On YouTube – Broadcast Yourself. you can view my recent Explainer show where former NEDA Chief Cielo Habito presented his views on the economy and prospects for the remainder of the year.
You can also view the following, below: first, the presentation he used on my show; the more comprehensive presentation on which it was based, which he presented at the Philippine Daily Inquirer. And after that, his presentation last year, and also, one by DLSU economist Dr. Michael Alba, from three years ago.
Thanks for uploading this Manolo!
Interesting tidbit provided in one of the slides:
OFW Remittances : moral hazard and dependency
. higher unemployment rates and nonparticipation in the labor force for family members left behind
They are good PEST (pol-econ-soc-tech) scans.
But unless I missed it, there was no mention of leveling the playing field by some changes in the rule book. Let’s face it, the present system of election by congresssional districts favor the entrenched interests, their sons and daughters, etc.
How could you have servant leaders and meritocracy when the same set of leaders come from the same oligarchy, just different generations? They will not out-legislate their power. Governors Among Ed and Grace Padaca were exceptional exceptions.
A possibility, why don’t we form a parliament half of whose members come from from sectoral lists?
Master Yoda,
“A possibility, why don’t we form a parliament half of whose members come from from sectoral lists?”
That was suppossedly the purpose of the party list system until the trapos abused, perverted and mangled the system beyond recognition……….
Master Yoda,
Are you the one I baptized, or a different one?
ON OFWS,
alam ko ang pinag usapan namin ni HVRDS sa kabilang thread ay just the sad part of the pinay OFWS;
those who are forced to practice the oldest professsion.
it is a good thing the recent wave of ofws are the ones with white collar jobs.
the dependency to ofws can be attested by our OFW commenters.
some countries allow you to bring your whole family,that resolves the broken family issue, ang masama iilan lang yunYung iba me mga trabaho naman ang mga naiwan nila,kaya solved pa din.
pero yung me mga naiwan na maraming kapatid o mga anak na walang trabaho,maging sa probinsya o lungsod;magiging problema nga ang over dependence dahil nakaka addict din ang remmitance tulad ng droga.
I saw this episode and moderate the greed was again mentioned.
Since malabo na yata mawala ito.
SA DPWH ang three bidder system ay lutong macao;they get one winner and that winner pays of a lttle to the other two bidders aside from the other hatians.
This I know because of certain events that I am privy to.
If you have nothing to offer you are diqualified pronto.
tapos itong BOT.
The swiss challenge usually leaves the original proponent biting the dust,because you must be sure that before making any unsolicited advice everything must be favorable to the government.
The economy,and clinton
I believe it was James CarvilleJr who should be credited for coining:
It’s the economy,stupid!
My favorite trickle down equilibrium scientist is at it again. Trying to revise history that he helped create.
GMA’s policy frame is exactly the same as Eraps and is exactly the same as FVR.
Habito rode the crest of financial liberalization. Erap did not know the gravity of the crisis that FVR and Co. had left him. he made it a little worse. Big Mike and GMA outdid all of them combined.
That wave of financial liberalization crested when GMA overspent and she got lucky with the surplus savings or liquidity that caused this present serious financial crisis.
Name a distinct policy change that GMA put into effect…. It is exactly the same as what Habito had put into effect for Ramos.
Just look at what they gave away for JPEPA. During his time Habito had wanted the Philippines to go all out in the same form of what GMA did in JPEPA with our membership in WTO. Only the Asian financial crisis intervened and now the worlds financial crisis.
Now he is crying about the lack of effective governance. That is sheer lunacy. Mas suave si FVR at kanyang mga barkada sa pangungurakot.
http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=2517#more-2517
“Now he is crying about the lack of effective governance. That is sheer lunacy. Mas suave si FVR at kanyang mga barkada sa pangungurakot.”
Kaya nga sabi nya sa isang presentation, moderate greed. he he he.
Anyway, I always prefer moderation over gluttony.
KG,
Nods twice.
Dear Manny,
This has no association with the topic in question but since I could find no direct email for you, I have decided to post it here in any event.
