Economy to depend on credibility of polls

By Claudeth Mocon

Correspondent

BORACAY ISLAND—A strong economy in the next three years is attainable if the elections next month will be clean and credible. This was stressed by Genuine Opposition (GO) senatorial candidate Loren Legarda as she reiterated the concern of businessmen on the credibility of the May elections as revealed by a survey conducted by the Makati Business Club (MBC) early this year. Results of the survey showed that investors and businessmen in the Philippines are optimistic about realizing economic growth, but that its realization would largely depend on the 2007 elections being credible and the government acting to stamp out corruption. "The government has been trumpeting the strengthening of the peso. However, unless this translates to the lowering of prices of goods, it would not mean anything to the people," Legarda said. She conceded that foreign direct investments from January to November last year increased by more than 50 percent to $2 billion, but she stressed that the Philippines still lagged behind other Southeast Asian countries in attracting foreign capital. "Businessmen and economists I have talked to say that our economic outlook may be perking up. However, many of them say this is 'despite of and not because of' government initiatives," she added "Still, I believe there is no point in assigning blame or credit. The important thing for us is to ensure that this election will be clean to generate the momentum for economic growth." Meanwhile, the administration's massive political machinery is proving to be too much to handle for the 12 senatorial candidates of the Malacaٌang-backed Team Unity. As the campaign for the May 14 elections heats up, the administration bets have been overwhelmed by an avalanche of requests from local political bigwigs all over the country to grace their respective proclamation rallies. Tourism Secretary Joseph Ace Durano, TU spokesman, said that while this distinct edge could be physically exhausting and a daunting task for the candidates, the same would spell the big difference in the senatorial race, where the TU bets are running neck-to-neck against their rivals from GO. Durano said that while GO had to scrounge for support at the local level, the TU candidates have found their hands full with invitations to attend simultaneous proclamation rallies in numerous localities, where the administration enjoys a strong foothold. Durano said the team's "problem" is the opposition's "envy" since the start of the campaign, considering that its candidates cannot even muster enough people to attend their rallies, "an embarrassing reality that has prompted them to resort to a costly broadcast media blitz instead in a desperate bid to prop up the sputtering GO campaign." TU senatorial bet Michael Defensor said the entire ticket practically has to crisscross the archipelago so as not to disappoint local bets, who spend a lot of energy and logistics for their proclamation rallies.

 

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