Maya eyes VisMin growth from transport, health

Maya Bank’s next wave of growth in the central and southern Philippines could come from the transportation and healthcare sectors, an executive said.

Visayas and Mindanao account for about 62 percent of the digital bank’s total volume of transactions, Maya Regional Business Head Bryan Enerio said.

“It actually shows that the adoption here in VisMin is more com- pared to Luzon,” he said at the sidelines of a media seminar sponsored by the US Embassy in Manila.

In Mindanao, Maya will prioritize the healthcare sector for growth, Enerio said.

“If you start from Cagayan De Oro down to Bukidnon, Zamboanga, healthcare is quite strong may it be for…hospitals and pharmacies. But pets, vets they’re actually strong in Davao, a bit in General Santos,” he said.

Economic managers cite factors eyed to boost gov’t fiscal space

Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Thursday told foreign investors that the proposed reforms on the military and uniformed personnel (MUP) pension will boost the government’s fiscal space.

During the Philippine Economic Briefing held in Singapore, which was live streamed through the Facebook pages of the Department of Finance (DOF), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Diokno said the military pension “is an elephant in the room.” once they reached 20 years of service; and the active and new entrant will be required to pay the mandatory contribution to the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

Diokno earlier said total payouts to MUP amounts to around PHP213 billion for this year and this is expected to breach PHP1 trillion by 2035.

Aside from the MUP pension, Diokno said rightsizing of the bureaucracy is also seen to boost fiscal space.

Meanwhile, industries that have adopted Maya in the Visayas include tourism, hospitality, and retail, he said.

Maya is looking at “underserved” sectors like transportation to scale up in the region, Enerio said.

“We’re coming up with a transportation ecosystem... We don’t have LRTs and MRTs here. But we can actually empower the buses,” he said.

“Previous administrations don’t want to talk about it. We are addressing it now and I think, we are almost sure that we have the solution. That will open up a lot of fiscal space,” he said.

Under the proposal, all active personnel and new entrants will be covered by the proposed reform; the automatic indexation of pension to the salary of active personnel of single ranks will be removed; pensions will be given once the MUP turn 57 years old unlike in the current system wherein it is automatically given

“Together with that is digitalization. Again, that will open up a lot of space in our, the fiscal side. That’s why I said I sleep well at night because we’re solving the problems that we see,” he added.

NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said ensuring the strengthening of the government’s fiscal space is also among the reasons for encouraging the private sector to take part in the bid to improve the country’s infrastructure.

“There’s a lot of money there that are supposed to be used for public infrastructure but if this can now be implemented by (the) private sector, then that limited resource could be used to sup-