What ex-NEDA chief said

What ex-NEDA chief said | Daily Tribune

In a recent interview with Karen Davila over ANC on the “zero remittance week” launched by overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) following former President Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest, economist and ex-NEDA chief Winnie Monsod dismissed any effect on the economy, describing it as a mere drop in the pond.

The pond here refers to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and its reserves of $106 billion. Thus, the purported $97 million a day loss for a weeklong “zero remittance” will not much affect the BSP inventory.

Monsod did not suggest a better way they could express their dissatisfaction but instead criticized OFWs as unable to understand state affairs. No wonder that if there are three economists in the room, there will be four economic worldviews.

Per her math, about $800 million would be lost with the ZRW, only “if we assume that every Filipino will stop remitting, but that’s not true.” Taking the assumption further, she said only 70 percent of the total 1.4-million OFW voters in 2016 voted for Du30.

This translates to 23 percent of OFWs being “die-hard Duterteans.” Thus, extrapolating 23 percent from $800 million gives only $185 million lost to the economy during the week.

Monsod then asked Davila: “If the country needs $185 million over the same period, will it affect the economy”? Answering her own question, she said, “Of course not; $185 million is a drop in the pond” (followed by prolonged sarcastic laughter).

From there, she concluded that the only people that would be affected are the families of the OFWs themselves. Even as a reductionist, Winnie cannot talk about the ZRW as a “waste of time.”

Rather condescendingly, the good economist suggested that we better help those “workers understand what’s going on.” Perhaps, she was being an apologist for the present dispensation to bother taking the trouble to take sides on the OFW issue.

Still, the ZRW issue does not only concern economics as it also concerns politics, policy, philosophy, et cetera. But we cannot confine our understanding to a single disciplinary insight when the phenomenon is bigger than a lone science to examine.

In fact, other disciplinary insights might help us understand more than we could derive rather insufficiently from a single economist who, it appears, can readily tweak non-existing assumptions as if they were “more likely” or what.

Between the referenced 2016 and post-2022, a lot has gone under the bridge. Those who earlier voted for FM Jr. deeply regret it now as the country is fast drifting into a financial sinkhole.

If we can construe ZRW literally, then the assumption to be made is that the entire universe of OFWs will not remit for a week, irrespective if die-hard or not. Certainly, Winnie’s extrapolating only 30 percent would significantly underscore the impact a ZRW would have on the economy, affirming in the process Huff’s warning on how we can bluff with statistics.

In fairness, the former NEDA chief should be credited for what the World Bank considered as impressive achievements in the economic front from 1986 to 1989. The economy recovered across a broad front or some worth mentioning, viz: “GDP grew steadily, inflation controlled at an average of 4.5 percent, current account and fiscal deficit reduced to earlier levels, about $1.6 billion of the debt retired, reduction of the external debt by about 17 percent of GNP, poverty reduced from 59 percent to 49 percent of all households.”

Topping it, from 1986 to 1989, real per capita GDP had inched its way to $613 in 1989 from $523 in 1986. Perhaps, if only FM Jr. could take good economist Monsod as a presidential adviser to manage and save the country from an imminent “fiscal collapse,” then the OFW-initiated ZRW will lose its “butterfly effect.”