IBON executive\ndirector Sonny Africa said that the recent credit rating upgrade is\nnot a sign of economic progress and that Malaca\u00f1ang\u2019s enthusiasm\nis greatly unwarranted. The credit rating upgrade is most of all an\nassessment of the government\u2019s ability to repay debt and not of\neconomic development. There would be no such upgrade if development\nwere a concern, he said, because the economic conditions of the\npeople are getting worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Big Three\ncredit-rating agency Standard & Poor\u2019s recently gave the\nPhilippines a BBB+ credit rating upgrade, which is only one step away\nfrom a single \u201cA\u201d grade. Palace spokesperson Salvador Panelo\nreacted by praising the economic team for \u201ca splendid job in\nputting the economic house in order and spearheading bold economic\nreforms [and] bolstering the domestic economy\u201d. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Palace’s\nenthusiasm is however unwarranted, Africa said, because the economy\ncannot be said to be doing well. The country has been getting credit\nupgrades for over a decade since March 2009 and has been receiving\ninvestment upgrades for over six years since March 2013, yet the\neconomy cannot be said to be in good shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If anything, he\npointed out, the Duterte watch so far is seeing the worst job\ncreation in nine administrations and six decades. \u201cThis looks to\nget even worse after four straight quarters now of falling employment\ncreation including two quarters of job losses,\u201d said Africa. \u201cAs\nit is, the PSA’s latest January 2019 labor force survey shows 387,000\nless employed Filipinos now than in the same period last year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The upgrade is then\nnot from any economic progress, Africa pointed out, but largely on\nthe back of the regressive TRAIN law, which since last year has\ndisproportionately burdened the majority poorest Filipinos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Africa stressed that\nthe importance of the upgrade in stimulating capital inflows\nshouldn’t be exaggerated as indicating economic progress either\nalready in place or yet to come. The economy is clearly not\nprogressing because jobs are being lost rather than created, he said.\nThis is so because the agricultural and industrial foundations the\neconomy so desperately needs are being neglected for short-term\nBuild, Build, Build infrastructure illusions, Africa explained. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Africa went on to\nsay that more capital flows will also not mean progress if much of\nthis will just go to financial and speculative sectors rather than\nthe real economy. \u201cThe supposed easier availability of capital from\nabroad will be really only be meaningful if the country had solid\nindustrial policy and an agricultural development plan in place,\nwhich unfortunately it does not,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON executive director Sonny Africa said that the recent credit rating upgrade is not a sign of economic progress and that Malaca\u00f1ang\u2019s enthusiasm is greatly unwarranted. The credit rating upgrade is most of all an assessment of the government\u2019s ability to repay debt and not of economic development. There would be no such upgrade if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","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":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[14],"tags":[170,2012,347,2014,2013,116,159],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8002"}],"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=8002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8004,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8002\/revisions\/8004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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