Freshman year

There is really nothing much to expect in the first year of a presidency. At best, one can get an inkling of the quality of leadership we will have for the remaining five years. And given the gravity of our problems, does he have what it takes to move the needle rather than merely watching events transpire?

As in any new administration, there will be plus and minuses. Apologists of this administration will go to great lengths to claim accomplishments when all that has happened was an inspired speech or a big claim, an aspiration ( e.g. P20/kg rice), in a press release. But we take speeches and press releases as if the leadership had really done something to address a need or even a crisis.

I was going through a powerpoint presentation shared by Rep. Joey Salceda with the Viber group of the Tuesday Club. Rep. Joey did some pretty fancy acrobatics in claiming accomplishments for the administration for which credit resides elsewhere.

For example, Rep. Joey credits the President for “protecting the peso from collapse.” Excuse me… if anyone deserves credit here, it is former BSP Governor Philip Medalla, the Monetary Board, and the very competent deputy governors of the BSP who did their work well.

In fact, the peso dipped after the President was elected due to his family’s history.

GDP growth? Here is the correct analysis by a retired investment banker writing the Heneral Lunacy blog:

“Compared to the previous year, our 2022 GDP grew by 7.6 percent, which is great, but partly due to the “base effect” i.e. our 2021 economy was so bad because of the pandemic anything benchmarked to it will look good.

“More telling are the quarter-on-quarter numbers: A reputable think tank reports that on this basis, the economy slowed down from growth of three percent in Q3 2022 to two percent in the succeeding quarter to one percent in Q1 this year i.e. the economy is still moving forward, but the pace is decelerating.”

Rep. Joey also credits the President for bringing down inflation. Really?

Sure, the inflation rate is going down, no thanks to the President who failed multiple chances of arresting the high food inflation rate that plagued us for much of last year. Even Rep. Joey concedes as much when, in a later slide, he noted that there is a “need to reconcile policies on trade in sugar and key vegetables, such as onion, since deficiencies in such areas appear structural.”

In layman’s terms, the President just watched helplessly as sugar and onion prices zoomed sky high at the retail level. The President even let go of his senior agriculture secretary who wanted to import 300,000 MT of sugar because the sugar lobby protested. Now they are importing 450,000 MT, which proves his former deputy was right. Still, nothing happened at the retail level as sugar stayed at P100/kilo up to P138/kilo. The sugar traders are being coddled… earning billions simply because they have connections.

As for onions, Speaker Martin Romualdez is so proud of the findings of a House investigation on the existence of an onion cartel that brought the retail price to a ridiculous P750/kilo at one point. But did anyone get charged in court for economic sabotage?

Those two examples show the President did nothing significant to bring down food inflation, the prime contributor to our high inflation rate. On the contrary, he exacerbated it with his favored treatment of the sugar cartel and he did nothing on the onions. Then there are also problems with the prices of eggs, chicken, pork, and beef.

Inflation started to go down not because we have a decisive President who is unafraid of the cartels that keep food prices high. Inflation started to go down because the price of petroleum and some food products we import have started to go down in the world market.

Tourism recovered not because of anything this administration has done yet, but because of revenge tourism which is a worldwide trend. The real test of the administration’s ability to promote tourism will start this year, but it started badly with a botched launch of its new slogan and campaign.

Other accomplishments Rep. Joey cited involved creation of new offices and promulgation of new executive orders, etc., which are probably good steps in the right direction, but are not accomplishments by themselves.

But it seems even Chat GPT was fooled by the press releases. When I asked it to tell me what it thought about the President’s first year, it wrote back:

“In his first year, President Marcos implemented several policies aimed at boosting the Philippine economy. He introduced tax reforms and streamlined bureaucratic processes to attract foreign direct investment. These measures resulted in a modest increase in GDP growth and a reduction in unemployment rates, signaling positive economic progress…”

Really, Chat GPT? Tell me more about his tax reforms? How did he streamline bureaucratic processes to attract foreign direct investments? It is too early for anything good to happen because of mere pronouncements.

Tax reforms being implemented now are those passed by Congress during Duterte’s watch, thanks to his finance secretary Sonny Dominguez and Rep. Joey working together.

Still, the President started on the right foot with the appointment of respected economic managers to his Cabinet. He also appointed a proven international central banker as BSP Governor to succeed Philip Medalla. It is only hoped that these economic managers will not sell their souls to political expediency the way most of his father’s technocratic economic managers did. The Maharlika discussion gives little reason to hope.

Another feather on the President’s cap is the new agrarian emancipation law, which will hopefully help give farmers the relief long sought for. If land consolidation also happens quickly, then farm modernization can take place and improve farm productivity.

Overall, the President’s first year gets a passing rate, but only because he has raised enough hope that he will deliver more in the coming years to lift our people out of poverty and give us a vision for a better future. We still need to see things start to happen.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco