'No need to replace economic team'

MANILA, Philippines - A Palace official claimed yesterday that there is no need to relieve members of the economic team of President Aquino since the local economy remained resilient and stable despite the government’s underspending and the global recession.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda rejected the proposal of opposition Rep. Milagros Magsaysay of Zambales and other minority lawmakers to replace the economic managers following the lower-than-expected gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year.

Lacierda said National Economic and Development Authority director general Cayetano Paderanga has already explained the reasons why GDP is low, part of which could be attributed to the slowdown in exports.

“This is brought about by the downturn in the global economy. So negative 13 but if you look at other numbers it’s high, like, for instance, government consumption is 9.4, capital formation is 24.5,” he pointed out.

“So there is no basis for the minority congressmen to ask for the relief of the economic team. This is primarily, first and foremost, an effect on the downturn in the global economy,” Lacierda said.

Another factor is the Aquino government’s policy not to take the route of first world economies like the US and Europe – that are now battling their own economic crises – since government spending has always been prudent and judicious.

“If you look at our fiscal situation in the country today, we have not experienced the same pitfalls as the European economy. Our banks have been very, very prudent in their practices. Our government has not piled on debts,” Lacierda said.

“We have been very prudent in our fiscal situation. So we believe that domestically we are in a good situation and that’s the reason why we are able to give out the P10,000 PEI (productivity enhancement incentive) bonus for government employees,” he said.

“Based on our fiscal situation right now, we have been very, very prudent. We have avoided the pitfalls that other nations, other economies have experienced. Our infrastructure spending is going to go up,” he added, vowing increased spending in 2012.

Lacierda said the government has observed the “practices that we believe have been conducive in avoiding the pitfalls in the other nations.”

The Aquino administration also believes that while infrastructure spending in 2011 has been slow, mostly because the government wants disbursements to be accurate, such spending “will spill over to the next year. And also we have the 2012 infrastructure projects that would be moving by next year.”

“So I think we are in a good situation. We are handling the situation pretty well,” Lacierda said, adding the economy is not in a vacuum.

“Of course, we are subject to the excesses or the recession in the other countries or the downturn in the global economy but, domestically, we believe we are in a good situation,” he added.

Magsaysay said the latest economic statistics for the first quarter of 2011 confirm that the economy under President Aquino is quickly running out of steam.

“Because of his lack of vision and execution and his obsession with persecuting his predecessors, our economy has now become a train falling off the tracks, headed for a crash-and-burn disaster,” Magsaysay said.

She said the country’s growth has slowed down to 3.2 percent in just 18 months. “As usual, the biggest victims of this slowdown will come from the ranks of the poor,” she said.

Magsaysay cited surveys of the Social Weather Stations that showed hunger as well as self-rated poverty went up in the past several months.

House Senior Deputy Minority Leader Danilo Suarez said Malacañang could not blame the previous administration since the current crop of economic managers acknowledged before congressional leaders last year that they inherited a healthy economy that reached a peak eight percent growth in the second quarter of 2010.

Suarez said instead of maintaining the country’s growth momentum and shielding it from the global economic downturn by public spending and generating more business, the Aquino administration “has cold-bloodedly decided to pursue his trial by publicity of Arroyo, inciting the mob against her in order to distract the public’s attention away from his own performance.” – Delon Porcalla, Paolo Romero