SEPTEMBER 2005 Vol 39, No 6 • Php 70.00 Php 70.00 - IMPACT ...

A R T I C L E S
No arguing, Philippine economy is
yet stuck in the doldrums—and,
worse yet, amid the backdrop of
the hurtling crunches of sky high oil prices
and political impasse, it even seems more
plausible than not that the country is
flouncing to the seams, if not may simply
plunge over the brink.
Not just long ago, the Philippines had
earned the economic status as the “Sick
Man of Asia.” This has been likely attributed
to the fact that while other Asian
countries—not only the “four tigers” but
even the once almost decapitated ones
due to ravages of war or lateral strifes, as
Vietnam—have conspicuously, and surprisingly,
emerged to become dynamos
than dominoes, the Philippines has remained
wallowing in the muck. Whereas
the Philippines then tagged as “sick man
of Asia”—not anymore, simply because it
may have even grown worse to become a
“Dying Man” by now.
Stymied by the debilitating economic
condition, Filipinos can only sigh in gasping
lamentation over crunching stomachs
and fancifully yearn for the times back in
1960s when the country was yet in robust
shape, next only to Japan. But now, people
have even become more cynically desperate
about the wrenching economic condition.
According to a nationwide
survey conducted
by IBON Foundation,
an independent thinktank,
people’s perception
of the economy had dramatically
turned from bad
to worse during the first
and second quarter of 2005.
Asked about the country’s
economy this first half of
2005 as compared to the
first half of last year, 67.88
% registered a “worse” answer,
while 25.89 % answered “same”,
IBON survey reported.
Government officials, however, claim
that the economy is relatively fairing well
despite the runaway oil prices and the
lingering political crisis. According to the
National Statistical Coordination Board,
GDP (Gross domestic Product) grew 4.8
percent year-on-year in the second quarter
of this year, well within the
government’s projected range of 4.7 – 5.1
percent. “The gloomy scenario of unabated
spike in oil and consumer prices,
sluggish external trade and the lethargic
performance of the farm sector failed to
dampen the Philippine economy,” said
Romulo Virola, NSCB secretary-general.
Admittedly, on the whole, in such times
of national survival – no proposal or
suggestion, even in its slightest frivolity,
is deemed dumb as to benefit the greatest
interest of the greater number of people;
and no idea as sublime and wise as to
render the already despicable condition
to perpetual folly.
Moreover, according to Economic
Planning Secretary Augusto Santos, the
government is even yet optimistic that it
can still achieve its full-year target of 5.3
percent.
That the economy is fairing well according
to government assessment, economic
analysts, and labor and people’s
organizations believed otherwise.
Economic experts said, in a forum at
the School of Labor and Industrial Relations
(SOLAIRE) at the University of the
Philippines-Diliman last July 13, that the
Arroyo administration is indeed experiencing
another bout of economic decline.
Particularly, experts said, the country
failed to realize two goals of economic
development: increase production via industrialization
and effect more equitable
income distribution among classes and
regions.
According to UP professor Jorge V.
Sibal, an indication of economic development
is the transformation from agricultural
to industrial. However, in the case of
the Philippines, the transformation is from
agricultural to that of service industries.
“they (the government) harp that our
economy has performed well as evidenced
by the continuing increase in consumer
spending as shown by the increasing number
of malls and other entertainment centers
all over the land. But the sad fact is,
the growth of the industrial sector has
been declining since the 60’s, which contradicts
one of the recent statements of
President Arroyo that the Philippines is
already among the Newly Industrializing
Countries (NICs) in Asia. Whatever structural
changes that occurred since the 1960’s
have been towards increases in the services
sector and not towards industrialization,”
Sibal said.
Likewise, Sibal continues, the government
failed in eliminating or reducing
poverty, inequality and unemployment in
the country. “We have likewise failed in
attaining ‘redistributive growth’ in terms
of poverty reduction, income inequality
among classes and among regions, and
the number of unemployed in the country,”
Sibal said.
Another, unemployment rate yet remains
unabated and continues to rise.
Roland Moya of the Employers Confederation
of the Philippines revealed that the
unemployment rate registered 9.5 percent
in 1995, then rose to 11.2 percent after six
years, and still climbed to 13.5 percent in
April 2002.
Then also, broad swaths of the population
have continuously plummeted below
the poverty line. Roger Daenekindt,
program coordinator of Labor Rights and
Democracy Inc., claimed that 40 percent of
the country’s total population live below
the poverty line. “From a research the
Institute of Labor Rights and Democracy
is conducting, we already discovered that
two-thirds of the interviewed contractual
workers are earning only P100 to P250 a
day in Metro Manila. The daily food
consumption of a family of four persons is
P150 a day. According to the Population
Commission, the national poverty threshold
in 2000 was P38 per person a day. A
family of four with a job at P150 all spent on
food would be just the poverty threshold
with P37.5,” Daenekindt said.
Overwhelming indeed
the thundering indicators—runaway
oil prices,
failing production through
industrialization, inequitable
income distribution
among classes and regions,
unabated poverty and
unemployment…and also
including, the chronic budget
deficits and fiscal crisis,
trade deterioration and
decline in export, current
account deficit serviced by
foreign debt, price and wage imbalances,
decreased investment in infrastructures,
decline of labor productivity, low dollar
reserves, excessively high external debts,
and lot more—of the country’s ailing, if
not “dying,” economy.
Seriously so, what have delivered the
country to this “dying” state—so far and
so low
Understandably, there may be one
and a hundred reasons—structural or otherwise,
wittingly or unwittingly borne out
of profligate whims and caprices of the
powers that be, and what not. But, notwithstanding
the risk of oversimplification,
it may yet suffice to proffer into
surface, at the very least, some of the likely
12
IMPACT • September 2005