Estrada to head new economic team

In an effort to give direction to what appears to be a "rudderless" economy, President Estrada created yesterday "a high-powered council of senior economic advisers" which he himself will head.

The council is composed of "five internationally respected leaders of the private business sector" - Washington Sycip of the SGV auditing firm, former Prime Minister Cesar Virata, former Gov. Gabriel Singson of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, former Sen. Vicente Paterno and businessman Jaime Augusto Zobel.

This consultative body will meet only when Mr. Estrada sees a need to do so.

The Chief Executive also established a "top level Economic Coordinating Council (ECC)" to be chaired by the Office of the President. The council will include economic government agencies.

The President said the ECC's mission is simple: "To improve dramatically the performance of the Philippine economy in the years ahead."

Mr. Estrada said the ECC must "ensure the consistency of all issuances, pronouncements, plans, programs, projects and proposed legislation of the government with one another and with the country's overall promotion of deregulation, liberalization, free and fair market competition, and the primacy of the private sector."

The creation of these bodies apparently stemmed from criticisms of former President Fidel Ramos, who earlier noted that Mr. Estrada was apparently running a rudderless office.

Ramos told reporters that Mr. Estrada's "indecision" over policy issues was creating an image problem for the Philippines and was largely to blame for an economy running at "one-third" speed compared to its East Asian neighbors.

The former president said the economy's four percent expansion in the past 12 months was akin to an engine running "at one-third speed only," compared to the dramatic turnarounds of South Korea, Thailand and even Indonesia.

He also said Mr. Estrada was projecting a "forward-backward" style of leadership by hiring and firing members of his Cabinet on a whim, and in starting projects only to cancel them in the face of popular opposition.

But Mr. Estrada said the country's gross national product had already expanded to three percent during the first nine months of 1999. He added that inflation and interest rates have gone down, while the peso strengthened against the US dollar.

"I could enumerate more of the accomplishments of my one-and-a half-year old administration -- accomplishments which do not always produce sensational headlines," he said.