Let's try to simplify our nation's woes.

Without infrastructure - no foreign/local investments. Without investments - no jobs. Without jobs - we have poverty, powerlessness and thereby criminality/insurgency.

Yet the country seems to shoot itself in the foot by making it difficult for investors to do private business or engage in building infrastructure for the Government.

Already, Transparency International in 2007 had already categorized the country as the "most corrupt nation in Asia." Woefully, the Philippines is ranked among inglorious company like Libya, Iran, and Yemen. That is not the Opposition or the NPA talking propaganda.

Confirmatory to that, recently, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank (WB) released a 2007 IFC-WB Report stating that the Philippines suffered a "serious deterioration" in ranking from No. 120th in 2006 to 133rd as "most difficult country to do business with."

How can we therefore attract investments and infrastructure builders with that record? The Philippines deteriorated in (6) areas of concern, according to the IFC-WB 2007 Report.

RP was ranked lowest (147th) in "closing a business" and very low of (144th) in "starting a business." That is not surprising considering the kind of patronage and grease money that have to be pursued to get a legislative franchise or a major permit to operate.

Again, RP was low at (141st) for "protecting investors" exemplified by the cancellation of the Computerization Deal of Comelec (reversed by the Supreme Court for being disadvantageous to government) and the NAIA-3 Piatco-Fraport Contract which was (rescinded by Government for a plethora of apparent bribery).

But observers note, no court reversals would have been made to negatively affect investors if the "deals" were immaculately clean, in the first place.

RP ranked low, as well, at (126th) for "paying taxes" considering the funny deals being pursued by enterprising bureaucrats and brokers at the Bureau of Customs and Bureau of Internal Revenue - which is a fact of life. Finally, RP fared poorly (No. 133rd) in "enforcing contracts" which is a general indictment against the fairness and swiftness of the Judiciary in acting on business controversies.

Analysts concluded that RP's "serious deterioration" is not necessarily because we have turned from bad to worse; it is because other countries had implemented wider and faster reforms compared to the lazy-paced campaign in the Philippines.

This tardiness in reforms, in turn, rests largely on the corrupted nature of our State which has resisted reforms and instead want to institutionalize the barriers so that "rent-seeking" (bribery, in layman terms) will go unabated.

Don't look too far. The NBN-ZTE deal now reeks with the smell of bribery in the biggest of magnitude and highest of levels (involved). Now we have a sore ZTE Inc, one of China's largest companies and a Chinese Government who merely wanted to grant a soft loan.

Now the broadband, which the country in fact needs, takes the back-burner for now.
To our mind, the NBN-ZTE Deal is just another NAIA-3 -Piatco Deal that failed to happen.

In 2005, the whistle-blower then was Government Flagship Project Chair Gloria Tan Climaco (former hotshot SGV Chair and feisty accountant) who saw something funny in the "Soft Costs" of US$123 million of the NAIA-3 deal when the project at that time only cost US$323 million.

It turned out that most of this controversial item went to the PR-Broker by the name of Alfrido Liongson who used the "soft costs" as alleged pay-offs to officials to get the approvals for the project in favor of Piatco-Fraport (Germany firm). Another scandalous item was the US$1.5-million "consultancy fee" for 25 years as part of the deal.

GMA rescinded the contract and the Pasay Regional Court allowed Government to expropriate NAIA-3 and this was affirmed by the Supreme Court. The Government was allowed to reimburse P3 billion in "actual reasonable cost" on the terminal to Piatco but took over the whole operations. NAIA-3 has yet to open - because the contractors had done a sloppy job - and a rehabilitation program had to be done.

The Fiasco resulted in a trail of blood. Two officials involved in the Piatco Controversy were assassinated. Assistant Solicitor General Nestor Balacillo and his son were gunned down in Sucat and the Regional court judge who issued the decision RTC Judge Henrick Guingoyon was likewise murdered.

All of these would have been avoided if from the start there was "transparency" (not opaque) in deals especially of those involving billions of pesos that the citizens of this country will eventually pay for generations to come.

That is the reason the Chronicle had, time and again, asked that Senate to strengthen the "oversight" power of the NEDA or any Economic Super body to give professional finality to projects or to dismantle the legal infrastructure that allows the corrupt scoundrels of this Government and their private sector allies to rob this country's coffers with funny, crooked deals. Or to lead them to court battles that give the country a bad business name.

If we want to attract those investments - and jobs - and eradicate our Public Enemy No. 1 which is "Poverty" - that's the least this Government can do for our suffering people.