Abject failure EDITORIAL 06/28/2010

Abject failure

EDITORIAL Click to enlarge 06/28/2010 The best argument that the supposed economic progress under Gloria belongs to Peter Pan’s Neverland was the incessant need to defend it. If these are indeed real, Filipinos need no convincing on its existence. The case with the Palace mouthpieces, however, is that whenever Gloria opens her mouth and falls into a trance about her fabled economic achievements, the next day, without fail, would have all of her three or four spokesmen scrambling in all forms of media to defend what she had dished out the previous day. Each time Gloria enumerates her economic achievements, a rumbling of disbelief from the entire nation follows. Gloria extolled in her farewell speech the supposed 37 quarters of uninterrupted growth which is already debatable since the growth standard used by most economists is how a quarter of economic output fared compared with the immediate previous quarter not a year ago. The economy quarter by quarter has featured contractions and at least twice during her term, the economy missed by a hairline entering into technical recession which happens if the economy shrinks in two successive quarters. The hairline miss was so small such as a growth of less than one percent that questions were raised on possible window dressing at the statistics department to preserve Gloria’s economic bragging rights. Gary Olivar and Ricardo Saludo were the other day again hogging the airwaves justifying the growth claims of Gloria after her critics, primarily Sen. Francis Escudero, said the growth claim is totally negated by the huge P340 billion estimated budget deficit this year.... MORE Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100628com1.html

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