Of course some sectors, aside from the carping politicians, are not happy with this development. The exporters for example do not want our peso to appreciate. They earn dollars and pay the goods and services in peso. If the value of goods and services remain constant the peso's appreciation against the dollar will be a bane to them.
Moreover, these guys do not actually complain when the value of the dollars was high. In less than a year they lost about P11 for every dollar they earned.
I get to appreciate this better with my own simple predicament. I have exactly $200 in my wallet. About 10 months ago, the value of these well-kept mighty dollar bills was P11,200. Today the value is down to P9,000 and I have this feeling that my $ bills are no longer that mighty.
If you are going believe the independent-minded economic seers, both domestic and international, the value of the peso vis-à-vis the dollar, our currency will soar to P32 against the green buck before PGMA bows out from office. When this happens, my $200 will now be only P6,400
This prognostication does not augur well for exporters and our national heroes - the OFWs. To reduce the impact, exporters just have to maximize their production capacity. In the case of our OFWs, maybe they can reassess their capabilities.
Sometime ago, in this corner, I wrote about teachers landing jobs in Hong Kong as domestic helpers. A little improvement on their teaching proficiency can land them job as tutors whose salary scales is four times that of a DOH. And their status commands respect from their employers.
Problem with us Pinoys, the last time that PGMA directed the Department of Labor to reassess and retrain OFWs, which will take about three to six months depending on the result of the evaluation, they ran to politicians who discredit the program on the allegation that the concerned OFWs might be replaced by other nationalities.
They failed to appreciate the fact that because of their limited knowledge their employers consider them expendable. Our OFWs lose their dignity and respectability and they are paid a picayune.
Pardon me for struggling to the issue of OFW and domestic helpers. I just want to point out what I personally encountered and learned in my recent travel to Singapore.
Of course the Senate can go on with its investigation. They have made their point and we appreciate that. They stopped a potential scam and I think that they delivered a strong message that henceforth any shady transactions will not escape them. Having done that, we expect that they now proceed to craft a law that will deter politicians in office, and those who are extensions of their office, to use their power and influence to engage in wheeling and dealing in similar fishy transactions.
The positive side of the grand inquisition is that the NBN contract with ZTE is dead. I still hope that PGMA will also scrap altogether the flipside of the NBN deal which is the CyberEd network. It smells the same.
BTW, Congratulations to DXAB's hard-hitting commentator with a funny tongue Estong Caballes. His baptism of fire, a libel case filed against him by LTO Regional Director Gomer Dy, was thrown out by the city prosecutor's office.
