By Michael Vincent D. Cajulao
ZAMBOANGA
CITY, May 23 (PIA) – “The government can’t do it alone. For us to
be more competitive globally, there should partnership between the government
and the private sector,” said Guillermo Luz, Co-chairman of the National
Competitiveness Council (NCC) and Director-General for APEC 2015 during the NCC
Road Show.
Luz, whose resume also includes being
the Executive Director of Makati Business Club from 1987 to 2006, said: “In my
experience with the NCC, Public-Private collaboration is important and
effective because we learn from each other.”
He said looking for solutions should
be a partnership between the government and private sectors.
“One of the things I did when I first
got on in NCC in 2011 was that I did not want to go to a meeting or fix a
working group or committee that’s all from the private sector. My fear and I
have seen this happen many times in Manila, is that it’s just a gripe session,
puro complaints (all complaints),” Luz pointed out.
He said often times they go home
frustrated “because we cannot do anything about it. The solution is on the
other (government) side. The government has to provide the solution. They have
to implement it.”
Luz stressed that having such
meetings only escalate the level of frustrations among members of the public
sector.
“The best we can get out of that is
we have a good lunch or dinner, maybe a few good drinks, good times. But we
didn’t solve any problems. We go home frustrated,” he said candidly.
Similarly, Luz said an “all public
sector” meeting is as ineffective as that of an “all private sector meeting.”
“If we put a meeting that is all
public sector, what happens is that there is no private sector to give them
feedback. They may not appreciate the problem,” he stressed.
Luz continued that if there is no
collaboration between the two, “the public sector would think that the problem
is this way, but then the private sector will tell them, no, this is not what
we are looking for. If we don’t meet there’s no way you’ll get the solution. You
can get it but it will take a long time. So, why waste time? Speed is our
Mantra in NCC.”
Luz also pointed to the preconceived
limitations of the public sector as one of the reasons that hamper the
countries potential to become more competitive.
“Typical excuse of the public sector
that I hear every meeting is first, ‘Sir, we don’t have budget for this.’ I
tell you, not everything needs a budget. It needs imagination to get it done.
Second, “Sir, the law says…,’ so I ask them, ‘Is the law that specific on that
particular item,’ or the law says you may, not you have to,” Luz stressed.
With these experiences Luz had, he
said neither one of them can really come up with a solution to boost the
region’s and the country’s competitiveness in general, in the global arena.
Instead, there should be partnership between the private and public sector for
the Philippines to move forward.