Tuesday, November 20, 2007 Malilong: Exporters’ cry By Frank Malilong The Other Side
I GREW up in the days when the peso was half the value of the dollar. Those were the days that Nene Pimentel would later describe as the golden era when a housewife would return from the market, “nga bug-at ang basket pero gaan ang nawong.”
Then the value of the peso declined, falling first to four to a dollar and dipping steadily further, reeling from the weight of government corruption and economic mismanagement. Not very long ago, the proverbial camel’s back finally gave way and the peso hit rock bottom, breaching what once was thought to be an impregnable P50 barrier. Those were the days when, again to quote Pimentel’s colorful language, “gaan ang basket apan bug-at ang nawong sa nangompra.”
Well, not all market goers, actually. The exporters never had it so good. They traded for and were paid in the almighty dollar. If indeed crisis breeds opportunity, this was it for the exporters and oh, how they took it.
For one reason or another, the peso is miraculously recovering. And look who’s griping!
The exporters, the ones who made piles during the era when the rest of us suffered from the deflated purchasing value of our currency, are now crying for government intervention to slow down the peso’s growth. Unless that is done, they warn, they will be annihilated by the competition.
I have very limited knowledge of economics but isn’t this situation something that a businessman ought to have prepared for? Business conditions are not fixed by law, they vary every so often, depending on a number of factors, including supply and demand. Why should people who made hay while the sun was hot be allowed to cry now that it is raining?
Yet, here they are, crying loud enough to invite the attention of two honorable senators of the Republic. Yesterday, I read that Loren Legarda and Mar Roxas are going to conduct a probe on the peso’s ascent.
Being of the old school that still believes that congressional investigations are conducted in aid of legislation, I am naturally flustered. What do Legarda and Roxas hope to achieve beyond the publicity that they badly need as anchor for their presidential ambitions? What can their inquiry unearth that the public does not already know? What more law can they craft?
Oh, well. A “law prohibiting the peso from growing to stop the exporters from crying,” perhaps? That would not be surprising considering how a congressman once supposedly filed a bill to outlaw all typhoons. This world never runs out of surprises (read: inanities), does it ever.
