And do you know, Reader, that in August. 2018, the average retail price of rice was P44.66. Yes. The price of rice 5 years ago was higher than the price of rice now, which has alarmed our government so much that they are calling for a price ceiling.
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?
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.
All the paeans given to the RCEP – that it will accelerate post-pandemic economic recovery, that it will help bring more investments, that it will expand the country’s exports — is a cruel hoax on the Filipino people. If these will occur, it will occur only in the long-run, and after the government helps the different economic sectors be more competitive, and fixes its domestic problems. RCEP gives our country a little more market access to the other RCEP countries, but if we can’t compete, our products won’t sell in these markets. In other words, if we don’t do our homework, we won’t pass.
A colleague, Gerardo Sicat, asserts that the progress of “Tiger Economies” of East Asia-South Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore – was “fueled by the heavy participation of foreign capital”. I refer him to the table on FDI, 1970-2021 which Sonny Africa presented to the Congressional Committee on Constitutional Amendments at the hearing on Thursday, where we were all present. the data show that FDI flows into Taiwan and South Korea were on the whole less, both in absolute terms and in percent of GDP, than FDI flows into the Philippines. In other words, there was no “heavy participation of foreign capital” that Gerry Sicat describes.
DA through the Food Terminal, buying onions at P140 million pesos of onions at P537 per kg. and selling them through the Kadiwa at P170, thus losing about P96 million. Whose brilliant idea was that? Selling at P170 was clearly to create the impression that Filipinos were now paying only that amount for onions, or the Kadiwa was doing a great job. “Management by illusion” is how the late Rafael Salas described the management style of PBBM’s father. Is this also true of the son?
Did you know, for example, Reader, that a 1997 study showed that the Philippines has a comparative advantage in onions? That means, essentially, that we should be a net exporter of onions. Did you know that a summary of a one-hectare average cost and returns of onions in 2019 shows that the net returns per hectare is P237, 681 (compare that to rice, where the 2021 net return per cropping season is P19,593 ) ? That the net profit-cost ratio is 2.15, which means that the ROI (return on investment) is 215%?
