DEMOCRATIC SPACE
For
Harping on Improved Credit Rating:
GMA Must Resign due to Mental Incapacity –
Beltran
BY
ANAKPAWIS PARTY-LIST
Posted by Bulatlat
Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran last week
expressed alarm that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was seriously
hallucinating. Given this, he said that she "must immediately step down on
the grounds of mental incapacity."
"This is one more compelling reason why
she should step down from office. Not only is Mrs. Arroyo widely
acknowledged to have cheated her way to a second term, abused her powers
for corruption and initiated a brutal campaign of extra-judicial killings,
she is now mentally incapacitated."
This was Beltran's reaction to the
statement issued by Macapagal-Arroyo that the Philippines now has “surplus
money to build schools and infrastructure, expand public health services,
and create more jobs.”
"This is a tale on par with Alice in
Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter
series," said Beltran. "It’s simply fantastic. How Mrs. Arroyo can say all
this with a straight face and expect the public to believe it is
ludicrous."
The veteran labor leader turned lawmaker
and now political detainee said that Macapagal-Arroyo's elation over
Moody's Investors Service's upgrade of the country's credit ratings was
most troubling.
"This is what Mrs. Arroyo is pegging her
hopes for the country on? An improved credit rating? Hundreds of Filipinos
are losing their jobs every day, there's widespread and increasing
incidence of hunger and hundreds of thousands more have no access to the
most basic social services such as healthcare, education and housing, yet
here is Mrs. Arroyo crowing over an improved credit standing. This
characterizes the Arroyo administration all over: twisted economic
priorities, skewed and delusional perception of social realities that all
result in a more wretched situation for the Filipino people."
Beltran said that the Arroyo
administration has manipulated facts and figures to hide the true extent
of poverty in the country and to project an improved fiscal situation.
"This administration, so wracked by political conflict and incapable of
initiating genuine economic reforms, has taken drastic feats of numerical
and statistical manipulation to create a more business-friendly climate.
It set an unrealistically low poverty threshold figure of P33.72 ($0.68,
based on an exchange rate of P49.69 per U.S. dollar) a day or P202.32
($4.07) for a family of six; hence, Filipinos who earn this much would no
longer be considered poor. Because of this, the government was able to
lower the poverty incidence as affecting only 30 percent (of the
population). The government uses this figure to justify low wage rates
that foreign investors find most attractive."
Beltran also said that in truth, 80
percent of Filipino families fall below decent living standards. "Macapagal-Aroyo's
rosy illusions and projections are actually based on harsh realities. Her
government continues to make high borrowings to promote the image that
there's economic growth. Annual net borrowing rose from P175 billion
($3.52 billion) in 2001 to P219.4 billion ($4.41 billion) in 2005 while
annual payments jumped from P274 billion ($5.51 billion) in 2001 to a
staggering P679 billion ($13.66 billion) in 2005."
Citing statistics from IBON Foundation,
Beltran said that the administration also spent less on vital social
services. "In the last past five years, the Arroyo government's actual
expenditure outlay for social services has continually decreased.
Education fell by 5 percent and health is 19 percent less," he said.
Posted
by Bulatlat
BACK TO
TOP ■
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION ■
COMMENT
© 2006 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Media Center
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided
its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.