MERGED: All About Gloria Arroyo - Past, Present, Future

[darkwing]

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i hate to say it....told you so Mr. Green

[hala tindak jud]

Mounsa kaha ka kung pananglit mopakana-ug og balaod si GMA sa Balaod Militar?

Ako, akong himoon kay natural, mag-paatbang sa iyahang gihimo. Ug mobatok kutob sa makaya!

[mulan]

at most observations, if we fight against it, it's usually win-lose result. surely though, if you fight for what you believe, you can always say you did your best and if you ever win, i'm quite convince that the win is just a delay, they'll soon scheme to win theirs.

But do you really believe that GMA would impose ML (kwarta padala? joke)

[dawn runner]

GMA’s anti-corruption drive gets -30% rating
By Marichu Villanueva
The Philippine Star 06/02/2005

President Arroyo’s anti-corruption drive got a negative 30 rating from the public in the latest survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

The SWS, however, has yet to officially release the results of the survey, although a copy was obtained by The STAR from an SWS subscriber who declined to be identified.

Asked to gauge the sincerity and effectiveness of the government’s anti-corruption campaign, respondents of the SWS survey gave the government, headed by the President, a minus 30 percent overall rating.


"This means that the public feels that the national government is losing the war on corruption," the subscriber said.

"Even without this survey result coming out yet, the Makati Business Club was already extremely worried over this public perception," the subscriber added.

Asked to give the Palace’s reaction to the survey results, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said he was not prepared to comment on the matter until the survey firm makes an official announcement.

"We’re not a subscriber to the SWS so we have no way of verifying this," Bunye told The STAR. "We would respond at a proper time once they (SWS) make an official announcement on this."

(unya pag elections inyo gigamit ang survey results 2 prop up GMA!)

The survey was reportedly conducted after Mrs. Arroyo had declared an
all-out war against graft and corruption last March.

The government’s anti-corruption campaign was officially launched with the creation of the Swift Action Team (SWAT) headed by Mrs. Arroyo’s chief presidential legal counsel, Merceditas Gutierrez.

Asked to comment on the SWS survey, Gutierrez told The STAR that the anti-corruption program of the Arroyo administration had just started and she appealed to the public for patience.

"Give us time to do our work. It took Hong Kong many years to address this problem. But slowly, we are making progress," Gutierrez said, referring to the experience of Hong Kong’s anti-corruption commission, whose former chairman, Tony Kwok, was hired by Mrs. Arroyo as a consultant in drawing up the Philippine government’s program to rid the bureaucracy of corrupt officials.

Gutierrez said she would be appearing today in a Senate public hearing on the proposed ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, in which the Philippines is one of the state signatories.

Gutierrez believes that this would show the earnest efforts of the Philippine government to comply with international standards in fighting graft and corruption.

As a treaty, the UN Convention Against Corruption has to be ratified by the Senate before it becomes binding and obligatory to the Philippines.

"This would give us the terms of reference in addressing graft and corruption such as what laws to pass and what the government should do to implement plans and programs," Gutierrez explained.

"When we ratify this, we would really be obliged to come up with plans and programs to address graft and corruption through legislative and administrative regulations, among other things," she said.

Since the SWAT started operations a few months back, Gutierrez said they have so far conducted "lifestyle checks" on 20 government officials and employees from graft-ridden government agencies like the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Customs, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of Education, and the Land Transportation Office.

These agencies were cited in another SWS survey as among the most corrupt government agencies in the country.

Because of the results of the December 2004 SWS survey on corruption, Gutierrez revealed they would now include GSIS officials headed by its board chairman and general manager Winston Garcia among their lifestyle checks and investigations of reported anomalies.

The GSIS was cited by the SWS survey respondents as the most corrupt government agency in the country.

Gutierrez, however, said that the SWAT anti-corruption action teams could only do so much in the investigation and prosecution of suspected grafters in government.

"We will soon come out with our road map, which we call the National Program of Action, and it will involve all stakeholders — the executive and legislative branches, the judiciary, local government units, constitutional offices, and even the media," she said.

"We will come up with a ‘scoreboard’ that will monitor the implementation of these anti-corruption plans and programs," she added.

According to the SWAT chief, independent monitors will be assigned to chart the ongoing "scoreboard" on the Arroyo administration’s war on corruption.

"It takes time to investigate. But we promise results soon," Gutierrez vowed.

When I woke up this morning, I rub my eyes if I am not dreaming. Tsk, when everything is clear, its NEGATIVE THIRTY! My God, this is how bad the peoples perception of this government.

[dawn runner]

S&P keeps BB-minus rating
By MAX ESTAYO

Standard & Poor’s will keep its BB-minus rating and stable outlook on the Philippines until fiscal reforms translate into lower debt and higher revenues, two credit analysts from the ratings agency said yesterday.

"A change in the rating will happen only when we see a growth larger than we anticipate and a debt reduction larger than we anticipate," S&P associate for sovereign and international public finance ratings Philippe Sachs said.

