“PREPARE for recession.”
This was stressed by Bacolod City Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran when asked what scenario is shaping in the city amid the enhanced community quarantine against Covid-19 spread in an interview with SunStar Bacolod recently.
“Assuming we can flatten the Covid-19 curve in the next two weeks or another month, I still think that the pandemic has already been forcing world economies to breakdown including Philippines,” Familiaran said.
Citing recent World Bank and IMF reports of a fast shaping global recession, Familiaran said that “our country is quite vulnerable because we are quire dependent on export and import for practically most of our needs.”
“If our trade, market, banks and financial stocks drop extensively, then drop in our service utilities, jobs, and remittances will also follow, and the government will have a harder and longer time to recover revenues and taxes, and its social protection program will also collapse,” Familiaran added.
The vice-mayor asserted that the country can still cope because local economy is still largely agriculture, it just needs to provide the said sector with adequate financial, technological and marketing support.