THE Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has picked the amendments to the antismuggling law to become its second priority legislation for lobbying in Congress.

Samie Lim, PCCI president, said the antismuggling measure became their second choice as it is also the same bill that the foreign chambers and some civic groups are seeking to be enacted into law immediately.

“We want to put more teeth to the antismuggling law. We want steeper punishment and solve the low collection problems,” Lim said.

He said there should be a mechanism to institutionalize the reward and punishment scheme for collectors so that those who are really performing will be rewarded accordingly.

The PCCI, Lim said, will be designating a team to be headed by a lawyer to draft its proposed antismuggling measure.

Earlier, the PCCI said its first priority measure for this Congress is the amendment to the election laws since it appears that the biggest hindrance to its goal of having “One Global Philippines” is the highly divisive electoral process in the country.

Lim said they would probably endorse three to five measures to Congress.

At this time, Lim said PCCI is doing some balancing act with the foreign chambers and other civic groups on what bills should be pushed for enactment since there are instances when they have conflicts of interest.

“We want to align our interests so that we would come up with the proposed bills that will be ‘win-win’ for all of us,” Lim said.

On Friday, the PCCI joined several religious, civic and industry groups in launching the Kapulungan sa Pambansang Pag-unlad or Forum for National Progress (Pag-unlad), which will become the voice of the multisectoral civil society.

Lim said the PCCI will be concentrating on business matters, while Pag-unlad will be left to carry the initiatives on political and social matters.

“If the issue is not purely business, this is the group that will speak in behalf of us,” Lim said.

Pag-unlad seeks to initiate and sustain constructive and meaningful dialogue to address vital national issues that would gravely damage the climate for economic growth, convene broad-based periodic fora to build genuine harmony and cooperation, and engage in consultation on critical issues with other entities and sectors.

TRADE Secretary Peter B. Favila suspects that the cement giants in the country are probably bloating their financing charges to justify their relatively high prices.

AT least 30 percent of the workers of food and handicraft exporters have been retrenched due to the continued appreciation of the peso against the dollar, Philippine Exporters Confederation (Philexport) president Sergio Ortiz-Luis said.

THE Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has picked the amendments to the antismuggling law to become its second priority legislation for lobbying in Congress.

PTT Philippines Corp. (PTTPC), the local subsidiary of Thailand’s largest petroleum company, said Monday that it has opened its first fuel depot on Mactan Island, Cebu.

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—In about five years, most of the Subic Bay Freeport will be abloom, and fruits will be dangling from some 7,000 trees that would line up the main roads from the Subic gateway to Cubi Point and up to the Naval Magazine area.

CHANGES and improvements in the country’s Monthly Integrated Survey of Selected Industries (MISSI) will be implemented by 2008, the National Statistics Office (NSO) said.

SPEAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. will propose to the International Monetary Fund the creation of an IMF counterpart in Asia, saying that the recent successes of Asian bonds and swap arrangements among Asian central banks are movements toward a monetary vehicle in the region.

THE National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) has improved monitoring of projects funded by official development assistance (ODA) and now requires all implementing agencies to submit more detailed information on projects with cost overruns.