Private Sector told Explore non-traditional PPPs

CEBU, Philippines - While the government’s Public-Private-Partnership program has hit a glitch in terms of prompt implementation, Senator Francis Joseph "Chiz' Escudero tells the private sector to take advantage of PPP opportunities apart from infrastructure related projects.

Escudero was one of the speakers yesterday at the concluding program of the three-day Open Collaboration with East Asia News Champions 2014 Summit held at Movenpick Hotel Mactan Island Cebu.

The summit was an extension of the World Economic Forum East Asia Summit held in Manila last week.

Escudero said although there are 47 PPP projects on the pipeline that the private sector can participate in, there are actually other options that private establishments can do to help the government such as handling other processes that are traditionally handled by the government.

Today for instance, issuance of drivers license and emission standard testing, among others are done by the private sector.

He cited other PPP opportunities for the private sector such as education, security, and energy.

Escudero emphasized that government services will be more efficient if taken over by the private sector.

This time, he said the Philippines will move from exercising its traditional role, to embracing the untraditional role like letting the expertise and competence of the private sector to serve the tax paying public, while providing strong and effective legal framework and policies.

In the non-traditional goverment role set-up, it is expected to render itself relevant, promoting a "shared responsibility" environment.

"There is so much that both the private sector and government can collaborate on in PPPs that are not only limited to infrastructure works like road networks and airports," he said.

Escudero dicussed about Igniting Initiatives For Innovation with Private-Public Partnerships.

The country currently 47 PPPs underway with an estimated economic value of P376 billion, roughly USD $8.5-million, or approximately 16 percent of the annual appropriation budget of the national government.

"We should work towards increasing this, so much so, that the bigger chunk of the expenditures will now be performed by the private sector," he said.

Escudero admitted PPPs right now are "simply giving scraps and leftovers to the private sector to undertake."

"But it should be the other way around. Government must be able to encourage the private sector to do most of the things that the private sector can simply participate and intervene whenever there is a market failure or whenever there is distortions in the market," he added.

Escudero further added that the  government must adopt a paradigm shift and let the private sector do most of the things that government is doing right now.

"This should be the role of government- to encourage and make sure that the private sector can participate and perform traditional government functions  in increasing manner and in fields never even thought of before, " he added.

OCEAN is a community organized event by the members of the World Economic Forum communities that include:  the Young Global Leaders, The Global Shapers , The Schwab Social Entrepreneurs and The Global Growth companies in the Philippines.