CEOs talk with Chief Executive Rody

They did not expect to be wined and dined. But the country’s business heavyweights, mostly the chief executive officers (CEOs) of the biggest companies, came to know and be enlightened on how President Rodrigo Duterte intends to steer the Philippine economy as the country’s Chief Executive.

Now seven months into office of the administration, President Duterte met the country’s tycoons for the first time in a formal dinner meeting with him at the Palace. All the tycoons invited came to the formal dinner with President Duterte even as the latter bitterly lashed at what he calls as “oligarchs” in the country in apparent dig to families owning the biggest companies in the Philippines. 

The dinner meeting took place Tuesday night at the President’s Hall at Malacanang Palace and attended by big names in the business community here and abroad like Manuel V. Pangilinan of Metro Pacific and PLDT; Hans Sy of the SM Group; Tony Tan Caktiong of Jollibee; Ayala Corp.’s Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (JAZA); International Container Terminal Services Inc.(ICTSI) chairman Enrique Razon; First Philippine Holdings Corp. chairman and CEO Federico Lopez, just to name a few.

The powerhouse dinner at Malacanang with President Duterte was preceded by a meeting organized by former president and now Pampanga Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with JAZA and the other top business leaders earlier last week. This should explain, a little birdie chirped, why Mrs. Arroyo was invited to the powerhouse dinner aside from the fact that she is a very close political ally of President Duterte.

After hearing common concerns of the business leaders, the Palace birdie quoted Mrs. Arroyo supposedly asked the tycoons point-blank: “So what can you promise to President Duterte?”

The same Palace birdie disclosed Mrs. Arroyo first met and presided a meeting last week with the country’s top business leaders and brought along Rep. Arthur Yap of Bohol, a fellow member of the 17th Congress. Yap is a very close ally of Mrs. Arroyo to whom he once served as her former Presidential Management Staff head and later as ex-agriculture secretary.

At the long table during the Palace dinner with President Duterte, Mrs. Arroyo was seated in the middle of JAZA and Razon. The ICTSI chief executive officer is known to be a long-time family friend of Mrs. Arroyo.

It was a few months after President Duterte assumed office at Malacanang when Mrs. Arroyo was finally released from her “hospital detention” at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City. She was subsequently acquitted by the Sandiganbayan on her plunder case in relation with the use of intelligence funds under the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).

The plunder case was filed at the behest of the previous administration of former President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III who succeeded Mrs. Arroyo at Malacanang. But even while under “hospital detention,” Mrs. Arroyo won her second term in Congress and is currently serving her third and last term ending in June 2019.

Actually, Albay Congressman Joey Salceda disclosed yesterday that Mrs. Arroyo’s involvement in this meeting was upon the request of Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion. In his Facebook post yesterday, Salceda confirmed the pre-dinner meeting of the Philippine tycoons was with Mrs. Arroyo that was arranged by Concepcion, son of her former boss ex-Trade and Industry  Secretary Jose Concepcion Jr.

As Mrs. Arroyo clarified to him a day after the Palace dinner meeting Tuesday night, Salceda said it was “mediated by PGMA,” referring to the Palace acronym of the former president.

According to Salceda, his fellow Congressman Yap called him up and told him Mrs. Arroyo wanted to speak with him. “PGMA told me the big businessmen was complaining that they felt vilified and one of the causus belli was attributed to me – that I said daw that ‘They (Filipino tycoons) are not investing enough at home.’ More so, I further explained, that there are things that they can commit to President Duterte on their contribution to nation-building.”

Salceda further explained to PGMA, he noted big conglomerates have been merely reinvesting their retained earnings for capacity expansion but no major new business formation. This is why, he pointed out, remittances of our millions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) remain the backbone of our country’s economic growth through these years up to now.

Yap and Salceda were former students of Mrs. Arroyo at the Ateneo de Manila where she once taught as economics professor. Also known for being tart-tongued, Salceda posted on his Facebook what the “menu” could have been when President Duterte dined with our business leaders. He listed the following “menu” would have included: (1) Invest more at home than abroad; (2) Participate in the government’s infrastructure programs but no hybrid Private-Public-Participation projects (no sovereign guarantees); (3) Zero “endo” in your backyard; and, (4) Support the new tax measures (TRAIN or Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion bill authored by Salceda in Congress).

Under the tax reform package proposal of the Department of Finance (DOF), workers with an annual income of P250,000 would be tax-exempt. Like Salceda’s House Bill 4688, the DOF proposal would levy bigger taxes on those with millions in earnings.

Aside from Concepcion, Finance Sec. Carlos Dominguez joined the President at the dinner meeting with the tycoons who were his former colleagues in the private sector.

Admitting he is a “socialist” and not a communist, the tough talking President Duterte scored the “oligarchs” as the few very rich people lording over most of the country’s wealth while the majority of Filipinos languish in economic hardship, if not live in extreme poverty and hunger. 

In his tough policy pronouncements, President Duterte apparently has been sending jitters, if not confusing signals to local and foreign investors and businessmen.

Reaching out with his fellow business leaders, Concepcion acted as the bridge for them to directly talk and express their concerns with the President himself. In his regular column “NeGosyo, Kapatid: Angat Lahat” at The STAR yesterday, Concepcion wrote he was glad President Duterte agreed to meet with the tycoons over a dinner meeting which the latter even hosted.

And for over three hours of the dinner meeting with the tycoons at the Palace, the country’s Chief Executive impressed upon the CEOs he means business and not business as usual.