The focus of the news is the afterglow of the Asean Summit, the Palace pump-priming local governments for the elections (on the crude premise, I suppose, that whatever the temporary fallout, it’s better to have an opponent out of office come election day than in office to influence the outcome), and the jockeying for the Senate race, interspersed with news of the latest contribution by the New People’s Army to economic development, and continuing environmental trouble.
Edu Manzano makes two confirmed administration candidates. A report by Newbreak focuses on the faction-ridden negotiations within the opposition, and says the Palace strategy, with regards to slates, is “well show you ours when you show us yours.”
It’s been seven years and yet the Free Press’ two men of the year for 2000 still hog the headlines: Singson and Estrada.
And just when you thought the military had said it wanted nothing to do with ex-cops ruling the roost in Defense: Ebdane, after all, may be the next Defense chief. Meanwhile, the National Security Adviser chimes in and says being in the Reserve Officer Training Corps should be a requirement for college graduation once more.
Supreme Court session hall goes up in smoke on the same day the man responsible for its redecoration, Hilario Davide, begins doing victory laps for his representative to the United Nations position.
There’s this charmingly-written article on columnist Vic Agustin leaving the Inquirer and moving to the Manila Standard-Today:
In a letter to MST publisher Teodoro Locsin Jr., Inquirer publisher Isagani Yambot said his newspaper had a certificate of registration issued by the Philippine Intellectual Property Office for the “Cocktales” name and the cocktail glasses graphic that used to appear on top of Agustin’s column when he was still wroting there.
Oh well.
Overseas, it seems a kind of Federalism in the United Kingdom threatens dissolution of the union; a grisly hanging in Iraq; New Zealand supports a Security Council seat for Japan. And problems with democratizing the drafting of Thailand’s new constitution.
Tony Abaya in his column suggests the prosecution of former cabinet member Nani Perez is a sham:
A clue as to why our judicial system is dysfunctional may have been provided by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita. One day after Ombudsman Gutierrez announced that Perez would be charged with graft and extortion, Secretary Ermita publicly expressed his “belief” that Perez is innocent, just because Perez was “one of our allies.” (Inquirer, Jan. 10)
“Nani is one of our allies, and deep inside me, I know what he is telling me is the truth,” Ermita is quoted by the Inquirer.
,,,Not that it surprised anyone. It merely puts in black and white what many observers have long noted about the Philippine judicial system: the intrinsic merits of your case do not matter as much as whom you know. And it explains the inexplicable.
The Ermita Doctrine explains why Virgilio Garcillano cannot be summoned to a congressional investigation of the “Hello Garci” tape. Garci is innocent of any wrongdoing because he is “one of our allies,” even if he claims he never left the country when he was being sought by congressional investigators, while the Government of Singapore, in its note verbale to the our Department of Foreign Affairs, stated that Garci arrived in Singapore on July 14 on board a Learjet and left the next day on board a commercial airliner.
The Ermita Doctrine also explains why Joc Joc Bolante cannot be summoned by the Senate to shed light on P738 million worth of fertilizer funds that were dispersed by him just before the 2004 elections, even to congressional districts that had no agriculture to fertilize. Joc Joc is innocent of any wrongdoing because he is “one of our allies.”
The Ermita Doctrine also explains why Imelda Marcos and her children, and Joseph Estrada and his son, continue to float in a judicial limbo, neither guilty nor innocent, – 20 years and five years, respectively, after cases were filed against them. There are untiring efforts to make them “one of our allies,” through “reconciliation,” if they would only agree to share their loot.
The Ermita Doctrine is probably also at work in the plunder cases pending, for three years now, against Gen. Carlos Garcia, Gen. Jacinto Ligot and Col. George Rabusa. The fear seems to be that if these cases were pursued with any vigor, the resulting revelations would entangle “one of our allies” or “several of our allies” in their web of military corruption.
In his column, Alex Magno claims the following:
The economist Noel de Dios pointed out something the other day that I hadn’t realized: for the first time in its recorded economic history, the Philippines has posted a 3% per capita growth for five continuous years.
Might economics-minded readers weigh in on this score? Is this true, or a selective reading of the statistics?
