Manny Villar's silver lining

The recent surge in the stock market has definitely benefitted the Vista Land holdings of Senator Manny Villar, whose net earnings have shown a 40-percent increase to P1.44 billion for the first half of 2010 compared to last year’s figure of P1.03 billion for the same period. According to Manny, his loss in the last elections was a blessing in disguise. Ironically, thanks to PNoy’s new government, the stock market has shown an impressive surge, with investor optimism also on the upswing. Two weeks ago, Vista Land’s stock price more than doubled – allowing Villar to recover all of the billions he reportedly spent during the last elections. Vista Land is also pushing through with the planned issuance of international bonds estimated at $150 million. As the former presidential candidate said, “There’s always a silver lining behind every cloud.” And in this particular case, Manny Villar just made billions of silver linings.

Sablay at Balay Pangarap

At the recently-concluded two-day congress of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines, Secretary Sonny Coloma of the Presidential Communications Office elicited laughter from the audience when, at the beginning of his keynote address, he disclosed that he is not from “Samar” but in fact, comes from Ilocos Norte and La Union. It was an obvious reference to the persistent rumored division within the PNoy circle of the warring “Balay” and “Samar” factions engaged in a power play. Sec. Coloma may have been joking but there is truth in jest, and the story coming out of “Balay Pangarap,” the presidential home at Malacañang Park, is that one group identified with the presidential pal, Rico Puno, claim that the DILG undersecretary is a victim of a demolition job coming from the Balay group. As one insider put it bluntly, “It’s no longer ‘walang iwanan’ but more like ‘matira ang matibay’ now.”

Manila traffic: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet

If you think the whole-day traffic at EDSA due to the “demolition job” – not the kind used against USec Rico Puno but of a squatter colony near Trinoma last Friday was already monstrous, wait till you hear about the traffic jams in

China that can stretch for, would you believe – 11 bloody days! Since August, vehicles along the Tibet-Beijing highway have had to put up with a series – meaning repeated occurrences – of horrendous traffic jams, with over 10,000 unmoving cars and trucks crammed bumper-to-bumper spanning more than 100 kilometers.

Because of the traffic jams caused by accidents and various repairs along the highway, people passed the time playing cards, with many falling asleep right on the asphalt road, with the worst part being the use of sideways as their private bathrooms that quickly turned into stench and sewage with the stuck motorists’ “p and p.” Vendors also had a heyday selling food and water at 10 times the price.

With that kind of traffic, no wonder China has become the world’s biggest polluter with more carbon emissions than the US. According to the latest data, China has replaced the US as the world’s largest car market with an estimated 75 million car owners by the end of 2010. In Beijing alone, traffic levels have increased by 130 percent since last year. The Tibet-Beijing highway has a maximum capacity of 10,000 vehicles per day. In 2009, highway traffic was estimated at 6,000 cars per day, but this has since gone up to 14,000. The air pollution levels in Bejing have also far exceeded the normal acceptable level that human lungs can take. With China’s population now at 1,338,612,968 as of July 2010, you can expect things to get worse before they get any better. The good thing however is that at least the Chinese government is doing something drastic about their population with a one-child policy. Aside from the fact that China’s economy is also growing at average of 11.2 per cent a year.

World’s richest country

Talking about wealthy nations, China has surpassed all other nations when it comes to their economy. China’s national reserves are currently recorded at $2,454,300,000,000 - or $2.454 trillion. Japan comes next with $1.9 trillion while the US, despite having the biggest economy, is far from being considered wealthy nowadays and is in fact way below at Number 17 with $124.1 billion in national reserves. The reason: it has a debt of $14 trillion.

However, big national reserves do not necessarily indicate prosperity since one must also take into consideration a government’s total spending, and its total debt in proportion to its GDP. While the US has the largest debt, it only consists of 62 percent of its GDP, which means it’s not in any immediate danger of bankruptcy, plus the fact that it is still considered to be an extremely wealthy nation because of many other hidden reserves not known to the world. A country that is in serious danger of going bankrupt however is Greece whose debt stands at 113.4 percent of its GDP. It’s good to know the Philippines is at Number 32 with our national reserves pegged at $47.6 billion, but is likely to even be higher this year as told to us by Bangko Sentral Governor Say Tetangco due mainly to the significant increase in OFW remittances. We expect to have a national reserve of $70 billion dollars by the end of this year. The Philippines’ debt stood at around $50 billion as of May, or a debt-to-GDP ratio of 50 percent. Not bad at all according to the World Bank executives who were in Manila recently.

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