The Marcos Cabinet team from Congress

As regularly done by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the agency comes out every first week of each month with the country’s basic economic indicators that the agency monitors. It was bad news/good news when the PSA, headed by National Statistician Dennis Mapa, presented the results of its monthly monitoring on inflation, employment and overall economic performance in this order, one after the other over the past three days.

Measured in terms of the average consumer price index (CPI), the PSA announced inflation accelerated to 4.4 percent in July from 3.7 percent in June. The PSA conceded it was the highest level this year of the monthly inflation figures. It was traced mainly to faster increases in utility and food costs, the PSA noted.

Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Ralph Recto remains confident though that inflation will fall within target for the rest of the year as government interventions take full effect. Speaking at our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last Wednesday, the finance secretary explained the inflation uptick last month merely reflected the impact of the stiff prices of rice, the main staple of Filipino meals.

Recto believes the rice-driven inflation will eventually taper off once the impact of the rice tariff cut becomes more pronounced. Rice traders initially purchased their stocks at higher prices prior to the implementation of PBBM’s issuance of Executive Order (EO) 62 that slashed rice tariff to 15 percent from 35 percent. But inflation “remains manageable,” Recto assuaged the public.

On the other hand, the PSA reported that the jobless rate declined significantly to 3.1 percent in July from 4.1 percent a month ago. The latest unemployment figure is the lowest reported this year and matches the record low set in December 2023. This marked the lowest jobless rate in nearly two decades, the PSA added.

“We must be doing something right,” quipped Recto following the release of the PSA’s monthly Labor Force Survey (LFS) results a few hours earlier last Wednesday. Recto cited the result for LFS June 2024 showed the country posting its highest employment rate of 96.9 percent is equivalent to 50.3 million employed persons. This led to the significant drop in the country’s unemployment rate to its lowest level to date, he pointed out. The total number of unemployed persons in the country translated to 1.6 million, he further noted.

Of the total employed individuals, Recto viewed them as the wage and salary workers who continue to account for the largest share at 63.8 percent or 32.1 million. Among wage and salary workers, 80.5 percent (or 25.8 million) are employed in private establishments, while 12.5 percent (or 4.0 million) are in the public sector. The services sector continues to provide the most jobs for the month, accounting for 58.7 percent (29.5 million) of the employed population. This was followed by agriculture (21.1 percent or 10.6 million) and industry (20.2 percent or 10.1 million) sectors.

“This means a growing and stronger middle class,” Recto declared.

Capping the periodic monitoring of the country’s economic performance, Recto also welcomed the PSA’s announcement that the gross domestic product (GDP) posted a “strong year-on-year” growth of 6.3 percent in the second quarter of 2024. The second quarter growth of the Philippines beat Malaysia (5.8 percent); Indonesia (5.0 percent) and China (4.7 percent). Other countries in the region are expected to release their second quarter growth also this month.

If the pace of the country’s economic growth is a competition at the 2024 Olympics, the Philippine GDP is the fastest in this event.

From the PSA data, Recto cited much of the GDP growth gained momentum from the “robust construction and higher investments” under the “Build Better More” program of the Marcos administration. “We are happy with the back-to-back good news on employment and GDP growth. Our impressive growth performance clearly demonstrates that infrastructure is our way forward. We need to build more, build better and build faster so that Filipinos can reap the benefits of these high-impact projects at the soonest possible time. They will not only produce more jobs but improve the overall quality of life of our people,” Recto pointed out.

Recto asserted the proposed national budget of P6.35 trillion in 2025 will attain the macro-economic goals of the Marcos administration. As submitted to the 19th Congress, the proposed 2025 budget is higher by 10.1 percent than the Congress-approved General Appropriations Act of 2024 that amounted to P5.77 trillion.

“With an all-time high gross national income per capita and very robust labor market, favorable factors are in place for us to become an upper-middle income country by 2025,” Recto stressed. “Ito ang isa sa mga pinakamahalagang pamana ng administrasyon ni President Marcos, Jr. para sa mga Pilipino sa ilalim ng Bagong Pilipinas,” Recto said emphatically.

Towards this end, Recto vowed to help achieve the administration’s ultimate goal of reducing the poverty rate to a single-digit or 9 percent by 2028 or the end of PBBM’s term of office.

The 60-year-old Recto is the fourth member of the 19th Congress recruited by PBBM to serve in his Cabinet. The former House Deputy Speaker was appointed finance secretary on Jan. 31 this year. Actually, the veteran lawmaker from Batangas is now on his second time to serve in the executive department. Recto first served as director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) from 2008 to 2009 under then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The three other members of the 19th Congress who are now in the Marcos Cabinet include – according to the order of their appointments – former Cavite Rep. and now Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla; former Valenzuela City Rep. Rex Gatchalian now secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the latest one, erstwhile senator Sonny Angara as new Department of Education secretary.

The four of them comprise the congressional team in the Marcos Cabinet. They can be the moving bloc that can set the direction of the play of PBBM as their captain ball. After all, they worked together with Marcos in Congresses past.