Thread by @jcpunongbayan

THREAD: Thoughts, comments on the econ managers' super early pre-SONA forum.

Dominguez's preamble: "We need to divide the term of this admin. into 2 periods. The first is the period of growth & the second is the period of pandemic response." Alam na...
web.facebook.com/DOFPH/videos/1…

Dominguez: Because of rice tariffication, "rice is no longer the main contributor to our overall inflation rate."

Yeah, but now in 2021 inflation has picked up again, mainly because of meat & vegetable prices.

Related piece of mine:
rappler.com/voices/thought…

Dominguez: Customs has so far collected P31.9 billion in rice import tariffs, which will fund agri modernization.

Exactly how many farmers have benefited from these new funds? What kinds of projects have been funded? 🤷‍♂️

Dominguez: "The TRAIN law...is a significant achievement of this admin. It provided a recurrent and robust revenue flow that expanded social services and supported our massive econ investments in modern infra."

This speech is an exercise in creative writing hehe.

Dominguez: "Through TRAIN we've basically given out a 14th month pay every year to our wage earners."

??? Certainly not last year nor this.

Dominguez: "TRAIN enabled the gov't to raise P305 billion in incremental revenues during the first 3 years of implementation."

Over 3 years? That's peanuts.

Dominguez: "The excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol products improved funding for the Universal Health Care Program, which is another landmark reform of this admin."

San banda yung UHC???

Also, halatang legacy mode na ang mga ito.

Dominguez: "Through bold tax reforms and better tax admin., we were able to raise our revenue effort to 16.1% of GDP in 2019... This was our best performance in more than 2 decades."

But if you look carefully there's a sleight of hand here.

They removed the vertical axis and distorted the bars so the changes look larger than they really are. Nice little trick.

Here's the proper graph (also including 2020, which was conveniently omitted):

Dominguez: Our debt-to-GDP ratio reached a record low of 39.6% in 2019.

Again, 2020 is safely omitted (the figure rose to 54.5% last year).

Dominguez: We attained our highest ever credit rating in 2019.

They had just 1 credit rating upgrade. Look how many the previous admin had. 🤭

That said, I'm not a big fan of these credit ratings.

Dominguez: "A perfect example of our productive spending is our Build, Build, Build program. This is the President's main strategy to help lift Filipinos out of poverty."

HAHAHA. If only nakakain ang semento, diba @znsuzara? 😆

How do you evaluate a program that has moving goalposts?

Related piece I wrote before the pandemic:
rappler.com/voices/thought…

Dominguez: "The previous 4 administrations spent only about 2% of GDP on infra investments. This anemic performance..."

1) Obligation is not equal to spending.

2) They in fact failed to meet their original (lofty) infra spending targets.

Related piece co-written with @znsuzara, @LaniCVillanueva, @rupert_mangilit, and Luis Abad:

rappler.com/voices/thought…

Dominguez: "With priorities rebalanced under President Duterte's watch, infra spending dramatically rose to 5% of GDP."

More like, priorities became even more misguided.
rappler.com/voices/thought…

How come pababa lang nang pababa ang poverty rate forecast nila for 2021 and 2022? Wala bang pandemic and historic recession?!?! 😅

"The unemployment rate also dropped to a low of 4.5% by the end of 2019 from 6.3% in 2015. Clearly, we had realized better economic and social outcomes for the Filipino people."

Sana sinali niyo na ang 2020 figures at the outset, at hindi na chinerry pick ang data. 🙄

"Although the global health crisis was both unexpected and unfamiliar, the Duterte administration moved quickly to protect the lives of Filipinos."

DON'T US.

Clearly, gov't didn't act quickly enough against the pandemic. Related piece of mine:
rappler.com/voices/thought…

Dominguez: "For nearly the whole of 2020 the gov't had to impose strict restrictions on movement to keep our people safe from the virus while building up our health system capacity."

SAN BANDA?
rappler.com/nation/patient…

Dominguez: "The game-changing reforms we had institutionalized...cemented our overall macroeconomic stability and allowed us to respond decisively to this health crisis."

WHAT MACRO STABILITY? ALL THE INDICATORS ARE GOING HAYWIRE.

