Back as battleground

Top honchos of the economic team of the government are in Davao City today to present the state of the economy to local officials and business sector.

Last week, controversial Joey de Venecia was here too as guest of local lawyers campaigning for truth.

This week, Jun Lozada is expected here for his provincial campus tour.

Davao City is back as a battleground for the hearts and minds of the people.

We recall that during the late 1970s and into the 1980s, this city was the laboratory of the urban war between NPA partisans and government-backed vigilante groups fighting for the loyalty of the people. It was a nasty experience that left the city with scars.

Would I expect this new game to be any different.

Nah, the visits of Joey de Venecia, Jun Lozada and the economic team would be as unproductive.

(6:15 a.m.)

Burn them!

This advise is too radical.

But I tend to agree with it.

” … burn all economic schools in town. They have been teaching our leaders the wrong economics all along” is how nationalist economist Ding Lichauco concluded his column on the rise of China following a path of “rapid industrialization.”

(5:24 a.m.)

2008 Outlook

With looming recession in both our country’s major trading partners - US and Japan - the economic outlook for 2008 appears dim.

But I do not believe such a case for Davao City. The city has shown its resilience in the past, for instance, during the Asian financial crisis ten years ago. It continued to grow in spite of slowdown in the region and in the country.

I see a particular good year for the city especially with the rising boom in property development. Among the lined up projects for this year are the Ayala-Floirendo joint venture mixed use development of 10 hectares in front of Redemptorist Church, Filinvest’s housing and condo projects, Consunji’s second and bigger condo project and other property development, Robinson’s new housing project, and possibly SM and NCCC finally going into building call center facilities.

The city’s other good prospects are in agribusiness, tourism and ICT.

(6:12 p.m.)

Sinful P1 Trillion

Short of funds? Where have all the money gone?

To tame inflation, bankers, including the central monetary authorities, have been keeping our money in the vaults. These “lazy” bankers kept the money out of circulation.

Thus, depriving the economy of a “sinful P1 Trillion” which could have been used to shoot up the GDP up to 11 percent growth.

Here are more idle funds. This one is collected from OFWs. Of a net income of P1.258 billion in 2006, the Overseas Workers Welfare Fund spent only P45 million for loans and seminars. A whooping P1.2 billion was left unused. This should have been invested here to create jobs and keep more Pinoys from leaving for work abroad.

Whew, from where I sit, I view these two scrimping as shameful crime!

(4:48 a.m.)

Strong Peso

The Peso has entered the P44 band yesterday closing at P44.85 to a US Dollar.

I dread the coming months for our OFW families, exporters and inbound tourism industry players.

The French banking giant BNP Paribas forecasts the Peso to end the year at P43. It moreover sees the Peso catching up with the surging Thai Baht and go as much as P37 by next year and P30 by the end of 2009.

Oh well, I believe this is too optimistic. Remember the other end when Lucio Tan predicted that the Peso will exchange at P100?