Philippines growing more quickly than thought, says ADB

In another sign of the Philippines' improving prospects, the Asian Development Bank raised its forecast of 2012 GDP growth from 4.8 per cent to 5.5 per cent, according to the lender's updated Asian Development Outlook 2012 released on Wednesday.

The Philippines was one of a handful of countries that escaped the ADB's sharp scaling down of forecasts for the region, which is now seen growing by 6.1 per cent this year instead of the 6.9 per cent in the bank's original projections released in April.

The ADB said it raised its forecast for the Philippines after the economy grew by a better than expected 6.1 per cent in the first half of the year. The government itself expects growth to reach 5 to 6 per cent this year from 3.9 per cent last year.

Apart from higher growth, the ADB is also predicting slightly lower inflation and an improved current account balance in 2012. It sees consumer price inflation at 3.4 per cent, down from its original forecast of 3.7 per cent. The current account balance is seen rising to 2.6 per cent of GDP, up from the original forecast of 2.1 per cent.

This leaves the central bank, which has recently cut rates to record lows, with more room to ease monetary policy and sustain growth momentum amid tougher global economic conditions. The ADB said:

There is room for further policy support for economic growth if required. Modest inflation (well within the central bank's 3.0-5.0% target range), a strong external position, and an appreciating currency suggest that monetary policy can stay accommodative, at least in the near term. Fiscal outlays fell $2 billion short of the budgeted amount in the first half of the year, despite the boost in government spending.

But the bigger challenge facing Philippine policy makers is making sure the benefits of economic expansion are enjoyed by everybody. Despite faster GDP growth, joblessness remained high at 7 per cent in the first half of the year, while under-employment rose to a six-year high of 22.7 per cent.

It's not going to be easy. The government must make progress removing stumbling blocks that have hampered agriculture and industry, the main sources of jobs.

Benjamin Diokno, an economist and former budget secretary, wrote a newspaper column outlining what needs to be done to make growth more inclusive:

Agriculture, which employs about one-third of the country's labor force, has to find new life. A big part of the sector's growth is retarded by the uncertainty brought about by agrarian reform. Injecting new life in the industrial sector, the source of many productive, decent jobs, requires better infrastructure, specifically better roads so that goods can be transported from one point to another at less cost.

Philippine Peso Little Changed as Europe Damps Investor Appetite

The Philippine peso was little changed, after gaining the most in more than two weeks yesterday, on concern a prolonged slowdown in Europe will damp demand for emerging-market assets. Government bonds fell.

Euro-area retail sales contracted for a 12th straight month in August from a year earlier, data showed today. The European Central Bank meets tomorrow, when officials are expected to leave borrowing costs unchanged at a record-low 0.75 percent, according to a Bloomberg survey. The peso climbed yesterday after a surprise jump in U.S. manufacturing boosted the Asian nation's export outlook, while the Asian Development Bank upgraded the nation's growth forecast today.

"The good U.S. data has been neutralized by concern over Europe," said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist in Manila at BDO Unibank Inc. "Investors still have this guarded optimism on the Philippines."

The peso closed at 41.600 per dollar compared with 41.605 yesterday in Manila, according to Tullett Prebon Plc. It dropped as much as 0.2 percent earlier. The currency touched 41.590 on Oct. 2, the strongest level since Sept. 20. One-month implied volatility, a measure of exchange-rate swings used to price options, was unchanged at 5.3 percent.

The Asian Development Bank lifted its 2012 economic growth forecast for the Philippines to 5.5 percent from 4.8 percent. The peso has strengthened 5.4 percent this year, the best performance in Asia.

Consumer prices rose 3.8 percent in September from a year earlier, the same as in August that was the fastest since January, according to the median estimate of economists in a Bloomberg News survey before a report due Oct. 5.

The yield on the 4.75 percent notes due September 2022 increased three basis points to 4.75 percent, according to prices from Tradition Financial Services.

Financial Times, Bloomberg Business Week

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Filipino Americans Show Vigilance over Cybercrime E-Martial Law in the Philippines

The Philippine government has enacted the Cybercrime Prevention Law, a piece of legislation aimed to regulate unlawful internet use. Nicknamed E-Martial Law by human rights advocates, this law has been deemed a broad instrument for violating people's rights to free speech, press, and due process as it targets a crime termed "online libel". The law gives the Philippine government expanded power to surveille people's activity on the internet and specifically charge political dissenters with criminal activity, simply for expressing opinions against the government.

"Through the enactment of Martial Law in the in 1970s, the Philippine ruling elite sought to quell people's protest on the streets through censorship, police brutality, mass incarceration, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and other unmitigated human rights violations. Now, E-Martial Law seeks the same in a digital age," stated Bernadette Ellorin, Chairperson of BAYAN USA. "But just as Martial Law culminated in a people's organized overthrow of the fascist dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, E-Martial Law is being met with widespread and worldwide protests on the internet as well as in the streets."

Filipino-Americans understand this struggle, especially in the context of the United States, a country that prides itself in valuing its First Amendment rights and freedoms. Just a year ago, similar acts, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), were on the table. The passage of these bills were halted in the United States Congress in January 2012 by people who mobilized and rallied in the streets against the potential threat such legislation held against freedom of speech and due process.

"The internet has served as a vast platform for creative protest," said Ellorin. "Activists have sought social networking websites as an innovative space to increase public knowledge about economic, social, and political injustices. The internet has allowed them to gain broad support all over the world in fights against oppressive regimes, like that of President NoyNoy Aquino."

Internet rights continues to be a relevant issue as the United States engages in secret trade negotiations known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). Critics of the TPPA warn that the neoliberal free trade agreement will trample on people's access to basic rights, such as food, water, medicine, and even the internet. Private corporations will be granted unbridled rights to patent and own otherwise public resources solely for their profitable gain.

