‘3.3% GDP growth nothing to crow about’

Opposition Senators Edgardo Angara and Tessie Aquino-Oreta said yesterday that the reported 3.3-percent growth of the country’s gross domestic product for the second quarter was nothing to crow about.

Angara, president of the Labang ng Demokratikong Pilipino, said that the reported growth was not based on solid and sustainable economic fundamentals and the "over-enthusiasm" of the Arroyo administration should be reined in.

He contended that the 3.3-percent growth rate was spurred by personal consumption, a one-time contribution to the GDP.

"Since it was not investment-driven, the reported growth rate cannot be considered sustainable," Angara added.

He argued that the "higher than expected growth" has not translated into real economic gains at ground level.

"People cannot feel it. Roughly 40 percent of Filipinos are mired in absolute poverty," Angara said.

Oreta, meanwhile, expressed suspicions that Malacañang’s economic managers "window-dressed" the economy with rosy figures "aimed at generating misplaced optimism on the country’s chances of weathering the current global economic slump."

Oreta said that Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho and NEDA Secretary Dante Canlas are painting a rosy picture of the economy that does not jibe with economic realities here and abroad.

"They must be in wonderland," she said of Camacho and Canlas.

She warned that the rosy projection of the two could only generate "false hopes instead of making the people think hard of how they could get out of the economic rut."

She cited studies by economic analysts showing that the global economic downturn triggered by the near-recession in the United States and Japan will pull down economic growth of the Philippines.

"With two of the country’s largest export markets expected to post negative to less than two-percent growth this year, forecasts for the Philippine economy remain gloomy," she said, quoting the economic analysts. – Efren Danao