My summary of what happened to the PH economy last year:
rappler.com/voices/thought…

Nakakapagod i-fact-check kasi halos every sentence merong misleading element or outright lie. I haven't even started with the other econ managers. 😣

Who said a debt-to-GDP ratio of >60% is "unsustainable"??? The slide cites the IMF, but I haven't seen any official statement to that effect.

Even the IMF's chief economist, @GitaGopinath, is not so worried about global debt these days.
bloomberg.com/news/videos/20…

IMF's @GitaGopinath & Vitor Gaspar: "While the trajectory of public debt could drift up further in an adverse scenario, an earlier-than-warranted fiscal retrenchment presents an even greater risk of derailing the recovery, with larger future fiscal costs."
blogs.imf.org/2020/07/10/fis…

Dominguez: "We finally passed CREATE Act...which makes our comprehensive tax reform program nearly complete. CREATE is the largest fiscal stimulus for businesses in our recent history..."

Bad timing. Won't this drain the public coffers now? Kala ko ba kelangan natin ng pera?!

My previous piece on CREATE:
rappler.com/voices/thought…

Isa pa, the IMF specifically recommended: "Refrain from introducing bespoke or knee-jerk fundamental reforms or overhauling existing tax law systems during crisis... Specifically...do not cut corporate income tax rates."

LOL!

https://twitter.com/jcpunongbayan/status/1385221276218896384

"We want to make sure that we can face the future with a deep war chest." (What else are you guys saving money for???)

"We will continue to demonstrate our firm resolve of maintaining fiscal prudence while revitalizing the economy." (Fiscal prudence in a historic crisis???)

Dominguez: "We are maintaining the pace of our Build, Build, Build program."

But as rightly observed by besh @znsuzara, there's a lot of infra underspending then and now, and the last 2 red bars below are merely targets.

Dominguez: "With its high multiplier effect we are expecting BBB to be the main driver of rebuilding the domestic economy."

1) Where are the computations for these supposedly high multiplier effects?
2) We can't BBB our way out of this pandemic:
rappler.com/voices/thought…

Dominguez: "The target is to inoculate at least 70 million Filipinos or 100% of our adult population within the year."

Still holding out for this pipe dream, I see.

Dun sa to-do list ni Sec Dominguez, wala yung ayuda for millions of Filipinos still suffering in the middle of the pandemic and recession.

As if tapos na ang mga krisis natin. Palakasan na lang daw ng guardian angel. 😅

Sa spiel ni Sec Dominguez, may surprise bit about climate change. Did you know he's also the chairperson-designate of the Climate Change Commission?

Moving on to Sec Chua's bit: We'll be "giving you the story of Philippine economic development in the past 5 years."

1984 feels.

Chua: "After only 3 years of the [Duterte] admin., the data came out to show that we have actually achieved the promise of lifting 6 million Filipinos out of poverty."

They just got lucky. Good reforms were pursued before Duterte took office. Also, wait for the 2021 figures.

My previous piece on the 2018 poverty figures:
rappler.com/voices/thought…

Desperately clinging to the rosy figures pre-pandemic...

The thing is, the crisis now needn't be this bad if they had just done a better job managing the economy.

Chua: Upgraded credit ratings mean "upgrading everyone's lives."

Does anyone believe statements like this?

I am far from finished fact-checking this. Marami lang ganap sa lyf hahaha.

Sa "recovery program" ni Sec. Chua, wala pa rin ang Bayanihan 3 economic relief package. Ayaw talaga nila magbigay ng ayuda lels. Notice na mostly firms ang focus ng measures na inilista.

Chua: Last year's emergency measures by gov't amounted to 15.4% of GDP.

Pero sa tala ng IMF, 3.4% lang at kulelat kumpara sa ibang ekonomiya dragged down LESS by the pandemic.

Anu ba talaga?

I think kaya naging 15.4% kasi isinama ba naman yung monetary response ng BSP, which was supposedly 11% of GDP. HAHAHA andaya.

Ongoing ang Spaces discussion namin on this sa @UsapangEcon. Sali na!

twitter.com/i/spaces/1OyJA…

Q&A na!
twitter.com/i/spaces/1mnxe…

So 24 Oras reported on this tonight. They LITERALLY just repeated the econ managers' claims unquestioningly. No fact-checking whatsoever. 🤦‍♂️