Imee Marcos hopes Bulacan ecozone veto won’t turn off investors

MANILA, Philippines – Senator Imee Marcos “recognizes” the prerogative of her brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., to veto any bill, but said she is “deeply disappointed the Bulacan ecozone has been canceled.”

Senator Marcos, as chairperson of the Senate committee on economic affairs, sponsored the proposed Bulacan Airport City Special Economic Zone and Freeport Act in the upper chamber.

President Marcos vetoed the measure, House Bill (HB) No. 7575, last Friday, July 1, his first full day in office. He said the measure “lacks coherence with existing laws, rules, and regulations” and would “significantly narrow the tax base.”

“Trabaho lang, walang personalan at wala ring kapatiran (It’s just business, nothing personal and it has nothing to do with us being siblings),” Senator Marcos said in a statement on Sunday, July 3.

Through the ecozone, the senator said, they had hoped to “generate much-needed jobs in Bulacan and the Central Luzon countryside.”

“It is my hope that the veto does not have a chilling effect on the potential local and foreign investors, whom we need now more than ever, as our economy struggles to recover from the pandemic,” she said.

The senator noted that the reasons cited in the President’s veto message were “amply discussed during numerous hearings involving the stakeholders, then debated at length during plenary – resulting in a rare, unanimous Senate vote.”

But “in truth, this is unfinished business from Secretary Dominguez’s tenure, during which all new ecozones were vetoed from 2016 until today,” the senator said, referring to former finance secretary Carlos Dominguez III.

She then called on the Marcos administration’s economic team “to stake a clear policy on the creation of new ecozones,” and also suggested that the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council convene soon to tackle the matter.

‘Fastest way’

Among the President’s concerns was that the bill has no provisions for an audit by the Commission on Audit, the process for the expropriation of land awarded to agrarian reform beneficiaries, and a master plan that sets the boundaries of the proposed ecozone.

He also noted that the bill gives the proposed economic zone authority “rule-making powers relative to environmental protection that is not found in the charter of other economic zones” and also “blanket powers to handle technical airport operations in contravention of existing aeronautical laws.”

Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles said the veto is the “fastest way to cure the defects of HB 7575.”

“Had the President not vetoed HB 7575, it would have lapsed into law on July 4 or 30 days after the bill was sent by the legislature to Malacañang,” Angeles said in a statement on Sunday.

“Without those necessary amendments indicated in the veto explanation, the law may be vulnerable to constitutional challenge.”

Angeles also clarified that San Miguel Corporation’s construction of the planned New Manila International Airport and “aerocity” will push through. The construction is not affected by the veto of the ecozone. – Rappler.com