Growth figures illusory, economy in the doldrums

Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal
Spokesperson
Communist Party of the Philippines
June 01, 2004

No amount of government hype over supposed recent "economic growth" can cover up the dire social and economic conditions of the Filipino people.

In fact, even government economists and big business apologists are guarded regarding their optimism over the recently released first quarter national economy figures that portray a purported record growth. As for the Filipino people, they have no reason to cheer.

Reputed growth figures at present as well as in the past have only painted a false picture of the economy. People in factories, farms, offices, communities and streets have not seen nor felt any indication of economic growth. The real picture of the semicolonial and semifeudal economy is a quagmire of worsening chronic crisis, stagnancy and malaise, agrarian and non-industrial backwardness, and increasing mass poverty. The people's economic conditions have all the more sharply and steadily declined since the 1980s.

A meticuluous scrutiny of recent government data shows that the factors behind the supposed first quarter growth figures are non-productive as well as unstable and transient. They do not indicate any hope of continuity, much less of real progress. They actually constitute a fleeting mirage in the midst of an economic setting that has ever since been barren and without real prospect of long-term growth.

The supposed growth figures were largely due to the following: 1) an upsurge in election-related spending (5.9%); 2) the further swelling of telecommunications services (13.4%) due to several millions of additional cellphone users; 3) a short-term upward correction in the general decline of the country's agriculture and the accidental benefit of favorable weather especially for palay which had a 0.7% negative growth rate in 2003; 4) a wobbly recovery from the decline of electronic parts exports in the recent recession; 5) and an increase in remittances by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

None of this constitutes solid basis for long-term or real growth in the country's economy.

The "positive" effects of many of these factors may just as easily be wiped out in the succeeding quarters as conditions for the so-called growth disappear. Ominously, the reputed 4.3% growth in manufacturing during the first quarter was marked by an 11% decline by the end of the quarter. As the end of the election period returns consumer spending to its normally low levels, the unusual (130%) rise of first quarter inventories of agricultural and other hoarded merchandise further dampens production through the subsequent periods.

The nagging problems of continued oil price increases, the ever increasing government deficit and rising debt burdens have become so acute that even government and reactionary economists are wary of the countervailing effects of these problems on the economy.

The perceptible increase in unemployment and underemployment even in official government statistics is in stark contradiction to the supposed first quarter growth rates. The January 2004 quarterly unemployment and underemployment rate of 28.5% is much higher than the preceeding quarter's 25.9% and the January 2003 quarterly rate of 26.7%.

In the meantime, the masses of the people suffer increasing impoverishment, deprivations and hardships. What they more concretely see and feel are the daily added burdens brought upon them by the increasing prices of oil, public services and basic commodities in the face of widespread unemployment, the absence of economic opportunities and utterly low wages and incomes.

The people have no recourse but to intensify their struggles for immediate economic relief and urgent social support. The reactionary government can only be confronted with more widespread mass protests and struggles against depressed wages; joblessness; incessant hikes in the prices of oil, public services and basic commodities; and deficiency of social services compounded by the increasingly heavy burdens of debt payments, taxes, plunder, corruption and military expenditures.

The people's struggles necessarily address at the same time the very roots of their immediate socio-economic problems--the present rotten and moribund neocolonial and semifeudal political, economic and social system. The ultimate solution lies in ending the oppressive and exploitative ruling system that serves only the interests of the ruling classes, and replacing it with a rising and vibrant revolutionary system that is sovereign, democratic, progressive and serves the interest of the masses of the people.

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