Journalists should challenge government claims about the economy given that policy making is shaped by big business, IBON Foundation Executive Director Sonny Africa has said.
“We should always rebut government claims and we actually have enough basis, using their own statistics, to rebut those claims,” he said, citing for instance reports or pronouncements about the “good economic performance” of the Marcos administration.
Africa said that the problem with economic reportage lies in the “underdeveloped’’ mindset that big business is the economy’s main driver and therefore, policies should be crafted to create profits for businesses.
“Unfortunately, that kind of mindset is repeated by policymakers,’’ he said at the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism’s third national conference on investigative journalism on May 1. “Unfortunately, the media is complicit because that’s the way the economy is framed.’’
The bottom-line is that the economy is shaped by government policies that are crafted by “a few,’’ he said.
“When it comes to the economy, the heart of the question is always: For whom?’’ he said.
At the start of his talk, Africa scoffed at The Economist’s April 23 report: “Without fanfare, the Philippines is getting richer.”
“I am a Filipino and I don’t feel that,’’ he said during the breakout session “The Economy Now’’ at the Novotel Hotel in Quezon City, pointing out that the “core problem” was the “indicators.’’
In his presentation, Africa showed a graph depicting income inequality, where wealth is concentrated in the hands of 2 percent of the population.
“Two-thirds of Filipino families earn less than P20,000,’’ he said. “On the other hand, you have families in the top 2 percent, roughly half a million, earn a minimum of P500,000 monthly.’’
The richest 2 percent of the population, equivalent to 500,000 families, has a combined wealth of P20 trillion to P25 trillion. “They have as much wealth as the poorest 80 percent,’’ Africa said.
“But the real inequality that is structural is wealth,’’ he said, pointing out that this was a product of economic policies that were implemented over the past several years.
“If at the national level the inequality is high, inequality among the rich is also high,’’ he said, noting that there are 3,000 billionaires from the ranks of the richest 2 percent.
Economic policy for the few
Africa also debunked government claims that last year’s unemployment rate at 3.1 percent was the lowest in 20 years.
He said that government claims that 48 million were employed last year should be rebutted with the fact that in the same year, eight out of 10 Filipinos were ”informal workers” with low pay or were self-employed.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas also recorded an increase of households without savings and that more people reported themselves as poor or vulnerable, Africa said.
“The employment quality is low,” he added.
Worse, the government has stopped computing the family living wage. Employers’ federations also submitted position papers on proposals to raise the minimum wage in Congress “without empirical data,’’ according to Africa.
He said the last 40 years of globalization completely destroyed the concept of a national economy in favor of “open economy.”
Since 1980, the production sector – manufacturing, agriculture, construction – had been declining because of globalization policies, he said.
So far, the current Marcos administration has not done anything different from the previous administrations, Africa said.
“It’s not so newsy… but it’s factual. It’s consistent with literally four decades of policies. Why is that an important conclusion? If you’re just continuing the same policies, you’re not correcting the situation,’’ he said.
Ordinary Filipinos always find themselves at the raw end of the deal under “neo-liberal policies” such as the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law that imposed higher excise taxes on oil, and the Department of Finance’s proposed excise tax on single-use plastics, Africa pointed out.
The Philippine economy is driven by the private sector but has to be “organized’’ by the government “in a certain way,’’ Africa pointed out.
“There’s no way the economy can function without the government,’’ he said. “What should the government do, with all its agencies, law-making powers, to uplift the lives of the Filipinos?’’
“What the government decides creates a certain kind of economy,” he added. — CJ Argallon