Benjie Oliveros » What Growth?

Still a bleak future

Will the employment and therefore, the income situation of Filipinos improve with the supposed and much-touted growth in the Gross Domestic Product?

Hardly, if gauged by the trends during the last six years. The reported growth in the GDP in 2001 was around 3.1 percent and the unemployment and underemployment rates then were at 11.1 percent and 17.2 percent respectively. By 2003, the reported GDP growth was at 4.1 percent and the unemployment and underemployment rates were at 11.4 percent and 17 percent. In 2006, the reported GDP growth rate was at 5.4 percent but the unemployment and underemployment rates were still at 11 percent and 22.7 percent. With the supposed highest GDP growth rate in years in 2007 at 7.1 percent - which is actually from 5.3 to 6.3 percent using the pre-2004 methodology of measurement that the government used- the unemployment and underemployment rates were still at 10.8 and 20.1 percent respectively, which are conservative estimates considering that the Arroyo government also changed its definition of unemployment in 2005. (This government has the habit of changing its computations to make the situation seem better.)

The lingering sorry state of employment and underemployment does not reflect the reported growths in the GDP. Even with the much bragged about GDP growth in 2007, the jobs created during the year were in the most lowest-paying, temporary, and insecure jobs: 142,000 jobs in household help, 116,000 in transportation, communications, and storage, 111,000 in wholesale and retail trade, 104,000 in real estate, renting, and business activities - which included Business Process Outsourcing such as call centers, and 103,000 in construction.

Cabinet Sec. Ricardo Saludo, reacting to the NSCB poverty incidence report, said that with the “fiscal squeeze over” the Arroyo government is planning to increase its expenditures in social services. But this must be taken with a grain of salt. First, the fiscal crisis is far from over. The national government surplus of P12.6 billion ($292,545,189 at the exchange rate of $1=P43.218 in November, 2007) during the first 11 months of 2007 was mainly due to the proceeds of privatization without which there should have been a P78 billion deficit ($1,804,803,554), approximately 31 percent higher compared to the same period in 2006. According to IBON Foundation, “The P90.6 billion in government assets sold in 2007, or in just one year, was nearly as much as the PhP93.9 billion sold off in the previous 15 years spanning three administrations,” and the government is running out of assets to sell. Added to this, real public spending on education continued to fall in 2006 and at P1, 508 ($30.48 at an exchange rate of $1=P49.467 in December 2006) per Filipino is 21.8 percent down from the 2001 level; health spending has fallen by 25.1 percent over the same period to just P159 ($3.21) per Filipino. Surely, 2007 was no different given the continuous deterioration of the education and health systems in the country. This situation is made worse with the piling up of corruption cases involving scandalously large amounts.

The Arroyo government is trying to scare the people from pursuing calls for President Arroyo’s resignation or ouster with the specter of a reversal of the gains of economic growth. But with the worsening poverty situation, one wonders whether there really is an improvement in the economy and whether the Filipino people would lose anything in pursuing Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s ouster, except a corrupt and repressive government. Bulatlat