The Philippines slipped in global competitiveness ranking to 126th this year from 121st in 2005, according to a survey of 175 countries by the World Bank.
The country failed to implement enough reforms to enhance its business climate since last year up to April 2006, and fell way behind Southeast Asian neighbors Thailand (18th), Malaysia (25th), Taiwan (47th) and Vietnam (104th). Only Indonesia got a worse rating of 135th, according to "Doing Business 2007: How to Reform," a joint research project of the World Bank and its private sector lending arm, International Finance Corp.
"The good news is that for this particular year, there were no regulations imposed that negatively affected the business climate," IFC country manager Vipul Bhagat said in a media briefing Wednesday. "The bad news is that no positive reforms were done either and thus the country slipped in its ranking this year," Bhagat added.
The study, the fourth in a series of annual World Bank-IFC reports investigating regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it, looked at how countries performed in 10 areas: starting a business, dealing with licenses, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business.
The study showed that on a scale of one to 10, the Philippines scored only 3 in the index for legal rights protection and 3.3 in the index for investor protection. The country was also outranked in the legal protection index by Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, which scored 8.0, 5.0, 5.0 and 4.0, respectively. Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia also scored higher in the investor protection index with respective ratings of 8.7, 6.0 and 5.3.
It was noted to be more cumbersome to start a business (taking 48 days), obtain a license to build a warehouse (197 days), register property (33 days) and enforce a contract (600 days) in the Philippines than in most of its peers across East Asia. Based on the study, it would take 11 procedures to start a new business in the country compared to only five in Hong Kong, six in Singapore, eight in Taiwan and Thailand and nine in Malaysia.
The Philippines rated high relative to other East Asian economies only in two benchmarks -- ease in trading across borders and enforcement of commercial contracts. The report showed that it takes 10 days to import in the Philippines and 18 to export, beaten only by Singapore, China and Taiwan. But what was not included in the report was the significant progress made in fiscal reforms that, in turn, greatly reduced macroeconomic risks, said World Bank country director Joachim von Amsberg.
"Economic performance has been relatively strong which has increased investor confidence. This situation has created the breathing space to now focus on the microeconomic constraints to investment," Amsberg said. "If the Philippines can effectively address the myriad macroeconomic constraints faced by investors, large and small, it can reach its potential for rapid development," he said.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Friday, September 01, 2006
Oil leak from sunken tanker slows in Philippines
An oil leak from a sunken tanker in the central Philippines has tapered off as efforts to clean up the country's worst oil spill continued, the coast guard chief said Thursday.
Vice Admiral Arthur Gosingan said a Japanese salvage company conducting a physical examination of the ship that sank off Guimaras Island, 495 kilometres south of Manila, reported that it has not detected any leakage 'as of now.'
The Okinawa-based company was using a remote-operated vehicle that surveys the ship with underwater cameras.
'In their last report, they have detected a crack on the starboard side, on the right side of the ship but they have not detected any leakage as of now,' he said.
'On the surface, we have seen sheen (of oil) only, that means that whatever comes out is very, very minimal,' he added.
Gosingan, however, said that video transmissions from the bottom of the sea still showed that there were smudges of oil on the crack of the sunken MT Solar 1, indicating that there has been a leakage there.
MT Solar 1 was carrying some 2 million litres of bunker fuel when it sank off Guimaras on August 11 after it was battered by strong winds and huge waves.
Coast Guard officials have estimated that some 500,000 litres of bunker fuel have already spilled out of the sunken vessel and underscored the need to immediately remove the remaining oil from the ship to prevent further leakage.
Some 40,000 residents have been adversely affected by the oil slick. Local officials said many residents of Guimaras, most of whom are fishermen, have lost their livelihood due to the accident.
The sludge has already affected 66 square kilometres of sea, 220 kilometres of coastline, 1,143 hectares of a national marine reserve and 454 hectares of mangroves, the government said.
Several countries, including Germany, Japan, the United States, Australia and France, have heeded President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's appeal for help in containing the spill.
The spill was the second in eight months. In December, a barge owned by the state-controlled National Power Corp spilled some 364,120 litres of bunker fuel at nearby Semirara Island.
The Semirara spill, however, was confined to a cove which affected only 100 hectares of mangrove plantation.