In the blogosphere, History Unfolding, who presciently warned of a looming political and constitutional crisis in the USA, has seen his prediction come close to fruition. He dissects the escalation in Iraq announced by the US President and says a re-ordering of American politics will be necessary on the scale achieved by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Ernest Wilson looks at Martin Luther King in retrospect.
Technorati Tags: elections, Middle East, military, philippines, politics, president, Senate, Thailand, war, Washington DC
Gonzalez supporting ROTC is nothing new; his party was one of those encouraging Gullas when the bill was first filed. But we should remember the ROTC proponents in May. Gullas of Cebu, Rey Aquino of Pampanga, the congressman of Neuva Vizcaya, and now Gonzalez. plus Lacson in the past has advocated Malaysian type slave camps.
what to do about Lim? hope he wins for Mayor so he is out of the Senate? or hope he loses and spends more time sleeping in the senate?
Ellen Tordesillas had a post on the timing behind charging Nani Perez now. http://www.ellentordesillas.com/?p=815 . I think she got it right. Timing is everything.
If you will notice, the NPA has been blowing up only towers of Globe Telecomunications for “failure to pay revolutionary taxes.” Does it mean that Smart and Sun are paying revolutionary taxes? Just wondering.
Let’s put a little context into Magno’s claim. Over the last five years, OFW remittances have totalled about 50 billion dollars. How much of the 3% per capita growth can be attributed to that?
As the famous baseball manager, Casey Stengel, used to say, “Ability is the art of getting credit for all the home runs somebody else hits.”
i think vic agustin made the right move to switch to Manila Standard. i believe the guy will feel more at home there with Enrique Razon’s paper.
Perfect combination.
re alex magno
for 5 consecutive years? even during the 2001-2004 years?
i do believe na once na palapit na ang 2007 election, you’ll hear more “positive” news about the economy, jobs, investments, etc. coming from the administration and it’s sympathetic media just like in 2004.
Bringing Asean back down to Earth. GMA unfortunately is the last one you would expect to hear about the economic realities regarding Asean. It is good though for them to thump their chests at the West with India, China, Japan and South Korea out in front of them, otherwise there would have been no widespread news about this summit. .
Asean to rock the world economy? Not likely for a long long long time. From Jeremy J. Siegel, Russel E. Palmer Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Future for Investors
Allocation of World’s Equity Values September 17, 2004
North America 54.9%
U.S. 52.3%
Canada 2.6%
Europe 27.8%
U.K. 10.2%
France 3.8%
Germany 2.7%
Other Developed Europe 11.1%
Japan 9.1%
Developed Asia Excluding Japan 3.2%
Australia 2.0%
HongKong 0.7%
Singapore,New
Zealand 0.5%
Emerging Markets 4.9%
S. Korea 0.9%
Taiwan 0.5%
China 0.4%
Brazil 0.4%
Mexico 0.3%
India 0.3%
Russia 0.2%
Others 1.9%
Asean without Singapore is somewhere in that 1.9% together with all emerging markets of Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and the Middle East with the exception of N. Korea and Cuba.
Please note that France and Germany still have a lot of state owned corporations that have not been privatized.
Naisbitt’s Megatrends Asia Greater China
Ethnic Chinese: New Great Economic Power
Big Businesses That Are Chinese-Owned
Thailand 81 percent
Singapore 81 percent
Indonesia 73 percent
Malaysia 61 percent
Philippines 50 percent
Take the Transnational Corporations from Europe, Japan and the U.S. and the net result is simply Asean (x Singapore) is simply a collection of agricultural economies.
It has no role nor no clout in the world economy.
Based on the National Statistical Coordination Board (NCSB), the following are the per Capita GDP statistics (in constant 1985 prices):
1994 11,168
1995 11,425
1996 11,810
1997 12,147
1998 11,815
1999 11,958
2000 12,670
2001 12,598
2002 12,900
2003 13,252
2004 13,789
2005 14,186
[Source:National Accounts of the Philippines, National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) in nscb.gov.ph website]
From the above data set, per capita GDP growth averages 2.3% between 2001 and 2005 which is marginally up from the average per capita growth of 2.2% between 1994 and 2005. It’s far from de Dios’ claim of 3% per year. Maybe he has a different data set or a different way of calculating the per capita GDP increase.
