GMA warns of danger signs in economy

LUBAO, Pampanga ,Philippines – Former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo slammed yesterday the Aquino administration and warned of “danger signs” in the country’s economy because of what she claimed was a lack of leadership in government.

She said her hard-fought gains in the Philippine economy are being eroded by President Aquino’s lack of leadership and questionable economic policies.

The former leader aired the warning as the President is set to mark his first year in office with his favorable ratings slowly whittling away.

Arroyo said she was able to turn over to the Aquino administration a “new Philippines” with a sustainable growth rate that ended the country’s boom-bust economic cycle.

She said there were 10 years of uninterrupted growth even during the global recession with at 7.9 percent growth rate at its highest. She added that she stepped down with the country having automated elections, “which is the beginning of political reforms.”

“So today, a year later, the economy is still benefiting from that sustainable growth (set in place by previous administrations) but this is not to say that there are no danger signs—there are danger signs,” Arroyo told reporters in the Prado Farm here.

The former president said she turned over a very strong economy to the new administration even at the time there was a global crisis.

“Now when the rest of Asia is recovering, our economy is decelerating, so that’s the problem,” she said, citing a columnist’s comment that characterized the Aquino administration as “nobody home.”

Arroyo said inflation during her administration was the lowest “but now it’s going up.” The same is the case for self-rated poverty, she said.

The former leader also emphasized that even the Philippine scores on corruption is also going up while figures from the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) showed that foreign investments are down by half.

“Those were the danger signs so that’s why there is a need to decide what programs should be continued and what programs should be dropped, but work has to be done,” she said.

She stressed the gains her administration were built on the effort of previous leaders “because every administration should build on previous successes, continue programs that work.”

“Of course you may drop programs that do not work but as I said I left an economy that did no longer have the boom and bust cycle of the past because I was really focused on sustainability, that’s why I started my reforms with fiscal sustainability,” Arroyo said.

“I have to raise taxes even it’s unpopular and that doomed me to unpopularity already for the rest of my term. But I had to do that because we needed funds for health education job creation infrastructure and all the things that we need for sustainable growth,” she said.

Palace: Look who’s talking

But Arroyo’s commentaries did not sit well with Malacañang and immediately hit back.

“We find it unsurprising that Rep. Arroyo has chosen to try to make political hay when the sun isn’t shining,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a statement, after the press conference of the ex-president.

Valte said the former leader has “found time to try to obtain media mileage at a time that calls for the attention of media, the public, and the government on the current weather disturbance despite her glaring absence from proceedings inquiring into her culpability and accountability as president.”

“Rep. Arroyo essentially wants to be treated as a former president at a time when no one has denied her the courtesies due her formerly being chief executive,” the Palace undersecretary added.

Valte said Arroyo seems to confuse official courtesy with the hallmark of her stay in power, which is impunity. She said the Palace believes that her press conference was merely a ploy to deflect attention from her refusing to submit to proper procedures for ascertaining accountability.

“She may well be unused to the idea of an independent Ombudsman in the near future; and furthermore, upset that the time of her being above the rules and beyond accountability is finally over,” she said. – Delon Porcalla, Paolo Romero (The Philippine Star)