Q3 GDP: Slower contraction, but still ugly

Some of the country’s tycoons have lost weight. Their sleek suits and barongs now look a size bigger. They look stressed and tired, and it seems they’ve aged in just a few months. But how could they not? Their sprawling billion dollar empires are counting massive losses, unable to defy gravity, no thanks to COVID-19 and our government’s bungled response to it.

What a year it’s been for everyone and it’s not even over yet. Perhaps we all aged, with countable and immeasurable losses left and right, both personal and otherwise.

While we are all still fighting, inching our way out of these troubled times, I am sure most will agree that 2020 is quite an overwhelming year already.

As I said, many Filipino billionaire businessmen are feeling the impact of drastically lower profits.

But don’t look at the new lines and creases on their foreheads or the new crow’s feet spreading out from the corners of their eyes.  The latest financial figures of their companies are more telling albeit not surprising.

Corporate earnings

Some listed giants are already reporting third-quarter results and they’re still bleak even though an improvement from second-quarter earnings, resulting in huge losses in their nine-month net income.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that many listed firms are trying to conceal the ugly numbers. Some are reporting only third-quarter earnings, while others don’t give comparative figures – as if analysts, investors and journalists can’t unearth past data.

As a side note, companies should refrain from concealing the numbers because, one, it goes against the tenets of transparency and, second, it’s easy to look for 2019 figures anyway. There’s really no use trying to hide the numbers.

Besides, everyone has been drastically affected by the pandemic. Consider your company lucky even if you’re reporting huge losses. Others have nothing to report anymore because they have shut down.

If third-quarter corporate results are any indication, then the country’s third-quarter economic numbers are still bad. While economists are seeing a slower contraction, I am certain it’s still ugly.

Some, such as the Japan Center for Economic Research, see a contraction of 7.7 percent in the third quarter, although a slower pace compared to the 16.5-percent contraction in the second quarter.

In all, the International Monetary Fund believes the Philippine economy will contract by 8.3 percent in 2020, the worst drop in Southeast Asia.

Government statisticians will report the third-quarter numbers tomorrow, Nov. 10. Any improvement is a welcome development.

Open up the economy

Moving forward, the government must continue opening up the economy to allow more Filipinos to rebuild their lives.

Strict health protocols should still be in place, but many different sectors of the economy previously not allowed to open should be allowed to operate by now.

Transportation must be allowed to increase capacity. Commuters can’t continue relying on the more expensive ride-hailing services.

Back to work instead of work from home

And as the government continues to reopen the economy, employers must still adhere to strict health measures and must provide their employees face masks and shields, and free and regular PCR tests as they return to their offices.

Some bosses believe the work-from-home setup has affected productivity and has limited critical operations such as budget presentations.

In addition to lowered productivity and missing-in-person chats and meetings, both formal and informal, work from home has resulted in miscommunication because most conversations are done through email, chat, social media, and text versus the usual person-to-person discussions.

But while management views the work-from-home setup as the culprit for lowered productivity, employees actually feel more overwhelmed with the workload, with the lines between work and pleasure now dizzyingly blurred.

While the greater use of technology has brought freedom, some union groups abroad are actually lobbying for the right to disconnect.

An increasingly connected world has created the expectation that workers are available to answer emails or take calls beyond normal office hours, according to an article on labourlist.org.

I agree. Zoom calls have become annoying and intrusive chatterboxes and, at the end of the day, can not really replace meaningful group discussions done face to face.

As we move into the last quarter of the year, we can only hope that the economy will start to seriously recover from the onslaught of the pandemic and ordinary Filipinos will be able to earn a living again while staying safe from the virus.

Of course, our troubles will not end even as 2020 ends, or if and when COVID-19 disappears. The government needs to come up with a strategic long-term vision to make our economy less vulnerable to the next big catastrophe.

We need to build our local industries, boost exports, save and modernize the agriculture sector, and rid the bureaucracy of corruption.

We’ve been lagging behind the rest of the world in both strategic thinking and governance, and COVID-19 has put a giant mirror in front of us to show us that brutal truth.

The result is this uncertainty we’re all facing now and everyone’s quite overwhelmed already. If the country’s richest tycoons are worried and are losing sleep because of the bad business environment, imagine just how much worse it is for ordinary Filipinos.

Iris Gonzales’ email address is [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at eyesgonzales.com