Research group IBON said that the Duterte administration is
being dishonest in its recent pronouncements about high growth, reducing
unemployment, and reducing poverty. The group said that the government is
taking liberties with statistics as part of its propaganda campaign that
President Duterte is keeping his promise of real change.
In its pre-State of the Nation Address (SONA) forum, the Department of Finance (DOF) hailed the Duterte administration for its achievements during its first three years in terms of “rapid economic expansion”, “the lowest [unemployment] in 40 years”, “alleviating poverty”, and Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law “benefiting 99 percent of taxpayers”.
According to IBON executive director Sonny Africa however, growth
has actually been slowing since the start of the Duterte administration. Philippine
Statistics Authority (PSA) data show that gross domestic product (GDP) growth
has been slowing in the 11 quarters since the start of the Duterte
administration from 7.1% in the third quarter of 2016 to 5.6% in the first
quarter of 2019. There was a momentary increase to 7.2% in the third quarter of
2017 but growth fell rapidly after this. IBON also pointed out that the growth
was slowing even before the budget impasse and election ban on infrastructure
spending.
Africa added that the economic managers are being deceitful
in claiming that the 5.1% unemployment rate in April 2019 is the lowest
unemployment in four decades. He pointed out that the DOF is well aware that the
change in the official definition of unemployment in 2005 drastically reduced
the reported unemployment rate and number of unemployed which makes the April
2019 figure incomparable with the 25 years of data before 2005.
On the contrary, IBON said, computing according to the
original definition of unemployment for comparability would show that the real unemployment
rate in 2018 is 10.1% and the real number of unemployed is 4.6 million. These
are much worse than the already high 9.0% unemployment rate and 4 million
unemployed in 2016, again computed according to the original definition. In
contrast, officially released figures for 2018 were a grossly underreported 5.3%
and 2.3 million, respectively.
The high unemployment is a direct result of how only an
annual average of 81,000 new jobs have been created since the start of the Duterte
administration, from 41 million employed in 2016 to 41.2 million in 2018. This
is the worst job generation in the post-Marcos period.
Poverty statistics meanwhile show seemingly less poor Filipinos
only because of government’s very low poverty threshold, said Africa. The government’s
Php69.50 daily per capita poverty threshold and only Php48.60 subsistence or food
threshold in the first semester of 2018 are absurdly low and not conceivably
enough to meet decent minimum standards for food, shelter, transportation,
health care, and education, stressed Africa. He said that this leads to a gross
underestimation of the real number of poor Filipinos.
Finally, Africa clarified that it is very deceitful to claim
that TRAIN benefited 99% of taxpayers. The Duterte administration wants to make
it appear that 99% of Filipinos benefited from TRAIN but the truth is that only
5.5 million personal income taxpayers with tax cuts out of 23 million Filipino
families gain from TRAIN. The poorest 17.2 million or eight out of 10 Filipino
families will pay TRAIN’s higher consumption taxes but without any personal
income tax gains to offset these. The government is trying to distract the
public from how a disproportionate part of TRAIN revenues come from the poorest
majority of Filipinos due to additional levies on consumption goods including
petroleum products and sugar-sweetened beverages, said Africa.
IBON warned the public to be more discerning about the
government claims and not to take these at face value. Yet the country can only
start to take steps to real solutions when there is more candor and honesty,
rather than self-serving propaganda, about the real problems the economy and
the people face. ###