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APART
from the slowdown in the global economy, other factors
will likely cause the country’s economic problems to
worsen in 2008, causing the public more burdens as
unemployment swells and tax increases become imminent,
private think tank Ibon Foundation Inc. said Tuesday.
Ibon
research department head Jose Enrique Africa added that
for many Filipinos, the greatest challenges would be in
surviving economic difficulties, particularly
joblessness, falling incomes and rising prices.
Africa
said that with the slowdown in the world economy and
rising oil prices, more Filipinos will lose jobs and
decent employment would continue to be scarce. In the
last Labor Force Survey released by the National
Statistics Office (NSO), Africa said the government was
only able to create 4,000 jobs in the manufacturing
sector and 72,000 jobs in the agriculture sector.
Most
jobs, he added, were in households or low-paying and
unsecured employments.
“The
economy is now becoming an economy of overseas Filipino
workers [OFWs] and informal workers,” Africa said. “The
last seven years under the Arroyo administration have
been the worst seven years of unemployment.” However,
the appreciation of the peso, which is expected to hit
P38 per dollar, would also put pressure on OFWs and
their families. If the peso appreciates to P38 per
dollar, Ibon projects that OFWs will lose P3,710 a
month, or a loss of P30,000 to P45,000 a year.
The
drastic decline in OFW earnings, Ibon said, could crimp
the growth of remittances and the number of OFWs abroad.
Africa
said this is not far from happening since the Philippine
Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has reported
that only an additional 11,000 Filipinos were deployed
abroad last year compared with a total of 1.07 million
in 2006.
Africa
said challenges in the economic and political fronts are
certainly daunting in 2008. He said the political
situation will even become more intense due to economic
pressures.
“The
challenges on both fronts are considerable. We believe
that the political challenges that the administration
faces will intensify as the economic crisis worsens and
as burdensome measures like new taxes are pushed,”
Africa said after a press briefing in Quezon City
Tuesday.
“Hungry
people are angry people,” he warned.
Meanwhile, increasing taxes is one of the most possible
fiscal movements the administration may implement next
year in order to increase its revenues and balance the
budget.
Another
reason Africa believes the state would resort to
increasing taxes is that there are only a few big-ticket
assets that can be privatized.
He said
that instead of increasing taxes, the government could
resort to cutting the budget for debt service and the
military. “Defense as a single item of the budget
accounts for 5 percent of the national budget, but
increases to 11 percent if military spending charged to
other departments and sectors is considered. Tariff
reductions and eliminations similarly cost government
billions in forgone revenues,” Ibon Foundation said. |