Here’s the link http://www.nscb.gov.ph/stats/mnsds/mnsds_gdp.asp
Deduct OFW remittances from the equation to get a true picture of economic growth that can be credited to Gloria’s economics.
Using cvj figures, here goes:
2004-2005 2.879
2003-2004 4.05
2002-2003 2.73
2001-2002 2.897
2000-2001(0.057)
1999-2000 5.95
1998-1999 1.21
1997-1998(2.73)
1996-1997 2.85
1995-1996 3.36
1994-1995 2.302
Take the average from 2001 to 2005 you get 3.1. But that’s missing a lot. Look at her highest. Look at Erap’s best.
“Laypeople tend to treat official statistics as gospel; professional economists know that putting these numbers together involves a lot of educated guesswork  and sometimes the guesses are wrong.†Paul Krugman
Wait till the end of 2010 before one can comment on Alex Magno’s stament quoting Noel. There are huge statistical discrepancies on the claculations of GDP from the expenditure side.
Erap had his financial crisis and I believe that GMA could well be facing one by the end of her term just like Ramos. Her term actually started 2004.
The world economy is sitting right now on a knife’s edge on what is going to happen this year. Soft crash or hard crash.? Interest rates have collapsed on the combination of low interest rates for the period since 2003 till just recently. U.S. Federal Reserve dropped rates to 1% then. Japan is still close to zero. Last year we hit one million people deployed as foreign workers.
These two external forces saved the Philippines and GMA from a horrendous debt crisis for now. But the threat of rising inflation – commodity price inflation, asset inflation could set the whole world on a downward spiral. Plus the war in the Middle East. Rate increases in the Eurozone and the U.S. could send the U.S. particularly into recession. When the Euro was introduced you only needed $0.80 to a Euro. Today you need $1.30. The U.S. wants Asia to revlaue their currencies upward mostly China. They do not want to call it a U.S. devaluation.
In the year 2001 China had over $100 bilion in reserves. Today it has over a trillion. Together with Japan, S. Korea and China the Philippines signed a standby credit default swap with the three countries for $5 billion along the same stringent conditionalites of the IMF. This is the Chiang Mai Initiative.
The reflating of the world economy has created a wave of money that is now creating bubbles and consolidation amongst the industrialized world and the rest of the world. China’s stock market hit an all time high of $ trillion in market capitalization. This year into the next year the world will wait and watch to see what might happen to markets that have reached highs simply due to funds chasing assets. Egypt has seen its stock market rise fourteen fold since 2003. It is one of the riskiest equity markets amongst the emerging ones. (From the Wall Street Journal)
From 2001 GMA was the reciepient of the gloria of the Asian crisis and a drunk for a President. Then 9/11 and the threat of a world depression.
We find the answer in an article by Richard Duncan author of A Dollar in Crisis.
In early 2002, America’s system of imperial finance faced a challenge. The U.S. seemed to be sinking into Japanese-style deflation. The NASDAQ had lost 70% of its value. The homeland economy was in recession. The Fed was alarmed. It knew how to fight inflation; it could raise interest rates over 100% if it wanted to. But it knew no easy remedy for deflation. The Bank of Japan had tried the usual elixirs. Overnight money was free in Japan. Two-year loans could be had at 1/10th of 1% interest rate. Plus, the government had put into action so many public works programs that nearly half the country was already under concrete.
But the Bank of Alan Greenspan had a solution. Fed Governor Ben Bernanke proposed “global cooperation” in a November speech. Then, in May of 2003, he went to Japan urging concerted action. The Fed was prepared to sacrifice the solvency of American consumers, he told the Japanese. Tax cuts and low interest rates could still induce them to buy things they didn’t need with money they didn’t have. But Japan had to help hold down U.S. interest rates – by buying up dollars and dollar-denominated assets, notably U.S. Treasury bonds.
