“In her eighth SONA today, Gloria M. Arroyo can no longer make the same boast. As it happened in 1997, the severe economic crisis, spiked by the U.S. financial meltdown and soaring prices of oil products and food, has shot down the GDP, with the immediate impact of impoverishing a greater number of Filipino families.”
Arroyo, in her SONA, blamed the world economic crisis for reversing what she claimed was “the strongest economic growth in a generation.” She cited the spikes in oil and food prices as the causes of the world economic crisis.
“Some blame speculators moving billions of dollars from subprime mortgages to commodities like fuel and food,” she said. “Others point of the very real surge in demand as millions of Chinese and Indians move up to the middle class.”
But Ocampo said Arroyo is also accountable for the economic hardships the country is now facing. He assailed Arroyo for her administration’s adherence to neoliberal economic politicies imposed by multilateral institutions.
