Puno calls on government to bare its economic program

ILOILO CITY – With the peso skidding to an alarming P50:$1 level, former Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman Ricardo Puno Jr. called on the government yesterday to bare to the masa its economic plan geared to help the economy hurdle the ill effects of the global growth slowdown.

Puno noted that although it has been close to three months since the new administration took over, it has yet to present to the people its blueprint for economic growth and a comprehensive program to make their lives better.

He said a new growth plan that will address pressing economic concerns has become even more imperative especially now that the country is starting to feel the adverse effects of the economic downturn in the United States, its largest trading partner and export market.

"The people, I am certain, would want to know what the government has in store for them in terms of making their lives a little better, and it intends to cushion the impact of the weakening of the US economy and the global economic slowdown," Puno, a leading Laban senatorial candidate, said.

The peso breached the P50:$1 level at the close of Wednesday's trading, following the path of other Asian currencies, which slid further due to a weak Thai baht and Japanese yen.

The US economic slowdown has also started to take its tool on the economy, with exports for February dropping by 3.3 percent to $2.805 billion, from $2.902 billion during the same period last year.

Puno said these developments show that the Philippine economy, amid an emerging era of global free trade, is greatly affected by economic movements abroad, contrary to earlier claims by some quarters that it was battered in the past due to political upheavals in the country.

He said the peso's movement these past few days has shown that it is largely dependent on regional and global trends and not on local political developments.