Soundbite no more

Public spending which the previous administration missed sorely has proved to be a growth engine as a result of the P1.5 trillion yearly government spending under the infrastructure buildup.

It used to be that the term inclusive growth was an empty rhetoric meant to make the public believe that an improved life is possible through constant mantras.

During the term of former President Noynoy Aquino when the phrase was extensively used, the poverty level remained at a constant 23 percent to 24 percent due to the failure of the yellow administration to make economic growth trickle down among poor Filipinos.

Now Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor Benjamin Diokno coined the term job-shedding growth to describe the phenomena of an economy growing while employment, which is the primary wealth generator for the majority, was on a downturn.

The main culprit then was the underspending of the budget that limited the participation of wage earners in economic development.

Now the situation has turned for the better. According to the World Bank, the poverty incidence is expected to fall below 20 percent in 2020 and further decline until 2021, a year before President Rodrigo Duterte’s term ends.

In its latest Macro Poverty Outlook for East Asia and the Pacific Report, the World Bank projects the poverty rate in the Philippines at 20.8 percent by the end of 2019, steadily falling from 23.1 percent in 2017 and 21.9 percent in 2018, which is an unprecedented trend for so many administrations.

The poverty rate is projected to slide to a favorable 19.8 percent in 2020 and 18.7 percent in 2021. The momentum in poverty reduction is also consistent with President Rody Duterte’s commitment to reduce the poverty incidence to 14 percent by the end of his term.

The economy has been growing a consistent six percent or more yearly in the three years of the President.

It used to be that the nation merely dreamt of a constant six percent growth rate, which economists believe was necessary to reverse the Filipinos’ slide to poverty.

The estimated growth is now higher, as some estimates put the economy at a course of achieving a sustainable seven percent growth yearly which would be the strongest development pace in Asia if not the world.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) even suggested that the country is in a golden age of growth which is unprecedented in the past 40 to 50 years.

ADB country director Kelly Bird commended the progress of major infrastructure investment projects since Rody conceptualized the “Build, Build, Build” program.

Bird also noted that the country is catching up with its neighbors on infrastructure with spending rising to six percent of the gross domestic product at present and targeted to reach 7.4 percent of the GDP in 2022.

He described the government’s handling of infrastructure projects under the program as “relatively fast and much faster than ADB had done.”

Rody and his economic managers can’t rest on their laurels, however, as most of their neighbors in Asia have already beaten the poverty problem.

Thailand’s poverty rate is at about seven percent, Indonesia has 13.8 percent, Malaysia and Singapore nearly has no poor citizen.

Vietnam’s poor is about three percent of its population, while Cambodia has 13 percent based on data of multilateral institutions.

The neglect of the agriculture sector where majority of the population is employed is a major factor for the poverty rate to persist, but the sector is now slowly inching up.

Public spending which the previous administration missed sorely has proved to be a growth engine as a result of the P1.5 trillion yearly government spending under the infrastructure buildup.

Economists said timely and efficient public spending translates to improved socio-economic opportunities and outcomes.

The years of empty promises are over and in its place is a period of constant reforms and change that generates the confidence for Filipinos and the nation to dream bigger and achieve more.