The incompetent economist

Since his definitive, resounding albeit embarrassing renunciation at the polls in 2016, former Trade, Transportation and then Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas has been on an extended furlough as he hibernated to come to terms with the rejection handed by the electorate when they decided they wanted a real leader with proven competence and administrative gravitas to run the country.

To his misfortune, 2016’s biggest loser had neither. Filipinos saw the fakery a mile away when, in one ad, he said that he would not employ gimmickry and yet the list of cheap stunts was legion. The most convincing electoral margin between Rodrigo R. Duterte and the Liberal Party’s pathetically losing bet was perhaps the most eloquent testimony of what the people want and expect from those they surrender their trust.

And even as such, big-time losers would like to declare 2016 as a thing of the past and from there move on, the continuing approval and popularity ratings of Duterte, which are statistically even greater now post-2016 than the mandate granted him, not only validate the rebuke slapped on this pathetic loser but the continuing approvals cement the fate of Duterte with his beloved constituency regardless of the barbs thrown his way.

These continuing high ratings cover both approvals and satisfaction. On both, positivity overwhelms. The importance of these twin aspects become relevant in this year’s prospective midterm elections, which serve as vicarious indicators of the desire of the electorate for either continuance or change, especially appropriate where some who have resurrected their self-indulgent ambitions were direct challengers and protagonists of Duterte in 2016.

That they had at least once presented themselves as alternatives to his prospective presidency at that time sets them apart and foists their candidacies as direct benchmarks of either satisfaction or disgust with Duterte’s governance.

While the centerpiece program of the Duterte administration seems to be focused on the law and order aspect of the illegal drug problem that escalated during the Aquino administration, on the economy, the focus has been on aggressive infrastructure development funded through the net surpluses from tax reform.

If the electorate were asked what they considered important, recent surveys show these revolve around economic governance from the issues of aggregate prices, jobs and the cost of education and compensation. As much a product of recent concerns when inflation unexpectedly spiked in the latter half of 2018 as it is of the gross exclusivity of the Aquino economy that forced Duterte to address its failures with his “Build, Build, Build” initiative and the retooling of taxation, the electorate’s clamor revolves around economic issues more than any.

When candidacies for the 2019 midterms were filed last year, the temporary spike in inflation was at its peak and the opposition, ever the opportunists salivating for Duterte’s premature downfall, imagined themselves as the economy’s messiahs. Roxas, being one, seems to have repackaged himself accordingly.

Harking on ancient nearly two decades-old legislation he co-sponsored but conveniently hiding his authorship of both the Value Added Tax (VAT) and the Expanded VAT (E-VAT) laws that spawned debilitating aggregate prices that severely reduced personal incomes, he now dons the Ekonomista garb and dress.

That’s a 360-degrees flip. At a forum this week, the E-VAT advocate who campaigned that the VAT should bloat to 12 percent said that he would prioritize junking TRAIN’s excises on fuels as those created “domino effects” in the prices of goods and services.

What does he think his E-VAT Frankenstein had created up and down and inside and out of the value chain that impacted not only on basic goods and services but even where the E-VAT was applied on taxes?

Economics is largely populated by theoreticians where results are dependent on assumptions and hypotheses. The real world might be something else altogether. The public knows his record of failures. Res ipsa loquitur.