Vice Admiral Arthur Gosingan said a Japanese salvage company conducting a physical examination of the ship that sank off Guimaras Island, 495 kilometres south of Manila, reported that it has not detected any leakage 'as of now.'
The Okinawa-based company was using a remote-operated vehicle that surveys the ship with underwater cameras.
'In their last report, they have detected a crack on the starboard side, on the right side of the ship but they have not detected any leakage as of now,' he said.
'On the surface, we have seen sheen (of oil) only, that means that whatever comes out is very, very minimal,' he added.
Gosingan, however, said that video transmissions from the bottom of the sea still showed that there were smudges of oil on the crack of the sunken MT Solar 1, indicating that there has been a leakage there.
MT Solar 1 was carrying some 2 million litres of bunker fuel when it sank off Guimaras on August 11 after it was battered by strong winds and huge waves.
Coast Guard officials have estimated that some 500,000 litres of bunker fuel have already spilled out of the sunken vessel and underscored the need to immediately remove the remaining oil from the ship to prevent further leakage.
Some 40,000 residents have been adversely affected by the oil slick. Local officials said many residents of Guimaras, most of whom are fishermen, have lost their livelihood due to the accident.
The sludge has already affected 66 square kilometres of sea, 220 kilometres of coastline, 1,143 hectares of a national marine reserve and 454 hectares of mangroves, the government said.
Several countries, including Germany, Japan, the United States, Australia and France, have heeded President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's appeal for help in containing the spill.
The spill was the second in eight months. In December, a barge owned by the state-controlled National Power Corp spilled some 364,120 litres of bunker fuel at nearby Semirara Island.
The Semirara spill, however, was confined to a cove which affected only 100 hectares of mangrove plantation.
No retesting of nurses, Philippines says
The Philippine government has decided not to compel the nurses who passed a fraudulent nursing board examination to retake the test, opting instead to recompute their scores after invalidating answers to the questions that had been leaked.
The decision, officials said, was a "fair and impartial way" to resolve the scandal that has tainted the reputation of the nurses, who are some of the most sought-after caregivers in the world.
The Professional Regulation Commission, which administers the board exams, said it invalidated the 90 questions, out of the 500 test questions, that had been leaked and recomputed their averages based on the new scores.
"It's fair to all," commission chairman Leonor Tripon Rosero told a congressional panel investigating the scandal on Wednesday. "That's already fair to everyone, even to those who failed."
More than 17,000 of the 42,000 examinees passed the exams, which were held in June.
Nursing graduates had opposed retaking the test, first suggested by nursing educators, who argued that retesting was the only way to repair the country's damaged credibility.
There have been concerns that the tainted results would damage the image of Filipino nurses, especially at a time when other countries are producing more and more of their own nurses.
The Philippines is among the top sources of nurses in the world, supplying more nurses to the United States than any other country.
Members of the June batch of students had been turned away by hospitals, here and abroad, officials had said. But on Thursday, two government hospitals announced that it would now hire nurses from this batch.
"We want to give them a chance," Ninfa Ignacia, a hospital administrator, said.
The decision, officials said, was a "fair and impartial way" to resolve the scandal that has tainted the reputation of the nurses, who are some of the most sought-after caregivers in the world.
The Professional Regulation Commission, which administers the board exams, said it invalidated the 90 questions, out of the 500 test questions, that had been leaked and recomputed their averages based on the new scores.
"It's fair to all," commission chairman Leonor Tripon Rosero told a congressional panel investigating the scandal on Wednesday. "That's already fair to everyone, even to those who failed."
More than 17,000 of the 42,000 examinees passed the exams, which were held in June.
Nursing graduates had opposed retaking the test, first suggested by nursing educators, who argued that retesting was the only way to repair the country's damaged credibility.
There have been concerns that the tainted results would damage the image of Filipino nurses, especially at a time when other countries are producing more and more of their own nurses.
The Philippines is among the top sources of nurses in the world, supplying more nurses to the United States than any other country.
Members of the June batch of students had been turned away by hospitals, here and abroad, officials had said. But on Thursday, two government hospitals announced that it would now hire nurses from this batch.
"We want to give them a chance," Ninfa Ignacia, a hospital administrator, said.
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