A Ludicrous opinion piece

A Ludicrous opinion piece

I generally do not appreciate the Business Mirror and here is a prime example.  While Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) is nearly 100% pro-developer, unlike the impression given in the opinion below, this HLURB Resolution 921 gave some teeth, however minor, to Presidential Decree 957.

I realized the opinion piece was going to be nonsense in the first paragraph with these words:  "To burden businesses with excessive rules and regulation is, to use an old saw, to kill the goose that lays the golden egg."  Do they mean developers should continue to distribute ads by whatever means that do not reflect the facts?  This is the standard common practice.

To avoid the defense of claiming slander and libel when the facts are presented for nearly all developers, please have Unit Owners from across Metro Manila allowed to wear hoods in a very large room so they may present the ads and explain the lies and deceptions we all speak about and continue to see published.

Past post on HLURB 921- 
http://sohocentralcondominium.blogspot.com/2015/02/hlurb-board-resolution-no-921.html 

Past post on PD 957 -
http://sohocentralcondominium.blogspot.com/2014/03/presidential-decree-no-957.html 

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Rising to the summit of incompetence
Opinionby BusinessMirror Editorial - September 2, 2015

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/rising-to-the-summit-of-incompetence 

"There are instances where the government can be more helpful when it steps aside and tempers the urge to overregulate.  Excessive regulation has a negative effect when it imposes additional cost, delays project rollout, or stunts the growth of an industry. To burden businesses with excessive rules and regulation is, to use an old saw, to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Unfortunately, this is what the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) is doing to the country’s property developers. The HLURB is pressing the heavy foot of the government on the windpipes of those who create jobs and wealth for the nation. Unmindful of the consequences of its action on the lives of almost 6 million Filipinos employed in the construction industry, the agency has deployed a controversial policy that was unilaterally adopted and which could ruin an economic pillar.

Just to show that might makes right in the name of consumer protection is wrong. And the HLURB is showing to all and sundry that the Peter Principle also applies to government offices. To be fair, the agency has been doing its regulatory duties exceptionally well until it arrogated unto itself, through Resolution 921, the job of screening property advertisements. This new job is beyond its competence. The clearance of advertising content requires a certain discipline and level of expertise that the agency sorely lacks.

Resolution 921 is pure anti-business and runs counter to the government’s investment-promotion drive. Since February this year, when the new policy took effect, property developers have seen a steady decline in sales. This additional requirement imposed by the HLURB is slowly killing an industry that contributed P367 billion to the economy in 2014. If that is not bad enough, it has put consumers at a disadvantage as they are effectively kept in the dark about property developments from reputable companies.

It is no secret that more government involvement is not healthy for any industry because bureaucrats will always look after themselves first.  That’s the wisdom behind the saying, “Imperfect markets are better than imperfect bureaucracies.” This is also the reason the United Print Media Group (UPMG) has been calling on the HLURB to scrap its policy requiring property developers to secure the agency’s approval for all print and television advertisements.

The UPMG is taking the cudgels for real-estate companies who are hesitant to push their complaint further for fear of encountering future problems with the HLURB, particularly in securing permits and licenses.

For more than 30 years real-estate developers and the UPMG have been working with the Advertising Standards Council (ASC) in the screening of property advertisements. This kind of partnership exists in other industries. The ASC has signed formal pacts with the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health, and the Department of Trade and Industry.

For almost four decades the real-estate industry has shown that it can police its own ranks against deceptive property advertisements. Why change a perfectly working system? If the HLURB is truly intent on protecting property buyers from fraudulent advertisers, it is barking up the wrong tree. The agency must focus its sight on where the real problem exists—property ads on the Internet. There’s a growing concern among buyers here and abroad about deceptive online property advertisements.

With the Asean economic integration, the government would do well to promote self-regulation, especially among major industries such as the real-estate industry. Our housing developers do not need additional barriers to growth. If the government wants economic prosperity, it must see to it that markets are free."