{"id":10070,"date":"2020-08-06T16:36:40","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T08:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/?p=10070"},"modified":"2020-08-06T16:57:35","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T08:57:35","slug":"duterte-govt-to-blame-for-worst-economic-collapse-in-ph-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/duterte-govt-to-blame-for-worst-economic-collapse-in-ph-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte gov’t to blame for worst economic collapse in PH history"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Duterte administration is to blame for the worst economic\ncollapse in the country’s recorded history. Growth rate falling to -16.5% in the second\nquarter from 5.4% in the same period last year is an unprecedented 21.9\npercentage point drop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the countries in Southeast Asia recorded their first cases of\nCOVID-19 within weeks of each other around the end of January. Six months\nlater, the Duterte government\u2019s incompetent response has made us not just the sickest country but also\nthe weakest economy in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country\u2019s second quarter performance\nis the worst of the major economies of ASEAN: Singapore (-12.6%), Indonesia\n(-5.3%), Vietnam (0.4%). Thailand and Malaysia haven\u2019t released their official\nestimates yet but these are projected to be around -10% to -13% by analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic\u2019s impact is much worse than it should be because of\nthe Duterte administration’s slow, poor and inadequate pandemic response. The\neconomy will falter as the virus continues to spread. This is aggravated by the Philippines\nhaving the smallest<\/a> COVID-19 response in the region to\ndate, as monitored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The indifferent response of the\neconomic managers to the recently released data showing the deepest recession\nin the country\u2019s history is going to make things worse. The government refuses to give any more financial assistance to\npoor households. Instead they keep on harping about creditworthiness and their\never more irrelevant Build, Build, Build infrastructure offensive. The economic\nmanagers repeated today that they have a recovery plan but have yet to share\nthis publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it is, the economic managers are\nonly willing to support a Php140 billion Bayanihan<\/em> 2 package which is\nbarely 0.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Knowing how stingy this amount\nis, they even deceitfully bloat this by claiming Php40 billion in corporate tax\nbreaks under the proposed Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) 2\naka Corporate\nRecovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises\n(CREATE) Act as a stimulus measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tens of millions of poor Filipinos are suffering and will keep on\nsuffering from the administration’s criminal neglect. IBON estimates 14 million\nunemployed Filipinos in April 2020, including discouraged workers who did not\nbother looking for work. Adding the underemployed or those with jobs but not at\nwork could bring the number of Filipinos that are jobless and with lower\nincomes to as much as 27 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) already recently\nreported 554,966 overseas Filipino workers seeking\nassistance. This will increase as the global recession unfolds further. The\nDOLE also continues to report closures and retrenchments even after the easing\nof lockdowns in June over two months ago. As it is, over three million workers\nin 107,152 companies have already been affected by flexible\nwork arrangements, possibly lower pay and closures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the rate we\u2019re going and with such a tepid government response, it may take the economy two years or more to even just get back to where it was before the pandemic. That was not even a good place to begin with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way out from recession is straightforward: contain the virus with rational testing, tracing and isolation of cases instead of desperate lockdowns; support health frontliners and increase hospital capacity; give financial assistance to improve household welfare and boost aggregate demand; and support Filipino MSMEs with cheap credit and enterprise support. IBON initially estimates a Php1.5 trillion recovery and reform package worth 7.7% of GDP is needed. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STATEMENT<\/p>\n

The Duterte administration is to blame for the worst economic collapse in the country’s recorded history. Growth rate falling to -16.5% in the second quarter from 5.4% in the same period last year is an unprecedented 21.9 percentage point drop. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,961],"tags":[2218,347,2340,2265,363,1072,116,2339],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10070"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10070"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10075,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10070\/revisions\/10075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}