DAVAO CITY – Incoming Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez has called on the business community to forge a coalition for change with the administration of President-elect Rodrigo R. Duterte.
At the Sulong Pilipinas dialogue, a business consultation of the incoming Duterte economic team that gathered 400 businessmen and industry leaders, Dominguez raised the need for the private and public sectors to build reform coalition behind the 10-point socio-economic agenda of the incoming administration.
Dominguez also appealed to the business community to help them in drawing up the new and correct metrics or standards in measuring government’s achievements that are beneficial to poor and low-income families.
“Let’s build public-private partnerships not just for projects but to transform our national community into a cooperative enterprise that brings out the best in everyone and delivers the best for all,” Dominguez told the business community.
“It is to change the way we do things as a nation. It is a patriotic call to start building a truly 21st century society where citizens trust their institutions and consumers trust producers. It is a society of Shared Value where each one benefits from the excellence of the other,” he added.
It is not enough to say the economy is growing, Dominguez said, adding the government has to develop measures that will show how that economic growth converts into a more livable life for ordinary people.
“We need to radically transform the way we do things so that economic growth does not translate into further entrenching the oligarchy,” Dominguez said.
“When we do things more efficiently, the majority benefits from the values created. When government performs better, the consumer benefits in the end,” he added.
For all Filipinos to truly benefit from the country’s nascent economic gains, Dominguez said both the government and the private sector would have to jettison their traditional mindsets and radically change the ways they do business and deal with or serve our people. (CHINO S. LEYCO)