"Laws drafted by the ruling class to prevent 'internet crimes' benefit a privileged few: big corporations and ruling regimes who want to maintain power and control over ideas and facts," Ellorin explained. "Efforts to criminalize the development and dissemination of opposing ideas and facts forces the people under surveillance by a fascist state. When every status update and blog post is under strict scrutiny, the people will not be silenced as the government hopes. Our protest will only multiply and find other ways to spread."

In addition to protests on social media sites, "offline" street protest actions are being conducted in front of the Supreme Court in the Philippines today by broad formations of human rights advocates, journalists, bloggers, netizens, and activists. These groups have vowed to express their dissent against the Cybercrime Prevention Law until it is junked, and have even filed official petitions challenging the law's constitutionality. BAYAN USA seeks to offer their support from abroad and build an international outcry against internet tyranny and human rights abuses in the Philippines.

Join BAYAN USA in this protest by clicking the following link and signing an online petition drafted by the Kabataan (Youth) Partylist against the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012: http://www.change.org/petitions/junk-the-cybercrime-prevention-law . The goal is to reach 1 million signatures.

BAYAN-USA is an alliance of 18 progressive Filipino organizations in the U.S. representing youth, students, women, workers, artists, and human rights advocates. As the oldest and largest overseas chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-Philippines), BAYAN-USA serves as an information bureau for the national democratic movement of the Philippines and as a campaign center for anti-imperialist Filipinos in the U.S. For more information, visit www.bayanusa.org .

ASIAN WEEK

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The Philippines is now Under Cyber-Martial law

We are now under 'cyber-martial law'

By: Bobit S. Avila

Those who oppose RA 10175 or the Anti-Cybercrime Act of 2012 failed to get a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) when the Supreme Court went on an en banc session last Tuesday to the great dismay of Netizens, many of whom are literally wired in the Internet highway. Actually, if I just used those short Twitter lines from irate and indignant people, it would make an easy ten columns full. This is not to mention how many people are in Facebook that are cursing the Aquino regime for allowing this bill to become law.

Remember no one has yet filed any libel cases against these people because libel cases happen mostly in mainstream media. I myself have a libel case that has been dragging on for the past three years thanks to our snail-paced justice. So when Netizens heard about the many cases being filed against media, it just scared them that the Aquino government has become worse than Martial Law were even a simple "like" that you click in Facebook about an anti-government comment might send you to jail.

Meanwhile, mainstream groups have already filed their respective petitions against the Anti-Cybercrime Act… but the Supreme Court is asking for more time. This is where that TRO would have been perfect. But as it is, while the Supreme Court is dilly-dallying on this case… the Anti-Cybercrime Act came into effect yesterday and it won't stop anyone from filing cases in court against those whom they would consider as "cyber criminals."

In short… 40 years after martial law was imposed in this country, we face another dark cloud hanging over our precious freedom of expression. As the Netizens have declared, we are in a situation called "cyber-martial law." People have not forgotten that when the mainstream media was literally owned by Marcos cronies, the "mosquito press" emerged that even the Marcos dictatorship dared not touch. Now we have blogs, social networking and Facebook that tell a different story from the main headlines.

If you ask me, Malacañang should stop defending the anti-cyber crime law because they are no longer fighting ordinary (we are very few) columnists, but a huge number of our citizens, mostly young voters who will certainly fight back when they believe that their human right of free speech will be trampled by law. This situation is potentially explosive!

*      *      *

I flew to Manila last Friday for a day-long meeting and flew back to Cebu the following day. As always, my Cebu Pacific Air flight boarded right on schedule, but due to traffic congestion in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) tarmac, we had to wait on the ground for at least 30 minutes… Gads! That's half the flight time to Cebu. As I had a window seat, the waiting on the plane afforded me the opportunity to look at the numerous flocks of birds that literally threatened any aircraft (and its passengers) taking off or landing in NAIA.

Between the main runway and the taxiway are large pools or ponds of water, which I reckon is a collecting area for rainwater on the runway or taxiway apron. It is the presence of these watering holes that lure many species of wildlife into the NAIA complex. Perhaps the most dangerous where the flock of Egrets or Herons that flew freely all around the area. So what's the game plan of NAIA officials on how to get rid of this threat to aviation? Should they preserve the wildlife or human lives?

Sometime in the mid-'90s, when I was still a board member of the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA), we were invited to Schipol International Airport and a neighboring airport that it also operated in Rotterdam. It was there that I posed the question on how they handle the issue on wildlife, especially in the era where environmentalists often fought with the airport officials to preserve wildlife.

In Rotterdam, they had a Land Rover manned by a Ukrainian who was in constant radio contact with the airport tower. Inside his Land Rover were two species of predator birds, a Kestrel and a Falcon that he doesn't feed for a month. When the control tower sees a flock of birds, they call the Ukrainian who then releases a Falcon, which then seeks its prey. When the Falcon gets its prey, the Ukrainian then guns the engine of his vehicle and drives towards where the birds have fallen. When we got there, only the feathers were left. He then picks up the Falcon and puts him back on its cage.

This is what they do in Rotterdam. But in La Guardia International in New York City, who can forget that fateful day in January 15, 2009 when US Airways flt.1919 crash landed in the Hudson River because the plane, an Airbus A-320-214 struck a flight of Wild Geese and both engines flamed out. We all saw this live on CNN… but they were the lucky ones. So what do we do about our problem in NAIA when it is a question between human lives or a flock of birds? In my book… saving human lives should be our priority!

For e-mail responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mo-pzcom.com  or vsbobita@gmail.com . His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.

philSTAR

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