* This is my article in BusinessWorld on April 8, 2019.
The good news in Philippine inflation is that the numbers
are declining in the past three months of 2019. The bad news is that even such
“low inflation” is actually the highest in East Asia, among the more mature
economies with updated numbers. Dutertenomics should be ashamed of this.
And even in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)
quarterly Business Confidence Survey, the trend is a continuing decline from
46.8 in 2015 to 34.0 in 2018. Again, Dutertenomics should be ashamed of this
continuing erosion of business confidence in the country (see table).
Meanwhile, we see President Duterte doing U-turns in
major policies. First, his centerpiece program drug war, the kill-kill-kill
policy, has resulted in some 25,000 murders but recently he admitted that he
cannot control illegal drugs in his term.
Second, the shift from integrated PPP to hybrid PPP just
to favor China contractors and financing — the need for more taxes to pay for
more loans when many infrastructure projects can be financed entirely by
private contractors under integrated PPP. Among the casualties of this shift is
the delayed construction of Kaliwa Dam and additional 600 million liters per
day for Metro Manila.
Third, his avowed fight against corruption is
contradicted by the release from jail of two former senators linked to plunder,
Sen. Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada, who are each seeking a fresh term under
the Hugpong/Duterte slate.
And fourth, his economic team’s avowed promise of
economic stability is contradicted by deterioration in macro fundamentals. GDP
growth is decelerating, 6.9% in 2016, 6.7% in 2017, and 6.3% in 2018. Inflation
rate worsened ever since TRAIN law was implemented in 2018 with its high
oil-coal tax hikes among other tax hikes, and business confidence index
continues to decline.
The Duterte government’s economic management is poor
while its political bragging is high. It has a chance to reverse this by at
least targeting a 1-2% inflation rate this midterm election year via suspension
of oil tax hikes part 2, or a tax cut somewhere. Instead, it continued its
economic and political arrogance by expanding the spend-spend-spend,
tax-tax-tax, borrow-borrow-borrow mantra.
I hope that voters will take note of these and punish the
Duterte senatorial lineup, as well as their congressional and local government
candidates.
Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Minimal
Government Thinkers.
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See also:
BWorld 309, MORE local government responsibility, April 05, 2019
BWorld 310, MORE stable electricity and competition, April 07, 2019
BWorld 311, MORE ride-hailing competition, April 08, 2019
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