Sadness

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/13/2012



Reviewing the economic and political news of the past week only brings out a wave of sadness in me. It is not just that the decade-long major economic downturn will continue to worsen this year; it is because the present government still has no credible response to it, which can only mean more suffering for the nation.

That the Philippines has fallen so far behind its Asean neighbors today is no longer in dispute. But looking back, even in the wake of the destabilization of the early ’80s by the US, our country still had the infrastructure to bounce back. All that, however, was destroyed by the Yellow counter-revolution of 1986 and the ensuing 25 years that saw the dismantling of the nation’s agro-industrial foundation, making it an import-dependent globalized economy.

Then, as the series of globalization-induced crises came, starting with the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, followed by the 2000 Dot-com and 2008 Wall Street crash, the backward Philippine economy sank even deeper, even as our countrymen continued to try their darndest to keep their noses above water.

Many are sadly unaware that Filipinos are drowning from the Western economies that are propping themselves up on our backs through our debt payments and the repatriation of profits by transnationals.

Still, the fate of Filipinos is in the hands of politicians and financial-economic mangers (led by Malacañang) who, instead of addressing the crises, stoke internal strife by firing up sound and fury signifying nothing.

Listening to the likes of that Ilocos solon, who seems hell-bent on driving the country into national political suicide with a mindless threat to impeach all Supreme Court (SC) justices who choose not to toe the administration line, or his colleague who went into a melodrama on the whereabouts of an alleged “leaker” of the chief magistrate’s bank documents, but without asking any lawful authority to ferret her out, one would no longer need any explanation as to why this country, with such “leaders,” is in dire straits.

Last Friday I chanced upon the GNN show of Ray Orosa who had the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) Diwa Guinigundo as guest. The BSP deputy-governor, as usual, effused over the performance of the Philippine economy and its alleged financial gains. Thinking perhaps that the audience did not have the tools necessary for analyzing or dissecting his presentation of the ratings agencies’ upgrade of our country, copious amounts of financial jargon flowed through his lips.

There’s no problem with a strong peso, he said, as import prices will go down; there’s no problem with inflation as wages will go up; and there’s no problem with hunger and poverty as these are just consumer basket benchmarking. Makes you think of the Philippines as a paradise courtesy of the BSP, doesn’t it?

But as the hard questions from the texters came in, such as, “When have salaries kept abreast of prices?” or “Why do import prices still go up despite a strengthening peso?,” the polite host had no recourse but to allow his guest to wriggle out of these as fast as possible.

As the Philippine gross international reserves (GIRs) have grown to $77 billion, BSP officials like Guinigundo, who beat their chests on their self-proclaimed financial management prowess, still say that covering 11 months worth of imports is necessary when only four months worth of cover is needed.

Similarly, these officials gush over increasing portfolio investments when the fact is such “hot money” or short-time “motel investments” are opportunistic funds from the US (where interest is almost zero) that cash in on higher Philippine yields, taking profits from the stock market and then leaving just as quickly.

Moreover, financial ratings agencies such as S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch’s that are now praising the Philippines and are tied to banking interests that want the Philippines to keep on borrowing — now that many countries have stopped doing so or will be defaulting — have all been discredited by now.

In saying that Western economies are standing on our backs as props to keep their head above the financial floodwaters, I refer primarily to the role of the BSP in keeping us indebted when we can already start paying off our debt.

Thanks to the BSP and the “PeNoy-chio” government, our national debt already grew to P5 trillion of late. Thus, when Orosa asked, “Why don’t we use our growing reserves more productively instead of lending it out (referring to “investments” in US T-bills and the like)?,” a visibly stumped Guinigundo could only give a spiel that goes, “We need to accumulate the dollars in case of a “currency attack.’”

My dear readers, history has shown that the best defense against any currency attack is what Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad did in 1997 for his country —currency controls. But since that is taboo for the minions of the global and local financial mafia, Guinigundo had to resort to his “currency attack” yarn and the necessity of sleeping GIRs.

With the combined inanities of politicians and financial managers, we should no longer shake our heads at these headlines last week: “Exports fall worse than expected” (BusinessWorld); “Building construction starts drop 80 percent to P575B in 2011” (Philippine Star); “2011 export earnings dip to $47-Billion” (Manila Times); “Neda sees 2012 growth at 3 percent to 5 percent (Manila Times); ad nausea.

Although my fearless forecast about BS Aquino III getting even lower grades than Gloria Arroyo’s mid-term ratings by the end of 2012 has never dampened my mood, what fills me now with sadness are the lost years that we would have to endure anew as we wait for this inane, incompetent, and ill willed administration to fade away — hopefully soon.

(Tune in to 1098AM, dwAD, Sulo ng Pilipino/Radyo OpinYon, Monday to Friday, 5 to 6 p.m.; watch Destiny Cable GNN’s HTL edition of Talk News TV, Saturdays, 8:15 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11:15 p.m., on “Hocus PCOS: New evidence;” visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com for our articles plus TV and radio archives)