You mentioned that the Moro conflict gave rise to the invention of the .45 caliber pistol as the .38 was ineffectual in stopping Moro warriors.
It is true that the .38 was ineffectual but not true that this lead to the invention of the .45. This is not the case, although repeated often as a fact. The weapon used was invented in the early 1870s, the unfortunately named “Peacemaker”(the Colt Single Action Army Revolver)and was revived for the conflict.
The devil is always in the detail and US devilry was no better on show than the massacre at Bud Dajo, March 8, 1906. Marcos repeated the devilry in March, 1968 in the Jabidah massacre on Corregidor.
We can always rant and complain and dwell on hindsight about governance and politics in our country. But the real challenge is changing the ways most of the citizens are doing. Going into parliamentary form of government still leaves one important question – what do we do to educate the masses about the right choices in politics? Or should we exclude them (esp those who do not pay taxes) from electing government officials?
it’s not the pistol, it’s the cartridge. .45ACP versus .38Special. The .45ACP was bigger diameter and though the projectile went no faster than a good BB-gun (875feet-per-second), the bigger diameter and heavier slug had better stopping power than the 38-special.
Superb handgun cartridge is the .357magnum which can go through a car’s engine block (reason — faster speed/bigger kinetic energy) but the cartridge put too much pressure on the pistol itself plus the “kick” was tough for some.
9mm parabellum jhp is also excellent, especially if in a reliable pistol with 12 or more rounds. But talking about this only goes so far. Can’t do damage if you do not hit the target.
‘Marcos repeated the devilry in March, 1968 in the Jabidah massacre on Corregidor.’
I don’t think the Jabidah massacre happened at all.
Why do people assume that it is the masses who need to be ‘educated’ about the ‘right choices in politics’? That’s typical elitism. What gives anyone the right to exclude others from the right to vote?
from Inquirer.net on 2009 budget
‘About P378.87 billion will go to settling principal liabilities and P302.65 billion to pay interest.
Only interest payments are automatically appropriated in the national government’s annual budget. Principal loans are usually paid with borrowed money.
Of the debts to be paid, P200.38 billion is foreign and P481.14 billion is local.’
I’m surprise that some people in the Philippines can cumulatively have P481.14 B in cash and lend it to the government instead of investing in enterprises that generate employment.
reason for some pinoys to seek Overseas employment because there is none in the country. dependents of these OFW did not participate in labor force because there are no labor opportunities not because they were contented being recepient of doleouts from their relatives working abroad.
jcc,
‘dependents of these OFW did not participate in labor force because there are no labor opportunities ‘
Properly educated people will not quit looking for a source of livelihood.
“I don’t think the Jabidah massacre happened at all.” -Supremo.
Please read this interesting link because I was in High School when I learned about this Jabidah Massacre and about one Captain Martillano, the supposed CO of this Project.
http://alaykayresilmojares.blogspot.com/2005/03/jabidah-massacre-1968.html
SUPREMO,
if OFW had kept on looking for jobs in their country, their families could have starved to death. 🙂
jcc,
That’s I didn’t specify a location when I said ‘will not quit looking for a source of livelihood.’ The Philippine education system is churning out too many quitters.
Supremo,
Please stay on focus: One of the slides by Manuel Alba and cited by UP n Student:
“OFW Remittances : moral hazard and dependency
. higher unemployment rates and nonparticipation in the labor force for family members left behind”. x x x
presents a scenario where dependents of OFW do not become part of the Philippine labor force because they seemed to be contented as recipients of doleouts, that is what i get from the slide or Mr. Alba and from the comment of UPn Student. I commented by saying that it could be the lack of labor opportunities in the country. You replied that they should also become OFW ? by not quitting to look jobs… here or abroa? , that is where you lost me. 🙂
jcc,
They can become OFWs or entrepreneurs here or abroad just don’t stop looking for a source of livelihood. Quitting is not an option.
A highly informative briefing…
Islands of Good Governance
“How can a country with such incredible potential for rapid development, an outward-oriented economy, located in the fastest-growing region in the world, not produce outstanding development outcomes? With its rich natural resources, dynamic and talented people, and, at least on the surface, development-friendly economic policies, why has the Philippines not achieved faster growth and more significant poverty reduction in the last 30 years?
