“This has become a pattern in this administration.”
“This has become a pattern in this administration.”
Nobody, it seems, is heaping praises on the Duterte administration for its performance in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last month, to what we surmise is outright discomfiture in Malacañang over yet another piece of bad news from abroad, Bloomberg—a financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in New York City—reported that the Philippines ranked dead-last among 53 countries in its survey of resilience of economies to the deadly coronavirus.
Bloomberg’s October report showed the country ranked the lowest in its COVID Resilience Ranking with a score of 40.5, which is slightly higher than the 40.2 it obtained in September.
The group used six indicators: vaccination coverage, virus containment, severity of lockdowns, quality of healthcare, progress toward restarting travel, and overall mortality throughout the pandemic.
We were lumped together with other Southeast Asian nations—Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia—in the bottom rung of the list.
The survey also showed that the Philippines had one of the lowest scores in vaccine coverage, with just 26 percent of the population covered, the lowest among Southeast Asian countries in the list.
Earlier, Nikkei Asia’s latest COVID-19 Recovery Index also ranked the Philippines last in infection control, vaccination and mobility.
The Tokyo-based financial magazine’s latest index listed the Philippines as the worst performer out of 121 countries.
The index measured three factors, with each subcategory worth 10 points for a total of 90: (1) Infection management—confirmed cases of COVID-19 versus peak case count; confirmed cases per capita; and tests per case. (2) Vaccine rollouts—total vaccine doses given per capita; New vaccine doses given per capita; share of people who have been fully vaccinated. and (3) Mobility—community mobility; Oxford stringency index; flight activities.
The country scored an embarrassingly measly 30.5 at dead last, with Malta leading the list with a score of 73, followed by Chile, 72; Bahrain, 72; United Arab Emirates, 71; and Saudi Arabia, 70.
As expected, Malacañang tried to downplay the Bloomberg findings, saying that it covered only 53 countries, and therefore did not mean that we were the worst country in COVID-19 response.
But the same Palace spokesman appeared to ignore the earlier survey of Nikkei Asia showing the Philippines the worst in the whole wide world in its COVID-19.
But did we expect him to admit that the government’s overall response to COVID-19 had been a case of too little, too late, and too heavy-handed in restricting mobility at the economy’s expense?
When pushed to the wall, borrow some more
Sinking in debt.
That seems to be the country’s fate as the ineluctable outcome of our seesaw battle against COVID-19 since March last year.
According to the latest Bureau of the Treasury data, more domestic and foreign borrowings and a weaker peso have further pushed the national government’s outstanding debt to a new high of P11.92 trillion in September.
Domestic debt, which accounted for 70.4 percent of the total, inched up 2 percent month-on-month and grew 30.3 percent year-on-year to P8.39 trillion as of September.
Foreign debt stock rose 3.1 percent month-on-month and 20.4 percent year-on-year to P3.53 trillion at the end of the first nine months of 2021.
Since the debt stock grew faster than the economy during the first half, debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) stood at 60.4 percent as of end-June — above the 60-percent threshold which debt watchers considered as a manageable level among emerging markets.
The debt-to-GDP ratio, which reflected an economy’s ability to repay its obligations, had been programmed to end 2021 at a 16-year high of 59.1 percent, with the national government’s outstanding debts expected to settle at P11.73 trillion by yearend.
While at this, let us disabuse readers of the idea that it is from the goodness of Digong’s heart that Filipinos are getting jabbed against COVID-19 free of charge.
We are not getting a free lunch, as the administration is funding its coronavirus vaccination program largely through loans from multilateral lenders.
The national government budgeted some P82.5 billion for COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, of which P70 billion will come from loans and additional revenues, or unprogrammed funds.
As of the first quarter of this year, the government of the Philippines has secured $1.2 billion or around P58.5 billion for vaccines. There’s $500 million from the World Bank, $400 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and $300 million from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
But wait. There’s more. The Duterte government has also secured from the World Bank other loans related to COVID-19 response. A $1.5 billion loan for the government’s wage subsidy and social protection programs and another $200-million, both in April 2020, to help finance emergency cash transfers to poor households; $100 million for personal protective equipment, medicine, and devices such as mechanical ventilators, cardiac monitors, and COVID-19 test kits; $600 million for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps and to cushion the pandemic’s impact on poor households; and $500 million to boost the Philippines’ pandemic response and to support programs to improve disaster response and rehabilitation.
Add them all up and what do you get? Trillions of pesos in debt that you—taxpayers—will have to cough up from your own pockets in the years to come. Think about it.
ernhil@yahoo.com
