Govt bracing for deep downturn, Aquino says

Opposition criticizes the President for ‘amateurish and clumsy’ leadership, saying high ratings cannot feed the poor

THE Philippines is preparing for a deep global economic downturn next year following an Asian Development Bank warning it could happen, President Benigno Aquino III said Wednesday.

“We are preparing as best we can,” Mr. Aquino said.

“Of course, we will do accelerated but prudent domestic spending with attendant safeguards. We will do everything we can. We will improve on so many sectors, but at the end of the day, the reality is it [economic slowdown] is a global phenomenon.”

The ADB has cut its growth forecast for the Philippines’ gross domestic product to 3.7 percent this year from 4.7 percent earlier, and to 4.8 percent in 2012 from its previous estimate of 5.1 percent as a result of the global economic downturn.

The bank said Philippine growth could slow further to 4.2 percent if Europe’s debt woes worsened and the United States’ economic problems deepened.

Mr. Aquino, who has come under fire for his administration’s weak public spending in the first nine months, said the government will disburse the funds from its 2012 budget earlier next year.

Palace officials are pinning their hopes on a P72-billion stimulus package approved in October to boost the fourth quarter gross domestic product.

Economic growth under the Aquino administration slowed to 3.2 percent in the July-September quarter. That put the growth for the first nine months at 3.6 percent, “quite a distance” even from the lower end of the whole year target of 4.5 percent, the National Statistical Coordination Board said.

In the House, opposition lawmakers criticized Mr. Aquino for his “amateurish and clumsy” leadership, saying he failed to use his high approval ratings in the surveys to improve the economy.

“You cannot put trust ratings on the dining table,” Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay said.

“Trust ratings cannot satisfy the hunger of Juan dela Cruz.”

Magsaysay said the President had failed to reduce poverty, hunger, unemployment and commodity prices or improve investments.

Minority Leader Edcel Lagman took the President to task for his “dismal performance” to date as chief executive: “from failing to spend on essential government projects and dragging down economic growth as a result, to inciting hostility and investor lawsuits against us abroad as a result of his errant and impolitic brand of diplomacy, to neglecting peace and order and compromising national security because he does not seem to understand who are the country’s real friends and enemies.”

Deputy Minority Leader Danilo Suarez dismissed Mr. Aquino’s attempt to blame the economic slowdown on the “judicial uncertainty” that he said was brought about by the Supreme Court.

“When will all this finger-pointing end? When will you take responsibility and accountability for your own actions, Mr. President?” Suarez said.

Last week, President Aquino said the Philippines was “lucky” despite three consecutive quarters of decline because the economy remained stable and investors continued to put their money in the country.

He blamed the economic slowdown on the problems brought on by external events such as the tsunami in Japan, the instability in the Middle East, and the European debt crisis.

But the figures released by the National Statistical Coordination Board showed the country lagged behind Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, countries that also had to go through the same challenges. –Joyce Pangco Pañares and Maricel Cruz, Manila Standard Today