[T]he PDP target is for AFF exports to annually by 6.4%. Under PBBM, not only did they not increase by that 6.4% a year, the value of real exports actually contracted by a dismaying 12.5%.
From the data, one would have to conclude that the imposing price ceilings on rice were a complete failure. Yet to hear it from the President himself, EO 39 was a success. But what evidence do they have to support this conclusion? Let us see.
Did EO 39 succeed in keeping the prices of rice within the caps it had set? Here are the hard data, as provided by the PSA: Instead of prices going down and staying at the levels of the price ceilings, they did the opposite: they increased substantially over the period during which the caps were in place.
You see, Reader, there is no such thing as “the price of rice in the world market”, as quoted above….PLUS, the latest FAO Rice Price Update came out on Sept. 8, one day after the Romualdez press release. It shows that the August rice price indices were higher compared to those in July, and even higher compared to August 2022:
Real GDP growth rate for the 2nd Quarter 2023 has been estimated at 4.3% by the Philippine Statistics Authority. .This is much lower than anyone’s expectations.
Question: If judging BBM on the country’s economic growth versus the ASEAN 5 opens a can of worms, then how should he be judged?
Actually, Reader, I have not seen a single news report that even hints at the possibility of the accountability of Frasco in the fiasco. So much so that I was forcibly reminded of the SWS survey that found that 47% of adult Filipinos agree that “it is dangerous to print or broadcast anything critical of the administration, even if it is the truth,” while only 26 percent disagreed with the statement and 27 percent were undecided, based on the poll conducted from Dec. 10 to Dec. 14, 2022. So I don’t know where the demolition or the smear campaign that her Cebu supporters are talking about is coming from.
Politics has reared its ugly head in the JBC, because, as an example, in the Duterte presidency, the short list of candidates presented to him seemed to very often have a San Bedan (his alma mater). The study shows that 40% of his appointees were Bedans, whereas the average for all the other presidents was only 10%.
The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2022 is the basis of Inconvenient Truth #8: The Philippines has the lowest score, and the lowest rank, among the ASEAN-5 as far as the Rule of Law is concerned. What is so galling is that eight years ago, in 2015, the Philippines had a score (0.53) higher than everyone else, except Malaysia (0.57). As you can see, Reader, the Duterte administration really brought down the Philippines Rule of Law score and ranking – from 0.53 to 0.47, and from 51 out of 102 to 97th out of 140. . One would have hoped that the BBM would see those scores and ranks going up, but judging from what is happening in the de Lima case and what happened in the Remulla fils case, that gleam of hope is fading. In the Philippines, the rule by law still reigns supreme.
Weep, Reader, for the blighted future of our country’s current crop of 10-year-olds, with only one in ten of able to read and understand what she is reading.