Good news, bad news

First the good news.

1. The Philippines will be the fastest growing ASEAN country this year with a 5.6 percent GDP growth, nosing out Cambodia 5.5; Indonesia 5; Vietnam 4.7; Malaysia 3.9 and Thailand 3.4 percent. In 2024, among the ASEAN Big 5 (without Singapore), the Philippines is again the GDP growth leader, 5.8 percent, ahead of Vietnam 5.5; Indonesia 4.9; Malaysia 4.3 and Thailand 3.5 percent.

2. The billions of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF or petty cash for inane expenditures like F&B, trips, personal effects and dole outs to supporters) of civilian top officials (except the President’s) will be removed.

The money will instead go to people whose main work is security or surveillance, like the AFP, PNP, Coast Guard and the Department of Justice (NBI).

The hundreds of millions that the former Davao mayor, how VP, Sara Duterte used to spend with gay abandon need not be accounted for, because she will have no more CIF (that’s the ambition as of this writing).

The brouhaha over her astronomical CIF plus statements asserting her entitlements to them (she is both VP and VIP so anyone questioning these entitlements risks being labelled an enemy of the state, great because it could be a path to heroism, or a Tambaloslos, bad because you could be a monster ravishing innocent women) have diminished her chances for the 2028 presidential race, from frontrunner, to… I don’t know where (ask Pulse Asia).

3. Inflation, the bane of nearly every Filipino, including President Bongbong Marcos Jr. (fuel and food for his almost monthly investment expeditions overseas now cost more), will begin to moderate, starting this November, according to Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) projections.

Since August 2022, the Philippines consistently has had the highest inflation rate among six major Asian countries –  Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and China (the lowest).

Explains Albay Rep. Joey Salceda: “The year-on-year inflation rate of 6.1 percent in September is due to oil and rice price shocks during month but is expected to dissipate in the October figures due to the sharp decline in global oil prices during the end of September and compliance with the rice price ceiling imposed by the President.”

“The September inflation figure is due almost entirely to rice price spikes and the global oil price spike. The PSA collects data on the first five days of the month and on the 15-17th days, so it captured a lot of the speculative rise in global oil prices, but not the sharp declines that followed Sept. 27,” the congressman-analyst points out. “It gets better from here,” he assures.

After rising 17.9 percent in September 2023, rice prices have declined sharply. After rising to $93.89 per barrel, the highest since November 2022, oil prices have dropped. “Expect oil to be in the neighborhood of just $70-80 per barrel over the coming weeks,” Salceda predicts.

4. Congress keeps producing social and economic reforms intended to ease doing business, attract foreign investments, open up the economy some more and stabilize the Philippine economy.

Now the bad news.

The Philippine economy is slowing down, dramatically. Compared with their pre-pandemic GDP, the Philippines has been beaten in the return to normal level by China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia and Laos, all of whose economies have expanded by 10 to 20 percent over 2019 value. The Philippines grew less than 10 percent.

In the second quarter of 2022, the Philippine economy grew a dizzying 7.5 percent, but slowed to 6.4 percent in first quarter 2023 and to 4.3 percent in Q2 2023.

On a seasonally-adjusted basis, quarter-on-quarter GDP declined by 0.9 percent in Q2 2023 from the 1.0 percent growth in Q1 2023.

This, says BSP Governor Eli Remolona, “brings the 2023 first semester GDP growth to 5.3 percent, below the low-end of the 6-7 percent target of the National Government (NG) for 2023.” “To achieve the target growth rate for the year, the country’s GDP needs to grow by at least 6.6 percent in the second half of 2023,” says Remolona.

An economy growing at 6 percent yearly creates one million jobs a year or 167,000 jobs for each percentage point of growth rate. A decline from 7.5 to 4.3 is 3.2 which, multiplied by 167,000, means 534,400 jobs that should have been created were not created.

The government claims an August 2023 unemployment rate of 4.4 percent, down from 5.3 percent unemployment rate in August 2022.

But the government has a funny definition of who is employed; he is one who has worked for ONE hour in the past three months, never mind if he had no work for 89 days and 23 hours of those three months.

The definition of who is unemployed is also funny; he is one who is looking for work. The others who have no job but have stopped looking for a job because they cannot find any are not considered unemployed.

Only those looking for work are considered part of the so-called labor force participation rate, which is 64.7 percent.

We are 115 million today; 76 million are 15 and above; 76 million should be the labor force. But DOLE considers only 64.7 percent of 76 million, or 49 million as the realistic labor force, ignoring 27 million (76 less 49) who are clearly jobless. The actual jobless today: 30 million.

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Item: A sprawling conglomerate built from scratch by a chemical engineer taipan is in the middle of a succession turmoil. The taipan, unseen for the last six months now, has been deposed from his bank, a big one. His first wife has effectively taken over, making the conglomerate a virtual matriarchy. She has deployed her grandchildren to take over key companies under the group. She ousted, for no apparent reason, the top performing head honcho of the Group, the taipan’s eldest son by his second wife.

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