We're proud of the peso's performance!

This New Year 2006 ushers in a lot of celebrations. Perhaps the biggest will be on July when the Philippine Star turns 20 and not coincidentally, I share with that milestone because a month later, I too will celebrate my 20th year as a journalist since I also started with the Philippine Star. Also this coming Jan.21st, our University of San Carlos Boy's High School (USC-BHS) will be celebrating its 40th year at the Penthouse of our schoolmate Florentino Atillo III in Mactan, just across the Film Academy at 6PM. While this is the 3rd time we've had a reunion, this year's 40th celebration is expected to bring the biggest number of classmates many we've not seen in the last 40 years!

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I'm sure that everyone noticed that the fireworks display last New Year's eve was to say the least, disappointing. Since my father built our house in Capitol Hills in 1959, we've always celebrated New Years Eve with family and friends. From our vantage view, we could hear and see sporadic fireworks display, broken by short periods of complete silence, unlike in the past years where the noise from exploding pyrotechnics never stops until 30 minutes after midnight. This year, the fireworks buildup only started 10 minutes before midnight and died down ten minutes after the New Year's Day had ushered in.

Nationwide, the death toll of the New Year was, four killed and 610 injured. I still don't have the figures for Cebu, but I'm sure you'll be reading that report somewhere in The Freeman today. As for me, I have already forgotten how long it was since I bought a firecracker. I made that a New Year's resolution a long time ago to stop buying and exploding firecrackers and I'm proud to say that I kept that promise to myself. As for the injured it goes without saying that they knew the risks involved in using pyrotechnics in greeting the New Year's Day. Call it a bitter and painful lesson to learn, but then they can't blame anyone but themselves for starting the New Year suffering from all that pain!

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If we gauge the economy of the past year from all the noise of the firecrackers, one would conclude that the year 2005 was a disappointing one. But was 2005 really disappointing as far as the economy was concerned? If you read the column of Ignacio B. Gimenez entitled Philequity Corner in the Business page of the Philippine Star, which he headlined with, "Philippine Peso No.1 in Asia, No.5 in the world!" Indeed, this piece of news is a welcome sight to begin the New Year 2006; after all, many Filipinos have lost their faith to anything connected to the Philippines and the weakest thing we've had has always been the peso!

Gimenez published the top 10 currencies in the world. The strongest was the Brazilian Real, followed by the Kenyan Shilling, the Chilean Peso, the Egyptian pound and the Philippine Peso. Next to us is the Mexican Peso. Proudly, the Philippine Peso was even stronger than the Chinese Yuan, the Korean Won, the Taiwan Dollar or even the Singapore Dollar!

For so many years, the peso to the dollar rate was P1 to one US dollar during the 50s. In the 60s this was pegged to P7 to one US dollar until Martial Law came and it doubled. If there was anything in this country that went up and never went down, it is the Philippine peso, until the year 2005 when it backed down from a high of close to P56 to one US dollar to its present rate of P53.09. I know that our exporter friends are the ones who are not happy with the present peso to the US dollar rate, but then they too are at an advantage with a strong peso performance. Let's hope that for the year 2006, the peso would continue on its miraculous journey to stability.

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I gathered that Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) is planning to hold a plebiscite in the first quarter of this year to let the Filipino people choose a new Constitution with a new system of government a parliamentary one. But before we even debate on this issue, whether to hold a plebiscite or not or whether we should dance the Cha-cha or not, the Arroyo administration must first assure the Filipino people that we must have a new Commission on Elections (Comelec) that would be handling the plebiscite.

Let me point out clearly that we do not want to see new personalities appointed to this Constitutional body. What we'd like to see is for both Congress and the Executive Branch to come up with a repackaged Comelec, one whose credibility to handle or hold elections would not be questioned by the Filipino electorate. That means the work of the President is cut out for her before we can have a plebiscite that brings change to our nation.

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