Tuesday, November 07, 2006 Malilong: Asean summit holiday By Frank Malilong Jr. The Other Side
When the value of the peso went into a steep dive at the height of the Asian financial crisis, many people groaned because it hurt their business. Now that the Philippine currency is sho-wing signs of recovery, it is the exporters who are grumbling. You just can’t please everyone.
Look at the four-day holiday in Cebu that the President declared in time for the 12th Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) summit here. A brainchild of Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña, the non-working holiday on Dec. 11 to 14 is aimed at encouraging Cebuanos to go elsewhere and decongest the three cities that are hosting the summit.
Initially, I thought that it was a masterstroke and, on a personal note, a welcome relief from the pressures of a regular work day. I already had visions of myself sunbathing in Boracay (not because I need the tan but because I couldn’t swim) or fishing in Oslob where a sister-in-law and her husband own a little cottage. Or if, for one reason or another, I couldn’t leave the city, I imagined how exhilarating it would be to leisurely drive around a half-deserted city.
As expected, not everybody is as thrilled by the prospect as I am and, presumably, the Cebu City mayor. The first to complain were the exporters (are they ever happy?) because they stand to lose P2 million every day that there was no work. They promptly got an assurance from the President that they can continue working (read: watching their workers in the sweatshops from their air-conditioned offices) during the summit.
And now comes Mandaue City Mayor Thadeo Ouano warning against the grave economic consequences of the long holiday. Actually, the warning came from the Cebu Bankers’ Club but Ouano adopted it as his own.
“The banking industry is vital,” the mayor was quoted by this paper yesterday. “Mao man ni ang nagpadagan sa kwarta.”
I heard that Ouano used to work in a government bank so he must know whereof he speaks when it comes to banking. The thing about the economic consequences bugs me though. Didn’t the President, who is an economist, foresee the peril that she would be putting our economy into before she approved the four-day holiday?
The same goes for Osmeña, too. Why wasn’t he able to figure out that he could actually wreck this island’s economy with his ill-conceived idea of letting the people go on a holiday for four days? Is his grasp of economic principles inferior to Ouano’s?
Ouano said he will ask the President to reconsider and cancel the holiday altogether. He will urge her to balance security with economic concerns. From one economist to another, she should be able to see the whole picture more clearly.
The trouble with an economist, my daughter wrote from business school in Nantes, France, is that he tries to answer a question based on a model that is based on an assumption. And if you ask him how the assumption came to being, he will introduce a few more.
I will not ask Ouano how he came up with his assumptions or if he is opposed to the four-day holiday because it is Osmena’s idea. I’ve made up my plans for Dec. 11, 12, 13 and 14. Boracay or Oslob, here I come!
