Presidential bets dared to bare economic programs

The political parties and their presidential candidates should present to the voters their programs for economic development that they hope to pursue in the six years starting with mid-2004.

Senate President Franklin M. Drilon made the suggestion as he noted that while people in Asia generally appear to be optimistic about their economic prospects, the people of the Philippines are said to be pessimistic about their economic future.

Drilon cited the Asia Pacific Consumer Confidence Study of 13 Asian countries conducted by ACNielsen, a global marketing information company, which showed that Asians were more optimistic about the economy and their future than they were six months ago.

"The only exception reported was that of the Philippines in which 75 percent of the respondents expressed growing concern about their economy, up seven percent from May this year," Drilon declared.

On the other hand, the study showed that 89 percent of the respondents from India, 76 percent from Malaysia, 84 percent from Thailand and 69 percent from Singapore believed that their local economies would improve further in the next 12 months. The study covered 7,230 respondents.

"The study, as far as the Philippines is concerned is alarming," said Drilon. "It means that a great majority of the Filipino do not believe what the officials of our administration have been saying that the Philippine economy is growing substantially and is on the road to recovery."

Drilon also pointed out that the Asia poll tended to confirm local surveys of the business community showing widespread pessimism about the prospects of the Philippine economy in the near future.

Drilon declared that the pessimism over the prospects of the Philippine economy is caused not only by unstable peace and order conditions and corruption, but also by the growing budgetary deficit and the burgeoning public debt, as well as declining investments.

"Right now almost 30 percent of the national budget is allocated for the servicing of the public debt, significantly reducing the allocations for economic and social development activities of the state," Drilon stated. "This has adverse effects on employment and economic growth."

The Senate president said that the coming election campaign for various positions in government, from president down to senators, congressmen and local executives, should be used as an opportunity for the nation’s political leaders to submit to the people proposals and programs for stimulating local economic growth.

"The textbook portrayal of an election is that it is a democratic exercise wherein political parties and their candidates compete for people’s votes by presenting to them programs of government dealing on economic and other pressing issues so that the people would vote in accordance with their judgment as to which is the right program," said Drilon. "There is nothing wrong with following this textbook prescription of a democratic election or trying at least to approximate the ideal of an election."

Drilon lamented that "since them President Marcos abolished the political parties after he declared martial law in 1972, the political parties that evolved after Marcos’s ouster were only pale copies of the major two pre-martial law potical parties – the Nacionalista and Liberal Parties – that presented alternative programs to the public.