INCOMING Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez did not spare any quarter in his talk during last Monday’s Consultation workshop with the Business Community dubbed as "Sulong Pilipinas: Hakbang Tungo sa Kaunlaran" at the SMX Convention Center, SM Lanang Premier.
It is clear that he knows the direction that incoming President Rodrigo Duterte is taking once he takes over Malacañang.
“Our people did not vote for change last May 9 because the macroeconomic numbers were good. They voted for change because the good macroeconomic numbers did not translate into a good life for all,” Dominguez said in his keynote address at the opening of the two-day workshop.
“I challenge the business community to build coalitions for change in every sphere of our social life,” he said. Partnerships, he said, should be “not just for projects but to transform our national community into a cooperative enterprise that brings out the best in everyone and delivers the best for all.”
In these statements, it is clear that Dominguez is taking off from what the incoming administration perceives as the biggest weakness of the outgoing government under President Benigno Simon Aquino III, that is, bringing benefits of the booming economy to the masses.
While Aquino has been drumming up on the growth figures the Philippine economy through the six years of his administration, these have not trickled down to the masses.
There are even those who insist that the growth figures are but the fruit of the economic fundamentals former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo put in place and was not a result of any project, program, or focus of the Aquino administration.
Whatever, the fact remains that the people never felt the massive growth that the country’s economic figures are showing.
In the First Quarter of 2016 alone, the country’s economy grew by a whopping 6.9 percent, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported.
This made the Philippines the fastest-growing among 11 Asian economies, faster than China that grew by 6.7 percent, Vietnam that grew by 5.5 percent, Indonesia with 4.9 percent, and Malaysia with 4.2 percent for the same period, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Emmanuel Esguerra said.
The first quarter growth based on gross domestic product (GDP) was higher than the last quarter of 2015, which was at 6.5 percent.
On the other hand, the PSA reported last March 18, 2016 that poverty incidence rate went down for the first semester of 2015 to 26.3 percent as compared to the 27.9 percent poverty incidence rate in 2012.
Self-rated poverty based on the results of the December 5-8, 2015 survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) among 1,200 respondents nationwide, however, showed that 50 percent of Filipinos consider themselves poor.
This is the same figure as self-rated poverty rate for the whole 2015.
The bottom line, the rich are getting richer as businesses are doing well.
Now that the track Duterte is taking is to ensure inclusive growth, Dominguez called on the business sector to help government draw up new and correct metrics to better understand and make sense of economic growth and measure how the socioeconomic targets are beneficial to the poor and low-income families.
For starters, the business sector welcomed the consultative workshop and sees this as a signal by the incoming government that it intends to achieve its targets through the full cooperation of the business sector.
“This is the first time we are being consulted by an administration even before it assumes office, and we helped put this together because this is the most comprehensive consultation that you can ever see,” said Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Inc. honorary chair Donald Dee, who described the workshop as a seminal event in Philippine business history.
The workshop gathered some 450 participants representing business organizations, along with over 100 international and local media persons.
Because of its consultative nature, Dee expressed optimism that the Duterte Administration can achieve its promised inclusive growth while maintaining the above-average growth figures the Philippine economy is enjoying.