PNoy gets ‘F’ from Diokno in economic management

By Jerry Maglunog 

In terms of economic management, President Aquino was a dismal failure despite leaving at least P160-billion savings in the National Treasury, according to former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno. 

Diokno, now an economics professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics, said Mr. Aquino missed a very big opportunity when he failed to build up infrastructure, which could have expedited country’s growth.

Among his 40-plus public-private partnership (PPP) projects, critics said, only less then 10 have been awarded; less than this number has also started to be built.

“He never reached the baseline when it comes to building much-needed infrastructure,” Diokno said.

He said the lack of bridges, toll roads and connecting roads has become so severe it put the country in the “backburner status” in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Economic Community, which started this year.

Diokno said the PPP program could have been the “cornerstone” of the Aquino presidency. If the number of projects constructed under the program were to be the basis for grading him, the President deserves a failing grade, he said.

“His grade should be F or 5. What else? Only six of some 40 PPP projects have been awarded. Of the six, four are low-lying fruit, easy-to-implement projects — the Daang Hari highways project, two public schools project and the Orthopedic Hospital project. The Daang Hari is only 30-percent complete up to now,” Diokno said.

Diokno said many potential investors are already turned off the moment they land at the country’s “lousy” airports. To compound the problem, the country’s energy cost is also very high – it’s reportedly the highest in Asean—plus other “negative settings” that drive away potential investors, he said, mentioning the “uncompetitive tax regime and high cost of doing business here.”

“PPP is now called ‘Post-PNoy Projects’ and the Department of Transportation and Communications or DOTC is the champion for incompetence,” the former government technocrat said.

Meanwhile, National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Director-General Emmanuel Esguerra said the “development of a seamless multi-modal transport network as well as improving logistics such as storage and handling mechanisms would enable a more cost-efficient movement of goods and services across regions.”

Investments in shared services and facilities, research and development and the use of modern technology would also be important in modernizing agricultural production and increasing resiliency to disasters, he added.

“With higher quality and volume and wider variety of agricultural products, the agricultural sector can gain access to larger markets locally and even abroad,” Esguerra said.

Esguerra underscored the need to increase infrastructure spending to boost agricultural productivity after the Philippines economy grew at its fastest pace in almost three years to 6.9 percent in the first quarter of 2016, despite the weak agriculture and fishery sector.

He noted that the Philippines is now Asia’s fastest-growing economy, outpacing China’s growth during the period, on the back of strong domestic consumption and election-related spending.

But while the economy continued to traverse a high growth trajectory during the first quarter, the Neda chief said the agriculture sector remained a poor performer as it contracted by 4.4 percent.

“While we have successfully prevented the spillover of the impact of El Niño on the rest of the economy, the fact remains that agricultural output has declined and, perhaps, so with the income of households that depend on agriculture for their livelihood,” he said.