Philippine Mining Prospects Under Marcos

What we should expect from the Marcos Administration?

05/29/2022
Written By: Jared M. Sewell

Campaign Statements & Promises

The Marcos campaign promised unity, more jobs, lower prices, and increased investment in agriculture and infrastructure. At a media briefing after the elections, Marcos said that putting together a team to manage the Philippine economy would be one of the first things he will do as President, and he made it very clear that he intends to hit the ground running.

Marcos has said that economic managers are going to be critical for the foreseeable future to help the country recover from the massive damage caused by the response to the pandemic and the inflationary and economic crisis resulting from closing down national, regional, and local economies in a misguided effort to slow the rate of infection from a virus that most likely originated from a laboratory in Wuhan China.

Like Trump, Marcos was elected by a populist movement. His constituents expect him to be a complete departure from politics as usual and to usher in Trump-style reforms on taxes, regulations, legislation, energy, banking, and foreign policy. The philippine people want real changes and the vast majority of them believe that Marcos is the man to make such reforms happen.

The Great Hope of the Philippine People

But is Marcos capable of being the Philippine Trump that many of his supporters want and need him to be? Certainly, it is possible! The Philippine political and media establishment is dead set against the Marcos administration in much the same way (and for many of the same reasons), that the American political and media establishment has been and remains firmly against Trump. He owes them nothing and he isn’t afraid of them. The political elite and the inteligência here in the Philippines have become increasingly committed to globalism and socialism and have abandoned the traditional religious and nationalist values held by the vast majority of hard working, men and women that are devoted to the future of their families and their country. Marcos can be the answer and it isn’t going to be difficult to change the direction of the future of the Philippines from one of economic hardship and uncertainty to one of extraordinary economic growth and the development of a Philippine middle class that will rival anything seen in the Western world. However, we have little indication about what Marcos thinks of Trump and his policies. The only indicator being a statement from his personal blog where Marcos says he has been reading “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” a book written by two left wing activists disguised as journalists, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker. Both of whom work for the rabidly anti-Trump, Washington Post. Hopefully, Marcos was merely reading the book to better understand Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).

The biggest loser from the pandemic response in countries around the world was the middle class. They lost jobs, public schools, colleges, and universities abandoned them and their children, their businesses were shut down and forced into bankruptcy, and their savings has all but disappeared as they spent it trying to keep food on the table, pay bills, and maintain their quality of life while the costs of goods, services, and housing has skyrocketed everywhere due to never-ending mandates and lockdowns.

Marcos believes he can change that. But what can he do to promote such changes? Well, much of the answer lies in the nationalist-populist policies from Trump’s first term in office. Let us look at some of the possibilities.

• A complete and total ban on lockdowns and mandates forever.
  • This will send a clear message to businesses and producers throughout the country that their ability to create products and services will no longer be interfered with by the government.
• A significant decrease (possibly a 100% moratorium) on taxes and regulations for businesses and corporations throughout the Philippines.
  • This removes massive barriers to profitability and growth making it much easier for established businesses to expand operations, buy new equipment and hire new employees and for new businesses to start-up and survive long enough to become profitable.
• Legislation to allow 100% ownership of any business by foreigners!
  • This would create massive incentives for foreign investment and would entice a lot of successful foreign businesses to expand their operations into the Philippines.
• Legislation to allow complete ownership of land by foreigners.
  • This would also create a massive influx of foreign cash and capital investment into the Philippines. Creating millions of new high-paying jobs for Filipinos.
• A Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing free speech for citizens and foreigners alike,
  • Doing this would send the clearest message to the world that equal protection under the law would become a hallmark of the Philippine justice system. No longer would the government or individual politicians or citizens be able to attack foreigners for expressing their personal, political, or religious opinions or beliefs. No longer would foreigners face injustices like deportation simply for voicing their opinions.
• Legislation to permanently remove minimum wages throughout the country.
  • This would get the government out of the business of arbitrarily determining what wages should be and allow a free market to determine wages based on supply and demand. It would mean more jobs and wages decided by employers and employees rather than bureaucrats.
• Legislation to remove government protection of established monopolies throughout the Philippines.
  • Monopolies don’t help anybody except the company with the monopoly. But they badly hurt consumers and prevent other businesses from being able to compete through unfair business practices and government protection. Ending government protection of monopolies and unfair business practices would open up the philippine market to global competition and allow the Philippine people to take advantage of higher quality services at lower prices.
• Instituting trade bans on countries that politically or economically treat the Philippines unfairly or promote trade policies that undermine Philippine sovereignty, the economy or Philippine industries or individual Philippine businesses.

A constitutional Convention to Draft a New Constitution

With the mandate established by the record votes Marcos received, he has the political capital to throw out the unnecessarily complex 53-page constitution from 1987 and adopt a constitution much simpler to understand and enforce. Marcos could very simply push for the adoption of a copy of the United States Constitution. The most successful and longest-lived codified constitution the world has ever known. The only edits required would be to change the states to provinces and to change the number of provinces (states) to reflect the number in the Philippines. Then the Philippines would have a federalist republic where the people truly have power and the provincial and federal governments share sovereignty and power and act as further checks and balances on one another.

The Future of Mining under the Marcos Administration.

Just within the past month, a four-year ban on strip mining in the Philippines has been abolished. While this has happened during the last days of the Duterte administration, it comes so late in Duterte’s reign that it is difficult to say whether it happened because of him or in spite of him. Either way, Marcos would likely have forced this policy change if it had not already been enacted. Marcos is going to be in favor of any and all policies that have even a remote chance of promoting exports, new businesses, expansion of established businesses, and the expansion of foreign businesses into the Philippines. Marcos is most likely going to focus on the most lucrative industries which include mining and mineral processing, pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, electronics, and semiconductors. The largest contributor to the GDP and the industry that is already poised to make the fastest and largest increases in revenues and productivity is the mining industry. As such, I expect the first big effort towards heating up the economy under the new administration is going to be massive subsidies for the mining industry coupled with massive tax breaks and the abolishment of any regulations that could hamper or prevent immediate growth throughout the manufacturing sector. Time will tell, but I believe that the immediate and foreseeable future of the Philippine economy in general, and the mining industry specifically is going to one of solid unstoppable growth.