Ducky Paredes

“Was EO 839 something that Malacanang issued ‘without thinking’? Was this simply panic reaction? Or, is Malacanang playing the Ralph Recto game?”

 

by Ducky Paredes

 

What was it that prompted Gloria Arroyo to issue EO 839 directing the oil companies to retain the level of the retail price of petroleum products prevailing on Oct. 15, 2009 for the duration of the “state of emergency” in the entire area of Luzon?

This is a great disservice to the country. EO 839 is a disincentive not only for investors in the oil industry but for all industries and businesses. If she can do and EO 839 on the oil industry, she can do this on anyone at all.

While Hugo Chavez, halfway around the world has nationalized the oil industry in Venezuela, he sits on top of the largest oil reserves in South America. Gloria is president of a country dependent on imported oil.

Businessmen have been campaigning for the withdrawal of EO 389 due to its impact on forced losses on the petroleum, risk of future adequate supply, and disincentive to future investment.

The Joint Foreign Chambers (JFC) has adopted the position taken by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), Makati Business Club (MBC), and the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI).

In a statement, the JFC points out: “Price control may have to be used as a last resort to prevent profiteering by some unscrupulous firms and middlemen. (But) In the current situation, however, there is no evidence of profiteering by the oil companies.”

In fact, the local oil players have been very good at coordinating with the Energy Department b y assuring that supplies are available where they are needed, even in the flooded areas even as their gas stations Was EO 839 something that Malacanang issued “without thinking”? Was this simply panic reaction? Or, is Malacanang playing the Ralph Recto game?  are also under floodwaters.

Was EO 839 something that Malacanang issued “without thinking”? Was this simply panic reaction? Or, is Malacanang playing the Ralph Recto game? Remember that Recto as head of the NEDA went out on a limb by accusing the oil companies of overpricing pump prices by as much as P8.00 per liter.

The net effect of that dumb thought will probably be that Recto will again lose in his bid to regain his senatorial seat. I believe that Pinoys are smart enough to figure out not everything that is spoken by a pretty face has to be the truth. Too bad for Ralph.

Is Gloria simply following Ralph’s paucity of thought?

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While I have a lot of respect for Manny Villar as a highly successful real estate businessman but when Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. promises an annual economic growth of 7 percent to 8 percent in the next six years if he wins the presidential race in May 2010, I know that he is speaking as a politician who will promise what he thinks the voters want to hear.

He sounds like Joe de V and Mulong Neri when he says: “We must start a sustainable economic growth for our country, 7 percent to 8 percent, I think, is a decent objective consistently in maybe, six years. To me, it can be done. Other countries have done it. Why can’t we do it?”

He is right to ask why we can’t do it. We can. It happened before – in 2007, the Philippine economy grew by 7.2 percent.

The official projection is 2.6 percent to 3.6 percent in 2010. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a GDP growth of 2.25 percent for the country in 2010.

Villar sees that with impressive economic performance, foreign investors will take a second look at investing in the Philippines.

Comparatively, Malaysia grows at 6.3 percent; China 13 percent in 2007 and 9.1 percent last year; Taiwan, 6.6 percent in 2007 but only 3.5 percent in 2008; Singapore, 7.7 percent and 1.2 percent in 2008; and Indonesia, 6.3 percent in 2007 and 6.2 percent last year.

Of course, we can grow as fast as China does. What is needed, however, is not rhetoric or political promises. What we will need will be a lot of work in reorganizing the country so that we avoid unnecessary expenses caused by weather conditions and wrong priorities.

There are many more things wrong with this country than can be solved by electing this or that politician as President. Clearly, among the things most needed is a leader with a pure heart who will make things right. We also need one who will do the unpopular.

Certainly, let us elect the best of the candidates that we have for our next president but we must also realize that this is the easiest of the things that we need to do. Electing the wrong one will be disastrous for this country.

* * *

In every report on the resignation of Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Sixto Esquivias IV, the point is made that the agency was unable to hit its collection targets. That is really beside the point.

Those targets became grossly unrealistic by the time that 2009 came around. For one thing, those forecasts are not based on how the country is doing or what is happening in the real world. Instead, these forecasts are based on what the government wants to collect.

The real story is why an honest man was heard saying on a radio interview just before he quit that he did not care any more who was who but that he would not allow corruption in his bureau.

With this kind of government that the future Pampanga congresswoman runs, of course Esqivas had to go. He had made himself the odd man out.

* * *

“I’m 87. I was born on March 20, 1922. The first thing I look at in the morning paper, I turn to the obituaries. And if my name isn’t there, I have breakfast.” – Carl Reiner, American writer-actor

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hvp 11.03.09

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