MikeLigalig.com

MANILA, Philippines -- A former national refuted debunked assertions President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s made during her State of the Nation Address, saying the poverty suffered by many Filipinos is mainly caused by “problems in governance” and not global crises.

In a statement on Tuesday, Leonor Briones, lead convenor of Social Watch Philippines (SWP), blamed the “slowing down” of the country's economic performance on what she called Arroyo's poor economic management style.

“Arroyo has wrong development priorities, as manifested by the lack of funding for social development. These wrong economic priorities rendered more Filipinos vulnerable to rising cost of living and threaten to push more people into poverty,” she said.

In her speech before the joint session of Congress on Monday, Arroyo blamed the rising prices of fuel and food on global changes.

“We are on a roller coaster ride of oil price hikes, high food prices and looming economic recession in the US and other markets,” Arroyo said. “Uncertainty has moved like a terrible tsunami around the globe, wiping away gains, erasing progress.”

But Briones said while other Asian countries have been able to cope well with the supposed global crisis, the Philippines has fallen behind with a 5.2 percent growth rate, compared to Vietnam’s 7.4 percent and Malayasia’s 7.1 percent.

“The crucial factor is governance,” she said.

Briones, the SWP, and Woman Health Philippines also pointed out that growth rates in the agricultural and fishing sectors went down from four percent to three percent in 2008.

They also called the government's dependence on the Value Added Tax (VAT) a form of “regression.”

“The government should resolve revenue administration so that the government will not be dependent on VAT which puts heavy burden to the poor. It should resort to a progressive system of taxation with higher dependency on income and real property taxes,” said Filomeno Sta. Ana III, another SWP convenor.

The group also countered Arroyo's claim that removing VAT would only increase the prices of commodities. If the VAT remained, the purchasing power of Filipinos would only decrease, the SWP argued.

“The only sustainable and effective way to addressing poverty is to invest on human capital, such as education and health which, unfortunately, shows disturbing trends,” said Mercy Fabros of Woman Health Philippines.(INQUIRER.net)


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