InLife’s Aguas underscores needed virtues and public-private partnerships for long-term progress

MANILA, Philippines — Accountability, transparency, agility, consistency.

According to InLife executive chairperson Nina Aguas, these are needed to ensure that the country gets the investment support it needs, while improving the lives of its citizens and ensuring that the private sector flourishes.

Speaking as one of the panelists during the Partnerships for Long-Term Growth: Contributions of the Private Sector in Development Panel during the recently held Pilipinas Conference 2023, Aguas underscored the importance of these four virtues as driving forces toward a more progressive country.

She likened the experience to setting up a business in Singapore, where because of these four, businesses get established in merely hours.

“We talk about the ease and costs of setting up a business. There it only takes two hours to be able to start a business. It does not take days.”

She adds that our processes need to be simplified. “(In the Philippines) the tax regime alone is too complicated. In Singapore, when filing your individual tax returns, you’re audited before you start to pay. And then you’re given a year to pay for the whole thing. It’s all technology-driven so that makes it a lot easier. It’s very transparent and the process is simple. I’d really like that for the Philippines.”

She further explains the importance of long-term investments to insurance companies such as InLife, the company she heads.

“We in the insurance industry are natural aggregators of policyholders’ money that is invested long term. My challenge is, I don’t have enough investment outlets that will support yield and duration. If the corporates can give me that, welcome. And if the government can also provide us with investment outlets, then welcome. (Together,) we can stimulate the economy.”

The panel also discussed how the private sector can contribute to upscaling the educational system of the country. Aguas underscored the importance of being able to harness the best and the brightest among Filipinos.

“Truly, our educational system is not at par with the rest of some of the countries we’d like to benchmark ourselves against. If we are into nuclear in 10 or 12 years, do we have the nuclear