Last 18 months to go

With just 18 months left before her term in office ends, President Arroyo has obviously realized she must step up the pace of the various government projects she had put together as the “legacy” she wants her administration to be remembered by. That is, if the Charter change (Cha-cha) initiatives, for the nth time, fail again to take off in Congress. 

As her allies in Congress were busy putting together the Cha-cha initiatives, the President flew out of Manila on Monday night to participate in yet another initiative of global nature. This was the just-concluded Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Asia Meeting held in Hong Kong organized by former US President Bill Clinton.

She was invited by the ex-US President who was her former college classmate in Georgetown University in Washington. Mr. Clinton asked her to attend as one of the five panelists in the opening plenary sessions which he presided at the CGI Asia Meeting, the first ever held outside the US since he started it in 2005.

While the US and other major economies of the world are currently reeling from the effects of global financial meltdown, Mr. Clinton made no bones of his admiration that the Philippines, under Mrs. Arroyo’s leadership, have so far successfully kept the country protected from the immediate impact of the ensuing global economic slowdown. Replying to Mr. Clinton’s query how the Philippines is coping with the financial crisis, she said: “Relatively speaking, we’re doing very well.”

The President thus cited one big challenge that her government has to address is how to cushion the impact of the crisis especially on the poor and ordinary Filipinos. “So it’s important for us to be able to make sure that the global crisis does not become a crisis in our country,” President Arroyo stressed. But to do this, she pointed out, the Philippine government must fill in the slack since private sector investments will definitely be far and few within the immediate term of the current financial woes.

As I gathered from Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap, one of her closest economic advisers whom she asked to join in her brief trip to Hong Kong, the Arroyo administration will engage in massive infrastructure binge in the next 18 months. While the period coincides with the winding down of Mrs. Arroyo’s term in office, Yap impressed upon us that the Chief Executive sees the urgency “to inoculate” this early the country from the virus that might infect our economy from the global financial meltdown, spawned in the US and has infected London, Germany, and lately affecting Japan, too. 

So how to do this was the urgent agenda, I presumed, why the President has to bring her economic team all the way to Hong Kong. Aside from Yap, the other members of the Arroyo economic team who flew to Hong Kong with her were: Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila, and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Gov. Amando Tetangco. The other members of her official entourage included her husband, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, and Press Secretary Jesus Dureza. 

Yap refused to go into further details as to what they mapped out that necessitated Mrs. Arroyo to bring her economic team to Hong Kong just to do this. He merely said it would involve “massive” infrastructure investments that would be downloaded within the next 18 months. And since this “financial tsunami” hit many of the biggest banks and corporations as well as international financial institutions, it would be the government to principally bankroll these infrastructure investments during this “inoculation” period within which the impact from the so-called “financial tsunami” would affect the global economy.

After he joined the President in Hong Kong, Yap is flying again today to Tokyo where he said he will link up with his counterpart Minister. Offhand, he said he would discuss food security concerns that both countries intend to address now that the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement took effect with the Senate ratification of this treaty. Agriculture remains the major source of economic growth of both the Philippines and Japan.

Although there was no specific business deals or economic agreements forged in Hong Kong, the President’s economic managers also had the sideline job as her PR advisers. They briefed the President also on the possible question-and-answer portion to prep her on the exclusive interviews separately that she had with the Hong Kong-based media organizations, such as the Financial Times and Institutional Investor Magazine.

Since these were “exclusive” interviews, the Press Secretary refused to divulge what the President talked about with these two foreign media entities, except saying the media interviews dealt more on the economic situation in the Philippines. ‘’They wanted to find out what the President is doing to shield the local economy from the present financial crisis,’’ Dureza added. Fortunately, Yap granted me this short interview with him while I was in Hong Kong also to cover the CGI Asia Meeting.

Back in Manila, the Palace started to release in tidbits the initial details of this “massive” infrastructure investment program lined up starting next month. Hopefully, this would kick in early if Congress will be able to approve the proposed P1.415 trillion budget for 2009 before they go to their Christmas break on Dec. 19. The proposed budget is still being deliberated at the Senate plenary.

Two weeks of sessions will be enough time for both chambers to approve and ratify the budget before their recess. So far, there has been no major debate over the final make of the proposed budget. While there have been renewed debates in Congress over what mode of Cha-cha to take, there is fortunately a conscious recognition that such issues should not distract our lawmakers on the urgency of taking care first of the urgent economic legislations such as the budget.

The remaining one and a half years of her administration, or exactly 572 days from today, would be crucial for the country as well as to President Arroyo. With the global financial crisis looming ahead in the horizon, keeping the country “relatively speaking, doing very well” for now is not enough comfort for her to just plod on in the last 18 months of her stay in office.