What happened next, according to Mr. Duncan:
“In 2003 and the first quarter of 2004, Japan carried out a remarkable experiment in monetary policy – remarkable in the impact it had on the global economy and equally remarkable in that it went almost entirely unnoticed in the financial press. Over those 15 months, monetary authorities in Japan created Â¥35 trillion. To put that into perspective, Â¥35 trillion is approximately 1% of the world’s annual economic output. It is roughly the size of Japan’s annual tax revenue base or nearly as large as the loan book of UFJ, one of Japan’s four largest banks. Â¥35 trillion amounts to the equivalent of $2,500 for every person in Japan and, in fact, would amount to $50 per person if distributed equally among the entire population of the planet. In short, it was money creation on a scale never before attempted during peacetime.”
Why did the Japanese create so much money? Because they needed to buy from their citizens the dollars they had accumulated by selling things to Americans. Had they not done so, their currency would have gone up – making their products less competitive on the U.S. market. Had they not done so, the dollar would have fallen much further against other currencies. Had they not done so, the Japanese would not have had the dollars to buy U.S. Treasury bonds. And had they not bought so many of them U.S. interest rates would have risen…consumers would have had less money to spend…and probably the whole world would have had an economic crisis.
“Intentionally or otherwise,” Duncan continues, “by creating and lending the equivalent of $320 billion to the United States, the Bank of Japan and the Japanese Ministry of Finance counteracted a private sector run on the dollar and, at the same time, financed the U.S. tax cuts that reflated the global economy, all this while holding U.S. long bond yields down near historically low levels.
“In 2004, the global economy grew at the fastest rate in 30 years. Money creation by the Bank of Japan on an unprecedented scale was perhaps the most important factor responsible for that growth. In fact, Â¥35 trillion could have made the difference between global reflation and global deflation. How odd that it went unnoticed.”
And if all the OGWs were to return, what new domestic jobs has Gloria created for them? So her employment figures are a sham. They are dependent on the success of her labor export program, super maids and all that.
Ricelander, thanks for the correction which explains where de Dios (and Magno) are coming from. I now understand de Dios’ ‘last five years’ to include the interval end-2005 to end-2006 where GDP rose by an estimated 5.3% which translates to an increase in per capita GDP (depending on population growth for that year) of between 2 to 3%.
BTW, the 5.95% per capita GDP increase during Erap’s time is very strange since the GDP growth at that year was only 4.4%. That can only happen if the population decreased during that year which sounds impossible.
Economic figures aside, the fact remains that life is hard, even harder than before during this administration. All for what? The printing of 3%GDP increase? For whom?
Assuming the Philippines consistently achieves a per capita increase of GDP of 3% per year, then that would mean that the 40% of the population who are earning 2 dollars per day (the international poverty threshold) can, on average, expect their income to grow to 4 dollars per day in 24 years. Of course, that assumes that the benefits of growth are spread evenly among the rich and the poor. As Jhay asks, to whom are the benefits of growth accruing? Is it acceptable for our society to have an arrangement where millions of our countrymen experience hunger and will continue to do so until such time growth trickles down to them (in around 20 years)? In these matters, it is not enough to think in terms of averages.
Here’s some GDP per capita stats coming from the World Bank. This time, GDP is expressed in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) US Dollars. (According to wikipedia, “Purchasing power parity (PPP) is…the method of using the long-run equilibrium exchange rate of two currencies to equalize the currencies’ purchasing power. It is based on the law of one price, the idea that, in an efficient market, identical goods must have only one price.â€Â)
First column is year, second column is per Capita GDP (in PPP US Dollars), and third column is percentage increase in per capita GDP.
