This is a re-posted opinion piece.
There are danger signals coming out from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III declared last week his administration’s policy that the government would rather underspend and put on hold all projects entered into by his immediate predecessor than waste taxpayers’ money to corruption or poor planning.
“They say underspending weighs down the economy. But the truth is if there’s irregularity, do funds go to the economy or to the pockets of a few?” P-Noy was quoted as saying in Tagalog. “I think it’s better to delay a project and have it thoroughly checked to ensure it benefits the country,” he went on to say.
The Chief Executive reportedly stated this rather disturbing underspending option in a meeting with People Power volunteers at Malacañang Palace last week. Surrounded by the “yellow” People Power clique, P-Noy may have uttered his underspending choice obviously without the benefit of any serious policy deliberations with his entire Cabinet or at least with his economic advisers.
In that same gathering, the President also reportedly took the opportunity to defend Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Rogelio Singson’s move to review government projects drawn up during the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Certainly, there is nothing to stop the DPWH Secretary and other Aquino Cabinet members for that matter, to suspend and review contracts entered into by their respective predecessors, especially government projects that seemed to be suspicious for them.
But such suspension of projects should not go on without any specific timeframe. Either they proceed with these projects or just scrap them and face the consequence of legal actions. If these projects are found disadvantageous to the government or tainted with any irregularity, there is no reason to further delay their immediate scrapping or have them amended or put up for rebidding.
The criticisms against the DPWH Secretary in particular bring to mind a similar predicament of former DPWH Secretary Vicente “Ting” Jayme who served during the administration of P-Noy’s late mother, former President Corazon Aquino. Like Singson, Jayme is a deeply religious person and a devout Catholic. In his mission to cleanse the DPWH of graft and corruption, roads and other major infrastructure projects funded by the World Bank and other major financial institutions were not moving at all. So much so that Mrs. Aquino reluctantly replaced Jayme as DPWH Secretary to get these projects off the ground.
She later appointed her Cabinet Secretary Jose “Ping” de Jesus to fast-track infrastructure projects in the last two years of her administration so she could leave with some concrete accomplishments at the end of her term. Thanks to Ping, flyovers were put up on Roxas Boulevard before Mrs. Aquino stepped down in June 1992.
The same thing happened at the Energy Department when Mrs. Aquino and her Cabinet decided to mothball the Bataan nuclear power plant that was tainted with kickbacks during the Marcos regime. But the sad thing was no new baseload power project was put on-stream. This resulted in a massive power supply shortage in our country as we had more than 10 hours of daily blackouts.
Early on his administration last year, P-Noy launched his Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program as a means of addressing the country’s lack of critical infrastructure, which has been hit by delays due to the need for further project reviews. Since its launching last year, not one project has even started. Last week, the Palace confirmed that PPP executive director Philamer Torio resigned purportedly to pursue further studies abroad. But the real story is Torio reportedly called it quits due to policy differences. With whom, we don’t know.
The presidential declaration of the underspending option triggered foreboding troubles that we could not just ignore or merely shrug off as one of those things he said off the top of his head. As an economics graduate from Ateneo de Manila, P-Noy’s statement smacked of lack of understanding of how the economy works in the real world.
P-Noy just gave his administration’s critics new weapons to hit him with. One year and almost three months in office, P-Noy’s latest public pronouncements of his policy directions in governance and economy only give credence to criticisms that the country is being run like a “student council.”
Hence, it’s no wonder that it’s not only the popularity rating of P-Noy that has begun to slide down but the Philippine economy as well. P-Noy’s moral compass in running the economy needs some quick calibration before it’s too late.
The country’s gross domestic product (GDP), an indicator of economic growth, for the second quarter of this year slipped to 3.4 percent from 4.9 percent for the first quarter.
The second quarter GDP this year though terribly paled in comparison with the GDP of 8.9 percent posted for the same quarter last year. But remember, this was the period of the May 2010 presidential and national elections. So the growth of 8.9 percent was largely fueled by election spending.
Still, however, there is no argument that the country attained its highest economic growth during the Arroyo administration despite the ensuing global economic crisis triggered by the financial meltdown in the US, the world’s biggest economy.
The Philippine economy posted last year an average of 7.6 percent GDP growth on annual basis, the highest ever recorded economic growth in 30 years. It capped the 34 consecutive quarters of economic growth during the nine years of the Arroyo administration.
P-Noy inherited this economic momentum from the previous administration, a fact that could never be denied. When P-Noy took over the reins of the government, the GDP posted growth rates of 6.5 percent and 7.1 percent for the third and fourth quarters, respectively, last year.
Holding back government spending has now showed its dire consequences to the economy with the GDP growth slowing down this year. P-Noy’s bid of moralizing the economy dubbed as “Aquinomics” of “sharing growth” may actually reduce further the share of each Filipino since not much is moving at all in his “Tuwid na Daan.”
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By: Marichu A. Villanueva
Source: The Philippine Star,
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