | 165 | |
| Myanmar | not rated | ||
A Closer Look at the Key Indicators
The Philippines implemented three (3) positive reforms which acted as enablers for ease in getting credit (new credit information act that regulated the operations and services of a credit information system), for paying taxes (corporate income tax cut from a rate of 35 percent to 30 percent) and for closing a business (promotion of reorganization procedures). Despite so, we registered negative changes in our rank status for all the indicators included in the report. (See Table 2).
Table 2. Ease of Doing Business, ranking by topic
| Ease of… | Doing Business | Change in | |
| 2010 Rank | 2009 Rank | Rank | |
| Doing Business | 144 | 141 | -3 |
| Starting a Business | 162 | 155 | -7 |
| Dealing with Construction Permit | 111 | 106 | -5 |
| Employing Workers | 115 | 114 | -1 |
| Registering Property | 102 | 101 | -1 |
| Getting Credit | 127 | 125 | -2 |
| Protecting Investors | 132 | 127 | -5 |
| Paying Taxes | 135 | 126 | -9 |
| Trading Across Borders | 68 | 66 | -2 |
| Enforcing Contracts | 118 | 116 | -2 |
| Closing a Business | 153 | 153 | 0 |
Aside from Trading Across Borders where we got a double-digit mark, we have consistently been earning triple digits in all the other indicators. Several key cities in the country have started to take specific actions to ease business licensing procedures. Yet, our country landed on the 162nd spot (out of 183!) for Ease of Starting a Business, down from 155th the previous year.
7th among the ASEAN, 144th among 183 economies.
I don’t much about the whys and the how comes. I’m pretty sure though, that it is a depressing story of “because” and “if onlys”. Nonetheless useful information if you go by the learn-from-your-mistakes strategy of doing things. Are our legislators really serious about instituting useful and positive reforms? Or are we becoming too comfortable with the way things are that we no longer see the point in changing things? What’s next for the Philippines?
Doing Business in 2010 is available at $35.00 from the World Bank Publications. Order your copy here.
For our reading time before bed last night, Koy picked My First Bible which retells the stories of the Bible with illustrations for kids. Before we started our reading, we had this conversation (translated to English):