1980 2147.6
1981 2369.9 10.40%
1982 2541.8 7.30%
1983 2625.7 3.30%
1984 2463.7 -6.20%
1985 2296.4 -6.80%
1986 2369.5 3.20%
1987 2477.3 4.50%
1988 2674.2 8.00%
1989 2878.9 7.70%
1990 3010.8 4.60%
1991 3024.3 0.40%
1992 3036.8 0.40%
1993 3100.5 2.10%
1994 3226.3 4.10%
1995 3404.2 5.50%
1996 3587.4 5.40%
1997 3750.5 4.50%
1998 3687.9 -1.70%
1999 3785.6 2.70%
2000 3944.9 4.20%
2001 4015.7 1.80%
2002 4160.8 3.60%
2003 4333.9 4.20%
2004 4560.8 5.20%
2005 4770.2 4.60%
2006 4968.1 4.10%
[Source: econstats.com web site data from World Bank]
From the above data, we can compare the average per capita GDP increase over the terms of the different Philippine Presidents (real and fake): Cory 4.73% (1986 to 1991), FVR 3.67% (1992 to 1997), Erap 1.73% (1998 to 2000), GMA 3.92% (2001 to 2006). FWIW, Cory the housewife still beats Gloria the economist.
Link for the above http://www.econstats.com/weo/C127V011.htm
It so easy for you to just look at the number as it is and without even considering the horrendous destabilazation and harrassment moves from the other has president sufferred. And yet he managed to post that kind of performance. Then put out your conclusion out of that. Pathethic!
good news: vital SC documents unaffected by the blaze
bad news: davide curtains caught fire
—–
new business gossip column at manila standard:
City Douser by victor agustin
(a glass of water as logo)
with all the fireworks during her term…even her hiding under the bed…she managed to post that kind of performance, huh, cvj? yeah, for what it’s worth, the housewife still beats the economist…
In the US, there is an oft-repeated axiom during election time or toward its run-up, and it is that the economy marches to its own drumbeats, independent of and at times in spite of government.
While, all sides, including economists, typically assent to this assumption, the repercussions are something else. When the economy is doing well, it is customary for the sitting administration to claim credit and the public will grant it that.
However, when the economy is bad, then the public and the administration’s critics in turn can and do blame the current administration.
And that’s the way it goes here. The elder Bush learned that the hard way.
rego, I believe this admisntration has every motivation to use (and skew) gov’t statistics to their advantage and deceive the public, lalo na’t parating na ang election.
because they’ve already done it before. and we know they’re capable of rigging elections to get the desired results too.
http://www.politicaljunkie.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-they-tell-us.html
so it is only prudent to look at some of arroyo admin’s statistics with a skeptical eye.
as for the destabilization thing…
erap didn’t get much relief from that too… from the time he inherited FVR’s broken economy in 1998 (mainly because of the Asian financial crisis) to the year Dec 2000, the economy grew from -0.6% in 1998 to 4.4% in 2000 (so the economy even then was headed in the right direction), but he still got “people powered” in 2001.
for all its faults, the erap admin still left behind a 4.4% GDP in 2000 for Arroyo when she took over in Jan. 2001. Buti pa si arroyo. During Arroyo’s first year though, the GDP rate fell to 3.2% in 2001.
didn’t help the younger bush tho…
Many Pinoys still go hungry
Manila Times
The Philippine economy made some impressive gains in 2006, culminating in the early repayment of debt but the benefits have yet to trickle down to ordinary people, many of whom still go hungry.
Analysts say that much of what has been achieved has been done for the benefit of international creditors and the credit-rating agencies, with little progress made on health, education and public infrastructure.
“The economic picture is an illusion,†said Ben Diokno, an economist with the University of the Philippines.
“It’s easy to pay down debt when you are not spending anything and you have record remittances being paid by Filipino overseas workers.â€Â
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/jan/01/yehey/top_stories/20070101top2.html
MB,
if the per capita is based on GDP, it does not include the OFW earnings. It is GNP.
cvj,
at the time of Cory, GDP increased dramatically due to increased production of the newly opened manufacturing and or newly-revived businesses of the “Kamag-anak, Incorporated” and “Civil Society.” During the time of Marcos, they can operate without the fear of take-over or harassment as competitor of the cronies’ businesses.
Cory did not do something with the economy. She was not a hands on President. Her “Kamag-anak” did everything for her.
Rego, Ca T, here’s some information that might make you happy. I found the 1986 to 1999 peso GDP per capita which is also comes from the NCSB.
Per Capita GDP statistics (in constant 1985 prices):
1986 10,622
1987 10,818
1988 11,216
1989 11,638
1990 11,615
1991 11,250
1992 11,003
1993 10,961
1994 11,168
1995 11,416
1996 11,810
1997 12,147
1998 11,814
1999 11,948
If you compare the above series with the one i posted at 4:39pm above, the economist beats the housewife.
