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By VINCE BORNEO
National Unity Party . 

MISAMIS Oriental (2nd District) Congresswoman Juliette Uy of the National Unity Party (NUP) has seen something intricately wrong with the Phividec Industrial Authority.

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How the current management of Phividec has allegedly become complicit with other government officials to the commission of serious violations to environmental and customs laws and an international convention in the South Korea garbage shipment controversy is an enigma waiting to be ascertained. Take note that the Philippines should never become a dumping ground of foreign wastes. Government officials and entities who enabled the South Korean garbage shipment should review their conscience and submit themselves to accountability and possible redemption, if there should be any.

But that is a story for another day.

Phividec is a practically a dinosaur entity – having been created be Presidential Decree 538 in 1974.  It has continued to exist and evolve via Presidential Proclamations 1495 and 2106 that designated all the 3,000 hectares of the Phividec industrial estate as a special economic zone.

Effectively, Phividec has avoided what other economic zones in the provinces of Aurora (Aurora Special Economic Zone Authority) and Bataan (Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan) in Region III; and Cagayan (Cagayan Economic Zone Authority) in Region II have done: getting charters via acts of Congress. The economic zones of the said provinces are backed up by Republic Acts. This is where Phividec of Region X is astoundingly different. Their charter is still P.D. 538.

This is why local government units have minimal and oftentimes stressful relations with Phividec. Phividec exercises local government unit (LGU) functions – such as levying local business taxes and fees – that are functions defined by the Local Government Code (Republic Act 7160).  This is legally weird at the very least. An entity that is a government-owned and controlled corporation (GOCC) who do not have democratically elected officials that does the functions of LGUs is a daily violation of the Local Government Code. The said Code has in effect wiped out previous decrees and edicts that do not conform to it.  But of course, Phividec officials then and now will say that there was no expressed repeal of P.D. 538 and the succeeding issuances it has been able to wrangle from the appointing powers in the Palace.

But, of course, hope is the most indefatigable word for any situation.  With this hope is the high time for reforms in Phividec. It cannot continue citing that Presidential Decree issued by a dictator. It cannot continue operating as if it were exempt from current and new laws.

It is indeed agreeable to many quarters in the province and the region that the industrial estate has to be effectively reintegrated to the host municipalities of Tagoloan and Villanueva.

Phividec operates by a certain set of outdated laws and issuances that make it ripe for a new charter that goes through the legislative branch of government – Congress.  This will eventually be part of the legislative agenda of Congresswoman Uy.

(Vince Borneo is a legislative staff in the House of Representatives. He is contributor to local dailies on the side.)

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