He said the rating agency will keep watch on the implementation of other tax measures and the improvement in the power sector, particularly the reforms in the National Power Corp., a reduction in its liabilities will significantly cut the high public sector debt.

Last Friday, Fitch Ratings raised its sovereign outlook on the Philippines to stable from negative, saying the recent reforms by the government were likely to cut chronic budget deficits.

The S&P analysts, however, were unimpressed with the reforms, and still fretted over the government’s high debt burden that makes it vulnerable to external risks.

The country’s prospects improved but among its peers, it remains most vulnerable, the analysts said yesterday.

"It is the most indebted among its peers. Its debt servicing is high," said Sachs.

He added that the external vulnerability will increase the cost of funding the country’s debts.

"Investors will demand higher premium and that will offset the impact of the revenue measures," he said.

S&P associate director for sovereign ratings Agost Benard said the Philippines will increasingly find it difficult to handle its external debt given the changes in the global environment.

"We are entering a less benign global sector with interest rates rising and moderate global demand. There is also the foreign exchange volatility and the susceptibility of the peso to sentiments," Benard said.

S&P said the Philippines’s net general government debt ratio stands at a high of 70 percent, almost equal to that of countries in the ‘B’ median. Countries in the ‘BB’ median - where the Philippines belongs - have a general ratio of close to 40 percent.

"It is for that reason that the Philippines was downgraded in January," Sachs said.

Sachs said the Philippines’ revenue to GDP ratio of 14 percent is also the lowest among its peers. Countries in the ‘BB’ median, even in the ‘B’ median, have an average ratio of 28 percent.

Sachs said the Philippines must work on improving revenue generation noting that the high fiscal deficit has been a "revenue problem."

He said the reduction of the deficit in the last 2 to 3 years has been largely a result of the "severe compression in the expenditures, which is not good in the long term."

The government has announced that it will spend 70 percent of revenues from new tax measures, principally the expanded value-added tax, for deficit reduction and the remaining 30 percent for additional spending.

Benard said the Philippines must work its way to increasing revenues, cutting deficit and eventually to "debt stabilizing" where it will stop the upward trending of its debt ratio.

Sachs said the 70-30 ratio may change over time but definitely, he said spending on infrastructure must be increased to create jobs, attract investments and build the "medium growth" that will determine the country’s credit-worthiness.

S&P, however, noted that compared with its peers, the Philippines has better external liquidity. It said the country’s current account surplus is due to the strong and steady inflows of remittances, as well as from portfolio investments.

"The country’s external liquidity is quite comfortable. The current account is in surplus by the nature of inflows, which is relative stable. Remittances are there in good times, goes up in bad times. A balance of payment crisis can be mitigated by the remittances," Benard said.

He said compared with emerging markets with the same credit rating, the Philippines stands out because of its stable monetary policy and the absence of hyperinflation such as experienced in other BB-rated countries.

Nonetheless, Sachs said there will be no immediate change in the country’s rating.

"The rating is appropriate where it stands. We already factored in the likelihood of reforms passing through this year," he said.

S&P in January this year lowered the country’s sovereign rating to ‘BB-’ from ‘BB’ but retained the stable outlook.

Sachs said any changes in the rating will be determined by the "implementation and administration" of the revenue measures.

"We’ll continue to look at the actual generation of the revenues. We’ll look at the peso and inflation," he said.

Sachs said S&P will adopt a "wait-and-see" attitude and be "cautiously optimistic."

I am creating this topic for those who wants to discuss about the RP economy under GMA. Economist are highly encourage to give their opinion.

Anyway, the rating entity Standards and Poors didnt ride on the earlier favorable rating of the RP given by Fitch.

In a nutshell, the S&P wants to see an actual generation of income than hoping on its presumed earning. S&P is really concern how the government could control the balloning budget deficit. Personally this problem is too difficult to solve because the government kept on spending and this will be aggravated by the perceived corruption of our public officials. Government spendmore without any tangible result and any corresponding increase in revenue because of corruption and tax evasion by rich taxpayers.

The only good thing about RP is the stable remittance of OFWs. But do we have to encourage more Filipinos to leave the country to stabilize our liquidity? How many families will be broken up if we force them to go out of the country.

This BB minus rating is more realistic given how an economist president mismanage our economy. SHe is too busy making "pa pogi points" on the people than doing her job.

[estor_boot]

morag relative man cguro ni FPJ ang president sa SWS. if i was not mistaken it was FPJ's cousin. so what do we expect from SWS?

[FK]

pero in fairness sab sa SWS. d ba medyo sakto man sila sa result sa presidential election.

[dawn runner]

Negative thirty. Which means wa nay motoo ni GMA!

[tolstoi]

it is expected in manila to have that rating..but in CEBU its +30

[estor_boot]

^^ sakto ka bai. asa kaha sila nag survey? did they include Cebu?