Here’s the link http://www.virtual-asia.com/ph/bizpak/statistics/GDP/gdp_20chart.htm
The above figures (4:39pm & 3:07am) also look more consistent with the GDP figures i listed in a comment sometime back:
https://www.quezon.ph/?p=831#comment-10603
mlq3, Call it pre-emptive suspensions. GMA loyalists had tried to pre-empt the elections itself. If they can’t do that, they pre-empt the candidates. GMA is fanatical proponent of Bush’s Pre-emptive strike doctrine.
Given the pattern of brazen power-grabbing anything can still happen. A GMA-lead and US-supported ‘regime change’ that changes the charter to keep GMA in power could still turn out to be the best option for GMA and allies if the upcoming May elections veers out of (their) control.
mlq3,
History repeats itself. The pattern and objectives are clearly established.
1969
Marcos is re-elected as President
(2004 GMA is ‘re-elected’ as President)
1971
Convening of the Constituional Convention.
(2006 Year-round attempt to railroad the charter change.)
Bombing of the LP Proclamation Rally at Plaza Miranda (August 21); Marcos suspends the Writ of Habeas Corpus. In a show of support for the Opposition, the people elect 6 LP Senatorial candidates during the mid-term elections of this year.
(2007 mid-term elections)
1972
Marcos issues Proclamation 1081, placing the country under Martial Law after a staged ambush on then-Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile. Opposition leaders are jailed, especially Sen. Aquino.
(2007)
1973
“Ratification” of new Constitution through “Citizens’ Assemblies”
(2008)
jhay… You are right. GDP can grow 3% or 6% or 9% and the jeepney-driver’s life is just as miserable. You can “understand” this better by analyzing GDP, which is:
GDP = C + I + G + (X – M)
GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports − imports)
(G/government spending includes government expenditures to pay government worker wages/salaries, G does not include social security payments). C is all consumer spending (except new housing) and includes cellphone costs as well as payments for school tuition/fees. The jeepney driver who is forced (by inflation or “tong”) to pay more for gasoline food is just as miserable, but has added to an increase in GDP. The “left-behind” who buys a new TV or refrigerator from remittances from an OFW is happier as C and GDP increases.
C decreases when there are less government workers who receive wages; C increases when government-salaries/wages are increased.
G increases when the government spends more for new airports or more highway-miles. Government expenditures lost through graft and corruption still contributes to G (and to GDP). GDP increases when consumers (are able to) spend more on medicine, but not as much if the medicine is imported (versus produced locally).
C and GDP decreases when a person spends less on cellphone charges and puts the money into a savings account. But the savings-account pesos will be lent by the bank which (should) become Investment in the domestic economy, so I increases.
Any money saved (be it from graft/corruption or legitimate work) that is not invested locally but moved to Australia, USA, Europe does not add to the ‘gross-domestic-production’ summation.
speaking of the economy, i think i’d rather have the drunk again. he humbly entrusted the task of running this country’s economy to reliable personnel like titoy pardo, paeng buenavetura, mar roxas and prof diokno. his standing orders were avoidance of foreign loans, food self-sufficiency and no contracts with sovereign guarantees. beyond that, it was all in the hands good men.
just think about it. if those guys did not do a good job, why would the people of the current administration be interested in grabbing power when they were quick to jump ship at the end of fvr’s term? jdv was a mere candidate by default. no one among them wanted to inherit the mess left by fvr’s pump priming. fact is, the erap economic team acrrued so much credit points, it made running the government desirable again. true enough, when gma assumed power, she cashed-in these big points, enabling her to almost double our national debt.
Actually, CVJ, Im trying to tell you that there is no point of comparing the two president because they belong to different era and situation. You cannot just culled some data like that and render judgement even worst suggesting and concluding that that one president is better than the other. What positive results you can achieve by doing that? Gloria is Gloria and Cory is Cory. The most beneficial the most effective thing that you can do is try to exact learnings from the term of previos president . And try to find out if something can be used to improved the present economy.