The answer that we heard was that WEAKNESS in governance and weakness of public institutions to work for the common good were holding back the equitable and efficient allocation of resources, depriving the people of public services, and the country of a reliable investment climate that would encourage rapid growth.”
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=86703
I agree with cvj that it is NOT the masses who need to be ‘educated’ about the ‘right choices in politics.
does anyone doubt that the masses need to be educated too? –
we have two groups of leaders/politicians: the demagouge types and the statesmen… but less of t he latter. the irony is we often mistake one for the other and that is our tragedy as a nation.
Look, don’t blame the leaders/politicians. People elected them based on pekeng-periodistas coverage, biases and assements.
If Filipinos are properly informed by pekeng-periodistas, Filipinos would have chosen the competent, honest ones.
Since pekeng-periodistas are low-iQ-low-life-3rdWorld-Asian Trash so are the people elected by Filipinos.
does anyone doubt that the masses need to be educated too?
the masses can be educated by making them aware that our politicians are not skilled enough to implement good governance but this is a lot of work. There are short cut to monitoring good governance.
“The Philippines’ ratings in the world governance indicators were poor compared to its Asian peers, dragged by weak political stability and corruption control, according to a World Bank report released on Tuesday.
In its Governance Matters 2008 report, the Washington-based lender said the Philippines scored lower in the overall Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) compared to its Asian neighbors, but better than Vietnam and Indonesia.”
The indicators capture six dimensions of governance for more than 200 countries and territories in 2007. The six dimensions are
1.voice and accountability,
2.political stability and absence of violence or terrorism,
3. government effectiveness,
4. regulatory quality,
5. rule of law
6. control of corruption.
Education to the masses will start at elementary. This type of education is a long term solution to our problem.
For short and medium term like 2010, the six dimension of governance indicators are targeted to our governing bodies – executives, congress and supreme court.
The media will play a great role to support good governance by publishing governance indicator results, either quarterly or monthly. Yearly will make one senator get way with it.
Our role here as bloggers is to support Manolo to have a show about islands of good governance and review the numbers to see if there’s improvement from previous quarters. Manolo may invite a representative from the department of education on how they can implement awareness that GOOD governance is crucial to our mission and vision—
RP’s governance indicators lag in region: June 2008
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/june/25/yehey/top_stories/20080625top6.html
Leytenian,
We are in for a long haul. Education starts from Elementary School and from our home.
We cannot shortcut our education. Overnight we cannot educate the masses. The mainstream media had kept our people in the dark because they are the tools of vested interest and our politicians.
Our role as bloggers is to help educate our people, unfortunately, some bloggers need to be educated too.
pseudo-payraise for dependents who receive monthly $$$ from an OCW relative. Peso drops… P46.60 to US-dollar.
The Jabidah massacre could happen for any reason at all. Inang, a Simunul lass, taller than myself, an Arabian beauty, coming from her highschool at Bongao when I met her with her husband a patrol boat crewmember and a Christian. It didnt take long when Abdul Latif bought her from her father with an AR16 and other perks to add to a muslim wife on his recruitment there.
Where is Ed Martelino aka Abdul Latif?
I agree with cvj that it is NOT the masses who need to be ‘educated’ about the ‘right choices in politics.
I strongly disagree, CVJ is just being true to form in his being anti elitist and very divisive. The masses should not be exempted from the educating process and so does everybody.
Its everybody concern to educate themselves of the right choices in. politics. yes that includes CVJ and me. .
Di na kailangan pag hatiin pa ang mga tao sa masa at sa elitista.
The question was about the economy and we segued into education.
It is clear that many here still do not know the difference between a slogan, policy and program.
Educate the masses is a slogan. Educate all is all slogan.
There also seems to be lunatic fringe here who do not understand what they write.
Please note the ffg. piece on the Pallin choice
” If McCain is elected, he will face conditions tailor-made to foster disorder. He will be leading a divided and philosophically exhausted party. There simply aren’t enough Republican experts left to staff an administration, so he will have to throw together a hodgepodge with independents and Democrats. He will confront Democratic majorities that will be enraged and recriminatory.”
