Palace asks for patience on promised changes

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang yesterday urged the public to be more patient – rather than adversarial – with the Duterte administration, which came to office on a promise of change last year.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella made the call in the wake of a survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showing that adult joblessness increased by three million in the fourth quarter of 2016, or just a few months since President Duterte assumed office.

According to the SWS survey, adult joblessness rose to 25.1 percent or 11.2 million in December 2016 from 18.4 percent or 8.2 million in September 2016.

The 11.2 million jobless adults in the last quarter of 2016 is the worst in two years, according to the SWS survey. But the poll conducted last Dec. 3-6 also noted a record high optimism on job availability in nearly two decades.

“In a sense, there are developments, there are answers,” Abella said.

“Of course, things are not perfect and that is why we would wish that people were cooperative instead of focusing on you know, being adversarial. Well, criticism is always welcome. But being adversarial is different,” he added.

Abella also justified the high rate of adult joblessness, saying these are people who left their jobs.

“The highest increase came from those who are voluntarily leaving their jobs, that increased to 4.2 million,” he said in Filipino.

He pegged at 1.3 million those who lost their jobs because of the economic situation.

“It means many chose to resign (rather) than those who really lost their jobs. If we will look at net optimism on job availability measured in December 2016, it increased so much, the highest recorded +37,” he claimed.

Abella also said that the government is looking at creating 1.2 million jobs annually.

“And it will be done, it will be addressed by attracting more foreign investments, increasing infrastructure spending, improving the ease of doing business in the Philippines and the development of human resources,” he explained.

“Jobs would include construction, information and technology, business process management, tourism, manufacturing, transport, logistics, agri-processing and services where we are really good at,” he added.