Unles you are really that evil that you wanted the economy to collapse just to satisfy your negative feeling towards Gloria….
“Using cvj figures, here goes:
2004-2005 2.879
2003-2004 4.05
2002-2003 2.73
2001-2002 2.897
2000-2001(0.057)
1999-2000 5.95
1998-1999 1.21
1997-1998(2.73)
1996-1997 2.85
1995-1996 3.36
1994-1995 2.302
Take the average from 2001 to 2005 you get 3.1. But that’s missing a lot. Look at her highest. Look at Erap’s best.”
It’s a long way from my first comment but let me continue… first, slight corrections: 2001-2002 shld be 2.397 2000-2001 shld be 0.57 (apologies). With that correction GDP per capita increase from 2001-2005 should be 3.014 not 3.1.
Interestingly from 2001 to 2005, not one figure touched 3% save for 2003-2004 which overshot anomalously to 4.05%. Note what period that was and derive your conclusion.
CVJ, Erap’s 5.95 is anomalous too, in that case.
Others are quite easy: 1997-1998 Asian currency crisis
2000-2001 Erap’s crisis.
rego, but i think what we’ve been learning over the past few years is that the economy is far more independent, or insulated, from what the political situation is, at any given time.
Cat,
“the first time in its recorded economic history, the Philippines has posted a 3% per capita growth for five continuous years.”
ok rego, point taken.
3% growth when oil is $65/barrel and forex is >50. that’s quite a constraint and can still pay debt and increase international reserve. If you put another column average oil price and dollar exchange on the GDP table, one will see the difference between administations.
Growth and resiliency are because of OFW economics. No imported raw materials, no power requirements, no green houses gases. If money is remitted through banking system, OFW earnings is similar to profits of an OPEC member producing 1 million barrel per day.
High demand of Filipino oil and gas engineers going to North America to work design of new oil refineries and oil sands processing will increase remittances 10-15% and expect the dollar exchange to around Php40.
MB,
I know.
Still your statement about the OFW earnings is incorrect since the basis is GDP.From income approach, GDP only includes value of production from within the country.
jm,
He’s an economist and therefore should not ask the question about hunger and the ability of the country to pay debts.
An ordinary person who finds himself burden with high-interest debts and too demanding creditor would seek refinancing.
And that’s exactly what the Philippines is doing right now.
Float bonds in the world market and pay the high interest liabilities incurred in the previous administrations.
You do not have to be an economist to figure that out.
The claim by Alex Magno is precise: “for the first time in its recorded economic history, the Philippines has posted a 3% per capita growth for five continuous years.”
Is Magno claiming:
a) there has been 3% per capita growth, every single year, for the past five years
b) there has been an average of 3% growth on average, over the past five years
and if either a or b, in no other five-year period “in recorded history” for the Philippines, can there be said to have been something similar?
which makes me wonder:
1. when did philippine economic history begin to be recorded?
2. when did per capita economic growth begin to be recorded?
3. and has that growth never exceeded 3% for any arbitrarily-chosen five year chunk?
rego, “It so easy for you to just look at the number as it is and without even considering the horrendous destabilazation and harrassment moves from the other has president sufferred. And yet he managed to post that kind of performance. Then put out your conclusion out of that. Pathethic!”
i beg to differ. cory went through challenges (marcos loyalists, provincial warlords, the left, assassinations of various political figures, military rebels and their coup attempts, etc., etc.) that make the last couple of years look like a walk in the park by comparison. and without as large a life preserver by way of ofw remittances for the national economy, that the country has now (and didn’t have, then).
cvj,
they are the same in the sense that they are the Real GDP as contrasted to Current GDP; the first batch of information used the PPP and the other one used the Current currency value in the base year 1985.
That’s the reason why many question the use of the GDP as a measure of standard of living, moreso across the years and geographic territories.
mlq3, taking the nscb statistics at face value (2001 to 2006), claim b would be accurate although the way Magno phrased it, it sounded more like a. As for recorded history, i don’t have the figures but i have a hunch that gdp per capita growth may have been higher during Quirino and Magsaysay’s time.
