Razon: Tying democracy to development does not work

MANILA, Philippines — Development should not be linked to how democratic a country is, ports and casino tycoon Enrique Razon Jr. said Monday as stressed the need for the Philippines to change the way things are done to catch up with its Southeast Asian peers.

“If you really look at it, those that have the most advanced infrastructure are the ones that are not democratic. The countries with the best infrastructures in the world—they’re dictatorships,” Razon said during the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit 2017.

SPECIAL COVERAGE: ASEAN Summit in the Philippines

“I’m not saying I’m endorsing one or the other but you know this is a fact. Tying democracy to development, I don’t think it really works. It’s just an opinion,” he added.

According to Razon, the Duterte government should focus on developing the country’s dilapidated infrastructure and change the way these projects are being implemented.

“My hope is that this administration is able to change the culture of how things get done in this country,” he said.

“For us, what’s more important is to achieve and reach the objective. If we focus on things like governance and transparency, we’re still going to not to get what we need to get done,” he added.

“My own view is we need to build our infrastructure airports, roads.”

When it comes to access to physical infrastructure, the Philippines ranked 5th among Southeast Asian countries with a score of 0.336, according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific's Asia-Pacific Countries with Special Needs Development Report 2017.

The Philippine score was above Indonesia's 0.278, Lao People's Democratic Republic's 0.225, Myanmar's 0.198, and Cambodia's 0.186.

However, it falls below Thailand's 0.418, Vietnam's 0.419, Malaysia's 0.502, and Singapore's 0.708. Brunei was not included in the ranking.

Meanwhile, Indonesia and the Philippines are the most democratic nations compared to the rest of ASEAN with scores of 6.97 and 6.94, respectively, according to Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index 2016.

Both Indonesia and the Philippines were under "flawed democracy." Meanwhile, no ASEAN member-state made it to the "full democracy" group.

Laos came last with a score of 2.37 that was classified by EIU as "authoritarian." The Sultanate of Brunei was not included in the ranking.

READ: In charts: How the Philippines fares in Southeast Asia

The Duterte administration vowed to usher in what it touts as the golden age of infrastructure, touted as the biggest infrastructure push in Philippine history. The plan is to boost state spending on infrastructure to seven percent of the country’s GDP from five percent at present which would also be a major catalyst for growth.

As the Philippines starts building more roads and modernizing ports, the private sector is still having a hard time finding its role in the current government’s ambitious infrastructure plan, with President Rodrigo Duterte favoring foreign money to fund the big infrastructure push.

But unlike its predecessor, the Duterte administration is more welcoming of unsolicited proposals, while criticizing the slow progress of Private-Public Partnership initiatives.