Trump immigration policies to hit Phl most – MVP

MANILA, Philippines -  US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has been causing jitters in markets worldwide, and is expected to hit the Philippine economy the hardest, a top Filipino businessman said.

For  tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan, Trump’s policy to subject all illegal immigrants in the US to deportation will have the most negative impact on the Philippine economy.

He said this would hurt the country more than Trump’s call to bring back manufacturing and jobs to the US and the proposal to restrict imports through a border adjustment tax.

Pangilinan co-chairs the US-Philippines Society, a private sector initiative that promotes fellowship and diplomacy between the Philippines and the US. He also chairs PLDT and Metro Pacific Investments Corp.

“The thing that worries me is unregistered aliens where I think there are about 300,000 or so or more. If they are somehow deported or asked to leave the US, that impacts on the remittance and because these foreign remittances are like the drugs that are directly injected to the economic veins… that’s an immediate injection of cash to people here to spend,” Pangilinan said.

In 2016, remittances from overseas Filipino workers rose five percent to a new record high of $26.9 billion from $25.61 billion the previous year, according to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Major source of remittances include the US, along with countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Hong Kong, and Germany.

Remittances from over 10 million Filipinos deployed abroad account for about 9.8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

 “The slowdown of these remittances from the US or anywhere else, it’s going to impact on the economy. For me that’s what we should worry about,” Pangilinan said.
Since stepping into office as the 45th US President, Trump has made pronouncements such as “America first” and “buy American, hire American.”

He also ordered to intensify the crackdown on undocumented aliens in the US.
“The other threat that has been talked about is the BPO (business process outsourcing). They are here because they enjoy significant cost advantages to operate jobs here. I don’t know whether the US cost structure can match cost structures out here in the Philippines or in other parts of Asia,” Panglinan said.
“Import tax that’s a threat, but what are we exporting to the States? Our agriculture component in terms of export to the US is very small. As of now manufacturing is what he (Trump) is looking at, bring your manufacturing and employment to the States. But what are the big plants of Americans here? None right? They’re no longer here in refinery, no longer in petrochemical, and they are not in oil and gas sector here, except for these gas stations,” he added.