“On top of these conditions, he will have his own freewheeling qualities: a restless, thrill-seeking personality, a tendency to personalize issues, a tendency to lead life as a string of virtuous crusades.”
“He really needs someone to impose a policy structure on his moral intuitions. He needs a very senior person who can organize a vast administration and insist that he tame his lone-pilot tendencies and work through the established corridors  the National Security Council, the Domestic Policy Council. He needs a near-equal who can turn his instincts, which are great, into a doctrine that everybody else can predict and understand.”
“Rob Portman or Bob Gates wouldn’t have been politically exciting, but they are capable of performing those tasks. Palin, for all her gifts, is not. She underlines McCain’s strength without compensating for his weaknesses. The real second fiddle job is still unfilled. ”
David Brooks NY Times…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/opinion/02brooks.html?em
And on the tax policy issue….
The differences between tax bracket and tax rate and the marginal tax rate.
The difference between corporate tax rates and personal tax rates. Corporates get a lot of tax breaks.
The you have capital gains tax rates and dividend tax rates. I would hazard a guess that no one who participates in this blog is in the top income tax bracket and is taxed at the maximum tax rate of 35%.
Yet they all talk about the slogans of the politicos.
“Mr. McCain wants to preserve almost all the Bush tax cuts, and add to them by cutting taxes on corporations. Mr. Obama wants to roll back the high-end Bush tax cuts  the cuts in tax rates on the top two income brackets and the cuts in tax rates on income from dividends and capital gains  and use some of that money to reduce taxes lower down the scale.”
“According to estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, those Obama tax increases would fall overwhelmingly on people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year. Are such people rich? Well, maybe not: some of those Mr. Obama proposes taxing are only denizens of lower Richistan, although the really big tax increases would fall on upper Richistan. But one thing’s for sure: Mr. Obama isn’t planning to raise taxes on the middle class, by any reasonable definition  even that of the Bush administration. ” Paul Krugman NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/opinion/22krugman.html
Questions from a heterodox economist. Why is this type of information critical to even the few who can think not available in the mainstream media.? Instead the media just listens to the quacks like Habito and Alba. How did free trade become a dogma????
Is free trade always the best policy? Should developing countries open
their financial systems? Do foreign-exchange controls serve any useful
purpose in our globalized world?
Anyone who reads economics knows that it is often aridly impervious to
the cultural specificities and political constraints that shape
real-world events. Pages filled with equations describe a world not of
fallible people and imperfect governments, but of “agents” and
“actors” who are supposedly as rational as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.
The dominance of neoclassical economics has led to a rigid belief that
free trade, small government, lower taxes, and financial openness are
appropriate at all times and in all circumstances. But a few dissident
economists, observing how and why countries actually develop, have
been chipping away at this orthodoxy.
Dani Rodrik, a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy
School of Government, is one of this movement’s most imaginative and
creative thinkers. He is a leading authority on globalization and
economic development, and his unconventional yet rigorous analyses
have helped undermine the Washington Consensus. A “clinical”
economist, he has advocated heterodox development policies and a
social-welfare agenda to complement globalization and allow developing
countries to withstand the financial crises that have swept over them
during the past two decades.
Why doesn’t the public buy the economists’ advocacy of free trade?
http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2008/03/why-doesnt-the.html
His main argument is that the standard renditions
“gloss over a key issue the resolution of which is anything but
obvious: What does it mean for a change in economic circumstances to
be “good for the nation as a whole”, even when some members of that
nation are hurt by the change?”
“In other words, instead of sticking to what they are good
at–analyzing trade-offs–economists typically engage in amateur
normative political theorizing about what is good for society.”
http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/09/deconstructing-.html
the fact of reality is this: the masses will elect their leader. the odd fact is this: the elite decides who get to sit on the seat of power. how democratic, no?
bloggista asks:
..should we exclude the masses (esp those who do not pay taxes) from electing government officials?
