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News
May 31, 2010
Palace dares Aquino to sustain economic
growth
PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER
Headlines / Nation / May 31, 2010
http://www.google.com.ph/search?rlz=1C1RNNN_
enPH348PH374&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=inquirer%2Bmay+31%2Bbriones
MANILA, Philippines—The next administration
will have no one to blame but itself should
the country’s economic growth sputter after
growing 7.3 percent during the first quarter
of the year, Malacañang said Sunday.
“The wind is at their back. The Arroyo
administration has given them momentum. They
shouldn’t waste this,” said Gary Olivar,
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s deputy
spokesperson.
Olivar said that if the economic growth
slowed down—despite the momentum given to
the next administration—it would be held
accountable.
At
the weekly Malacañang media forum on Radyo
ng Bayan, he challenged presumptive
president-elect Benigno Aquino III to focus
on sustaining the growth the Palace credited
to Ms Arroyo’s economic policies.
Aquino, along with other lawmakers and
militant groups, downplayed the economic
growth, saying it was but the result of the
huge spending during the election campaign.
“If Senator Aquino thinks our economic
growth only came from campaign spending, all
I can say is this, ‘That’s a lot of
tarpaulins, Senator,’” Olivar said
sarcastically.
He
said that so many campaign paraphernalia
should have been produced to affect the
manufacturing sector, which registered a
20-percent growth.
“We’d mentioned that campaign spending in
the recent elections would have less effect
than in the previous elections because ways
of campaigning were now more modern,” Olivar
said.
Officials to explain growth
He
said details of the economic
growth—particularly the supposedly minimal
effect of campaign spending—would be made
public on Wednesday in a Malacañang press
conference.
Tapped to do the explaining were officials
from the National Economic and Development
Authority, National Statistics Office (NSO),
and the National Statistical Coordination
Board.
Olivar said Aquino should give Ms Arroyo,
the senator’s economics professor at Ateneo
de Manila University, some credit for the
economic growth.
“These are the numbers,” he said. “The
problem is he’s shooting from the hip again.
He doesn’t set his target. He just shoots
and shoots. I don’t think this (approach) is
proper because he will now become the
president of our country,” he said.
Olivar added: “He’s no longer a candidate.
He’s now a president-in-waiting.”
He
said Aquino should “appreciate” Ms Arroyo’s
efforts, noting that “he will see in due
course the burdens of the presidency.”
“But, of course, we continue to wish him the
best and we appeal to all to give him their
full support,” he said.
No poverty reduction
Former National Treasurer Leonor Briones
agreed that the positive predictions of
economic growth for 2010 were premised on
the holding of successful elections, which
had been welcomed by international and local
business communities.
The Philippine experience, however, shows
that economic growth has not resulted in
poverty reduction because there are more
poor people now than there were 10 years
ago, Briones said at the ninth UCCP
Quadrennial General Assembly in Dumaguete
City in Negros Oriental on Thursday.
She presented government figures showing
that the country’s 20 poorest provinces come
mostly from the Visayas and Mindanao, while
the country’s richest provinces are in
Luzon.
Briones noted that the underemployment rate
had been going up. NSO data showed that in
January 2010, underemployment rose to 19.7
percent from 18.2 percent in January 2009.
“When the government says that the economy
is growing, you have to ask where the growth
is coming from, who is benefiting from the
growth,” she said.
Briones is the lead convenor of Social Watch
Philippines, a nongovernment organization
monitoring government programs aimed at
meeting targets of the Millennium
Development Goals.
Poor revenue collection
Briones also noted that deficit spending had
increased from P12.4 billion in 2007 and
P67.1 billion in 2008 to P298.5 billion in
2009.
The situation was aggravated by the
government’s poor revenue collection, she
said.
The figures for 2009 showed P115.9 billion
in uncollected revenues from tax and non-tax
sources.
Briones said the Philippines would have to
spend P207.8 billion for recovery and
reconstruction in the next three years.
“The challenge for the elected officials
would be if they are willing to spend a big
part of the budget for education, health and
agriculture,” she said.
Cut wastage
Briones called on the new administration to
reduce the debt burden by improving revenue
generation, plugging leakages in tax
administration and cutting of wastage from
corruption and frivolous spending of
discretionary funds.
“This year, we are spending P5 billion to 10
billion to give money to the poor but that
is not the solution; the solution is to give
the poor people jobs. Relevant education and
a healthy population are the key to
addressing poverty,” Briones said.
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