One other factor we should consider is rate of population growth. Since GDP per capita increase is computed by dividing GDP growth over Population growth, we also have to consider that our population grew at a slower rate of 2.05% from 2001 to 2005 compared to the previous decades. In the previous decade (1990 to 2000), population grew at 2.31% per year. [Source: NCSB statwach updated 15 December 2006]
Here’s the link http://www.nscb.gov.ph/stats/statwatch.asp
Manolo,
I agree with the learning that you shared about the economy. That is why,I believe the oppsition was wrong to use the paranoia that the economy will collapse if Gloria will stay in power.
On the other subject, I still believe that there is no point in comparing Gloria and Cory terms because the parameters are really not the same. For example how would you quantify the coup in Cory’s term and in Glorias term.
But Im not saying Gloria’s or any president’s economic performance should be criticized. By all means everyone should peruse each president economic policies and point out whats is wrong with it. I think this is more positive in the long run rather than just culling some data and render a haphazard judgement from that numbers alone.
Manolo,
I agree with the learning that you shared about the economy. That is why,I believe the oppsition was wrong to use the paranoia that the economy will collapse if Gloria will stay in power.
On the other subject, I still believe that there is no point in comparing Gloria and Cory terms because the parameters are really not the same. For example how would you quantify the coup in Cory’s term and in Glorias term.
But Im not saying Gloria’s or any president’s economic performance should not be criticized. By all means everyone should peruse each president economic policies and point out whats is wrong with it. I think this is more positive in the long run rather than just culling some data and render a haphazard judgement from that numbers alone.
Rego, during Cory’s term, the effect of the coup can be roughly measured in terms of the slowdown in GDP growth the following year. In 1990, GDP growth slowed to 3.0% from 1989’s 6.2% and 1988’s 6.8%.
JohnM:
“didn’t help the younger bush tho… “
I disagree. The younger Bush got what the elder one couldn’t get, a precious second term.
And now, understandably this lame-duck administration has not visibly demonstrated sufficient motivation to defend the current economic gains, which are a lot better than the first term – in productivity, housing ownership, tradition-shattering indices and employment/unemployment figures, etc.
While in the meantime, the critics have done a better job of dampening all these before the public.
“Growth and resiliency are because of OFW economics. No imported raw materials, no power requirements, no green houses gases. If money is remitted through banking system, OFW earnings is similar to profits of an OPEC member producing 1 million barrel per day.â€Â
I thought the above quote from a commenter gave a good look at OFW remittances. Let me offer some additional comments.
While indeed OFW remittances are considered part of GNP, it is also easy to see that there technically is no product or production involved here. I believe it was for this reason that when I was still working in the local banking industry there, these remittances were described and categorized by CB authorities as “foreign exchange invisibles†because they were not covered with documentation (such as drafts and L/Cs) to show the transaction trails. Invisibles we assumed because the country collectively really did nothing concrete to bring about the inward remittances. Now, it is a huge thing, comprising at times to 10% of the total.
Re its analogy to oil production, while similar may also be different. Extracting oil from the ground and preparing it for transport requires human and financial inputs that become part of the product’s costs. But OFW remittances do not approximate such inputs in a similar manner. But true that a good block of those human resources now responsible for the remittances were born, raised and educated by the home country, for which both local human and financial resources were also expended.
BTW, some reports suggest that only about 85% or so of inward remittances go through the local financial systems and thus counted. And add to that, the unaccounted economic values of millions of balikbayan boxes sent annually.
I personally witnessed an old FilAm couple transact in a local bank here. They were scheduled for a trip back and wanted their withdrawal of about $30,000 to be given to them in cash of $100 denomination. When nosy me asked about the dangers, I was dismissed with the reply that they had done it before.
And didn’t a Gen. Garcia’s wife and sons do a similar thing, only in reverse?
Lest some would miss what I am trying to draw attention to: the average per capita GDP of 3.014% was made possible by the figure 4.05% for 2003-2004 for the rest of the figures are way below 3%. What could have made the overshooting that year if not the elections? What I’m saying is that the growth rate Magno was being ecstatic about was mainly due to Gloria’s election spending spree to win the elections in 2004.