|
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Espinoza: For the sake of national interest
By Fred C. Espinoza
Proposal. In her last State Of the Nation Address, President Arroyo may have succeeded in providing our people and leaders of the international community of nations a preview on how the nation hopes to address the grinding poverty at home. The Philippine proposal to convert half of its foreign debt into investments in anti-poverty projects has “finally reached the doorstep of the top lending institutions and multinational banks in America,” according to a report from Washington D.C.
Notably, it serves both as the nation’s roadmap for future economic and social advancement for its people, and a timely sounding board for future political leaders to move forward and put political bickering in the backburner and focus our attention to the need—to quote the President’s own words—“to break the cycle of indebtedness that has chained our economy to underdevelopment and more debt.”
Perhaps we can very well be guided by succeeding developments which transpired during the 60th anniversary of the United Nations (UN) as the positive response of leaders of the world’s leading economies to the Philippine proposal. Despite claims by the Freedom from Debt Coalition that the debt-for-equity proposal was “actually an embarrassment to the international community,” Speaker Jose De Venecia was personally requested by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) officers and board of directors to explain the dynamics of the proposed scheme, the report said.
The Philippines owes the WB $3.1 billion and the IMF $591 million.
It would be noteworthy to take into account the fact that the world summit at the UN last week “failed to produce any concrete proposal” to meet the UN Millennium Development Goal program (MDG) goals, foremost of which is the reduction of global poverty by 50 percent toward 2015. Further, the report also emphasized that the “De Venecia proposal is the only financial scheme put on the table, thus, it was unanimously adopted by the communiqués issued separately by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the summit of world leaders held at the UN to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the global forum.”
In all honesty, one can safely say that our distinguished Speaker of the House of Representatives made our country proud for coming up with such a unique financial scheme to enable the world’s 99 poor nations enough financial breathing space while trying to lift the quality of life for the poor. It could also help attract investors and provide more jobs to enable the poor to fend for themselves over the long haul.
Under the proposal, which received crucial endorsements from the leaders of Italy, Germany, Asian Development Bank and even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the UN General Assembly, half of the $2.3 million total debt stock of the 100 poorest nations, including the Philippines, would be “rechanneled” to projects that would help meet the MDG goal “to half poverty by 2015,” the report said.
This, despite the fact that the Philippine proposal did not call for any debt moratorium or debt discounts.
These points were emphasized by the House Speaker in these words: “We plead not for debt forgiveness, debt cancellation, debt moratorium or debt discounts” in the presence of world leaders during the recent UN summit meetings in New York City.
But what could be more interesting for the rich nations to consider at this point is that the Philippine proposal, the speaker further pointed out, “requires no new monies from the rich countries. Neither do we envision any reduction or loss of face value in the creditor’s financial assets. The debt-for-equity will provide us fiscal breathing space,” he said.
He explained that instead of the budgetary allocations going to debt service every year, they could go to irrigation, food production and post harvest facilities, reforestation, energy, mass housing, education, health and eco tourism, among others.
“In return, the lending institutions would have equity investments in these projects,” he said.
With these favorable developments ahead of us, it would do well to our nation for our leaders to heed the people’s appeal for an end to political strife for the sake of national interest.
(September 27, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
