JDV sees credit upgrade for RP this year

The future looks bright but Filipinos don’t have to wear shades.

Speaker Jose de Venecia said Friday that Philippine reserves have hit a record high $17.4 billion, a development that boosts the prospects of a likely credit rating upgrade for the country and a continuous improvement in the peso-dollar exchange rate in the first quarter of the year.

De Venecia said in a press statement that the Philippine economic buildup may be bolstered further by the anticipated shift to a parliamentary system of government and a unicameral legislature beginning in the second half of 2007.

"This shift will further strengthen the economic and political reforms that are already in place," he said in a statement.

De Venecia had earlier met in Manila with top officials of Moody’s, a credit rating agency, and Merrill Lynch, an international investment firm, to brief them on the wide range of economic and political reforms already undertaken by the government.

Merrill Lynch officials told De Venecia and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Gov. Amando Tetangco that they will expand their purchases of Philippine bonds and equities. "Their new battlecry in Asia is to buy Philippine bonds and equities," De Venecia said.

Earlier, House committee on foreign affairs chairman Cebu Rep. Antonio Cuenco and trade and industry panel chairman Quirino Rep. Junie Cua hailed De Venecia’s "pioneering effort in conceiving and implementing the successful dollar-remittance program" in 1968.

Cumulatively, De Venecia’s brainchild has brought the country more than $100 billion over three decades, for which he received the BSP award in July last year.

The formal dollar remittance program reached $10.7 billion in 2005, its highest level ever, but informal remittances from eight million overseas Filipinos based in Europe, the United States and North America, the Middle East, Australia and Southeast Asia brought the total to $12.3 billion by yearend, Cuenco and Cua said.

This remittance program has been instrumental in shoring up and boosting the economy, they added as they expressed optimism over Tetangco’s report that the country’s dollar reserves are at a historic high.

De Venecia said the proposed shift from the presidential to the parliamentary system of government and the merging of both chambers of Congress into a unicameral legislature will effectively dismantle the gridlock that has characterized the presidential system and usher the country into an era of more efficient and effective governance.

The presidential consultative commission (con-com) tasked by President Arroyo to draft proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution completed its task last month. Its proposals include a shift to a parliamentary system of government and the lifting of economic restrictions to propel national development.

The con-com’s proposed amendments have been transmitted by Mrs. Arroyo to Congress for consideration.

The House of Representatives approved last November a concurrent resolution seeking to convert both chambers of Congress into a constituent assembly to amend the political and economic provisions of the Constitution.

De Venecia said the country’s major political parties are pushing for Charter amendments and an immediate shift to the parliamentary system of government. The political parties mentioned by De Venecia include the ruling Lakas-CMD, Nationalist People’s Coalition, the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino and the Liberal Party.