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On unprogrammed appropriations and Secretary Ralph Recto

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On unprogrammed appropriations and Secretary Ralph Recto July 30, 2024 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Share https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/07/30/610842/on-unprogrammed-appropriations-and-secretary-ralph-recto/ T he use of the idle funds of some government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) like PhilHealth to fund the Unprogrammed Appropriations of the budget law, the General Appropriations Act (GAA), has become a big issue recently.  See for instance, see these “Yellow Pad” columns in  BusinessWorld : “Maharlika 2: This time, PhilHealth members are the victims” (July 1), “The P89.9 billion taken from PhilHealth are member contributions, not government subsidies” (July 22), “Lame arguments to justify the transfer of PhilHealth funds” (July 29). From the “Demand and Supply” column in the   Philippine Star : “Unhealthy mess” (July 17) and “Shameless, Sec Ralph!” (July 24). And from “Gotcha” column also in the   Philippine Star : “Now they’re st
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On food inflation, agriculture spending, and last year’s SONA

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On food inflation, agriculture spending, and last year’s SONA July 23, 2024 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/07/23/609572/on-food-inflation-agriculture-spending-and-last-years-sona/   Yesterday, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. gave his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) in Congress. As this piece was submitted several hours before the SONA, I will discuss it in the next two columns. In SONA 2023, the President said that “the biggest problem that we encountered was inflation.” He discussed many measures taken to help address it, from monetary to energy to agriculture policies. Here are some of the trade and agriculture measures, with numbers, that the President mentioned in his 2023 SONA: 7,000+ KADIWA stores rolled out nationwide; giving away 28,000+ modern agricultural machines; giving away 50+ million sacks of rice seeds, one million sacks of corn seeds, and various vegetable seeds; and 100,000+ coconut saplin
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Philippine revenue performance and the US economy

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Philippine revenue performance and the US economy July 16, 2024 | 12:01 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Share P hilippine government revenues continue to improve even with no new taxes. The high economic growth just helps expand the revenue base. More business activities equal more revenues. REVENUE PERFORMANCE 2019-2024 There is one revenue source that is lagging — excise tax. Looking at the period of January-May of each year, the highest excise tax collected was in 2019 with P144 billion, then this declined during the COVID-19 lockdown, then recovered to P125 billion in 2022, then declined again to only P113 billion in 2024 ( see Table 1 ). Among the “public bad” products slapped with an excise tax, only tobacco experiences a consistent decline in revenues. As the tax rate increases, the tax revenue decreases. For instance, a tax of P50/pack in 2021 yielded P176 billion; P55/pack in 2022 yielded P160 billion; P60/pack in 2023 yielded P135 billion. I made my own proje
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The Philippines’ public debt stock and debt transparency

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The Philippines’ public debt stock and debt transparency July 9, 2024 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Share I am tackling two topics in this piece, so let us go straight to the numbers. Our public debt is approaching P16 trillion. Last week the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) announced the public debt stock for May 2024. The actual debt was P15.35 trillion, 68% of it — or P10.44 trillion — is domestic debt. If guaranteed debt is included, our total public debt is P15.7 trillion.I compared the numbers with those of recent years, all during May for consistency of comparison. The biggest increase in actual debt was P2.18 trillion from May 2020 to May 2021, or a 24.5% increase in just one year. There are two emerging trends. One, there is a declining expansion in debt, from 24.5% in 2021 to only 13% in 2022 and 2023, and only 9% in 2024. This is good. Two, there has been continued high expansion in external loans, with an average 18.4% annual increase from 2020 to 202
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Marcos Jr.’s economic performance in his first 2 years

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Marcos Jr.’s economic performance in his first 2 years July 2, 2024 | 12:01 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Share https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/07/02/605395/marcos-jr-s-economic-performance-in-his-first-2-years/ June 30 marked end of the second year of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.’s administration. How did the Philippine economy perform, and are Filipinos better or worse off after two years? This piece will try to answer those questions as objectively as possible, avoiding making subjective conjectures. The assessment will be limited to three key economic indicators: overall economic/GDP growth, the unemployment rate, and the inflation rate including food inflation. The baseline year is 2021 and although Mr. Marcos came into office only in the second half of 2022, the performance for the whole year can be considered as an achievement or non-achievement of the new administration. This is because business and political stability was settled after the Ma
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Europe’s deindustrialization and opportunities for the Philippines

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Europe’s deindustrialization and opportunities for the Philippines June 27, 2024 | 12:02 am My Cup Of Liberty By Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. Share https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/06/27/604332/europes-deindustrialization-and-opportunities-for-the-philippines/ Last week, on June 21, the country’s economic team held another Philippine Economic Brie fi ng (PEB) in Tokyo, Japan. The speakers included Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto, Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan, Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs Secretary Frederick D. Go, and Bangko Sentral Deputy Governor Francisco G. Dakila, Jr. Before that, on June 19 and 20, the economic team also held meetings with Japanese business leaders from companies like Marubeni Corp., SMBC, and Rating and Investment Information, Inc. According to various reports, Mr. Recto made a powerful announcement to the Japanese business leaders, saying, “The Philippine
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