And the good economist should be educated that it is not only the OFWs who are sending remittances. It is the OF or overseas Filipinos.
He should be able to distinguish the difference between OFW , a term used in lieu of OCW or Overseas Contract Workers to overseas Filipinos who are already immigrants or citizens of their adopted countries and yet send the remittances.
Nurses who come to the US are no longer OFWs since they are given green cards before they leave the Phils, never to return since they can apply for citizenship and yet they send money to the Philippines.
When OFWs leave the PHilippines to work in other countries, they go via Department of Labor, immigrants don’t.
Many Filipinos in the US who send remittances are not OFWs since it is difficult to get working visas in the US these days.
If there OFWs, they number only a few thousands. The million remitters are already permanent residents or citizens . Besides there are also Filipinos in the US who are business owners and they also do business in the PHilippines, thus the term OFI. Overseas Filipino investors.
“Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water” Remember that some of the masa had voted like you had voted. [Of course, some bloggers wish they had not voted like they had voted.]
In Thailand, here’s what the protesters want:
http://yorkdispatch.inyork.com/yd/nationworld/ci_10348422
strange, thais prefer their govt run by dictators.
grrd: a direct quote from what you quoted. The protesters …complain that Western-style democracy of one-man, one-vote gives too much weight to Thailand’s rural majority… breeds corruption.
“I would hazard a guess that no one who participates in this blog is in the top income tax bracket and is taxed at the maximum tax rate of 35%.”
Our companero Bencard probably is. He often mentions how expensive a lawyer he is.
cheers
Excuse me for being slow, but HVRDS has cited a lot of links and authorities but I cannot determine if he is pro-Mccain or Pro-Obama, pro tax or for tax shields, pro international trade or anti.
Bottomline is: there are always two sides of the issue.
Tax cuts and less government is conducive to private entrepreneurship, which is the American spirit. Tax on businesses will be shifted finally to consumers, the ordinary working people. Hear the buzz word: “I will raise my price or your rental because of the tax burdens of the governmentâ€Â.
Taxes will be used by the democrats to finance their health program. Those that cannot afford private health care because they have no income either because of vice or drug problem. On top of this, to support a growing number of single parents who instead of going to school, have the prioritized promiscuity in their pre-teen years. As a way of atoning for using taxpayers’ money to support single parents, democrats would offer a quick solution by aborting the babies.
On international trade:
International trade has trade-offs. It competes with local industries and bad for the local industries. The plus side is that consumers could benefit for cheap products produced in an “assembly-line†fashion.
International companies tend to relocate in third world countries to avail of cheap labor. In the light of the fact that third world economies suffer from severe unemployment problem, the jobs created by international companies is better than no jobs at all. The labor is cheap only if you compare it to the labor cost if these companies would produce the product in developed countries. But the income of the locals is competitive if not higher than the comparative wage in the area for the same job. i.e. “engineers hired by a local Intel company in EPZA Cavite receive higher income than most engineers hired by Meralco.
Political sloganeering is better, I think, than discussing international trade and international politics without the pros and cons and still manage to create an aura of intellectual superiority than all the other bloggers here. 🙂
“have the prioritized promiscuity in their pre-teen years”???
PRE-teens having sex????
nash,
that’s a hyperbole just to hihglight the point that promiscuity in teenagers in the US is still a problem, though there is some data that compared to last year, it is down this year.
UPn, you should read between the lines. when I said “thaisâ€Â, I’m not actually referring to the rural majority (or the masses) but to those ___ protesters (maybe cvj can supply the missing word).
mas masahol ba ang mga elitista sa thailand? while some filipino “elites†want to educate the filipino masses, some thai “elites” want to take away the votes of their masses to get rid of corruption.
it’s only a problem if they don’t use contraception.
@jcc
and ps. what is this data of which you speak? there is data on the number of teens having sex and it’s down this year??? people are having less sex?
grd, mas garapal ang mga elitista sa Thailand, although we also have similar sentiments about removing the vote of the masses coming including the one above…
Dito, dinaan sa EDSA Dos, Hello Garci and sinusubukan gawing permanente sa pamamagitan ng Charter Change.