EDGEDAVAO VOL. 6 ISSUE 28 •WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013
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Semblance of stability
N IMPORTANT STEP ALONG ThE ROAD TO ECONOMIC PROGRESS – A brighter economic outlook for the second quarter of the year propelled the Philippine’s stock market to a remarkable high this week. The brighter viewpoint is largely due to the fact, that, after keeping pace with a relatively higher stock market index for the past few weeks, the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) registered another significant increase, this time surpassing the 7,000 mark. The Aquino administration is pleased these days, and with good reasons because the pleasant news keep on coming. First, reputable investment rating firm Fitch recently upgraded the country’s economic status from BBB minus to BB plus. Such expression of confidence is more than just welcome these days because they are essential to a speedy application of new or loan extensions from different foreign banking and lending institutions. It paves the way for additional borrowing by the government as soon as credit ratings improve and interest rates are reduced. Now let’s look a bit closer. Given the latest forecast that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will remain firm at 6.6% and with an inflation rate of 3.2%, both government and private economists predict the economy will be much stronger within a year. Another good reason to be upbeat springs from the softer prices of oil and the potential impact of the series of oil price rollbacks on manufacturing and productivity as well as the transport industry may lead to an upsurge in economic growth.
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VANTAGE POINTS
Nevertheless, it is an important step along the road to economic progress. Immediately following the news that investment rating agency Fitch raised its appraisal of the country’s economic status, other big rating houses are said to be at least considering an upgrade as well. With several steps above the investment grade – the new rating is an improvement. The long-term economic outlook for the country is superb. Certainly some big foreign and local capitalists are very bullish on the investment business in the country. With the stock market registering points above the 7,000 mark, eventually the government pretty much got what it wanted. Naturally, thanks were due to improvement in the investment grade. This should bring some semblance of stability back to the market with regard to the country’s steady economic development. however, some independent economists are more pessimistic still predicting that the country needs to maintain at least 7% GDP growth to avert unexpected but dangerous levels of economic variability. The say government economic planners and financial managers should not be overwhelmed by the recent boosting economic mood
virtually resulting to over-confidence because even minor fluctuations in economic activities are stuff of both idle chit-chat and intense debate. But spoilsport economists and political adversaries may say it’s not yet time to reach for the sunglasses even if the economic outburst is starting to clear because the country’s much-vaunted economic gains have not trickled down to the masses. Signs that the economy is perking up are actually feeding expectations that the people notably the marginal sector may soon benefit from the bounties of economic growth. Barring disasters, booming Philippines expects more investments pouring in into the country, which will help spur manufacturing and the demand for goods and other big-ticket items. Meanwhile top government officials and captains of trade and industry assured that the country’s economic gains will soon pour down to the people specifically the poor and the downtrodden in the form of basic social services, but with the diffidence that it “cannot be done overnight.” There is a sense of urgency therefore the dominant question is: “how soon gentlemen, sirs?” Do the poor and underprivileged have to wait until eternity? Still, it might get harder to muddle through in the future, since there are indications that other regional economies that surround the country still face economic frenzy and when they’re in such situation, the country likewise is treading dangerously on thin ice. Remember, if our neighboring economies “sneeze we also catches cold.”
In defense of journalistic error
ILARy Sargent, who does business on the Web as Chart Girl, compiled the best early guide to the journalistic mistakes made on the afternoon of April 17, as broadcasters and wire services moved their conflicting and error-studded reports about the status of the Boston Marathon bombing dragnet. At least eight news organizations — including the Boston herald, the Associated Press, CNN and local station WCVB-TV — reported that either an arrest had either been made or was imminent. These bulletins were, of course, proved wrong quickly. By the weekend, New york Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan was crowing about the home team’s errorless Boston performance in hercolumn. With uncharacteristic swagger, Sullivan wrote that the paper’s performance upheld its “reputation as journalism’s gold standard,” a comment likely to be shoved back in her face several times before her public editorship ends. Without question, the Times deserves credit for avoiding rank errors in its Boston coverage, as do the scores of other outlets that fielded the story without booting the ball. But as anybody who has worked in a newsroom can tell you, reportorial diligence is never sufficient to
OPINION By Jack Shafer
(1st of two parts) prevent a news organization from misreporting stories. News, especially breaking news, has always been a difficult thing to report accurately. If you examine the news product closely, you’ll discover a vein offeldspar running through even the shiniest gold standard. Journalists don’t need to dip into a box labeled “half-truths and Innuendo” to make mistakes: Screwing up has been integral to the reporting of timely news for a long time , no matter how sterling a news organization’s standards, as this recent American Journalism Review feature by Paul Farhi documents. In 2002, the last year for which I have collected the numbers, the gold-standard Times confessed to 2,867 corrections, compared with the Washington Post‘s 1,006 and the Chicago Tribune‘s 678. In all likelihood, the Times error count soared because 1) it routinely addresses more difficult stories; 2) has more intelligent readers around the world probing its stories for goofs; and
3) has for more than a decade made the error-correction process easier than other outlets, such as the Washington Post, whose ombudsman, Michael Getler, accused thePost of institutional suppression of corrections in a 2003 column (paid). Error tallies, such as the one above, don’t demonstrate that news reporting is a particularly error-prone enterprise but that the business and its customers have come to an unspoken agreement of how perfect the news product must be. Near-perfect news could be printed and broadcast if reports were vetted and peer-reviewed for weeks or months before publication. But readers desire timely “journalism in lieu of dissertation,” to pinch Edgar Allan Poe‘s succinct phrase, and willingly accept a certain level of error as long as the news organizations readily acknowledge their mistakes. Most of us accept minuscule failure rates when buying a new car or refrigerator, knowing that some will fail us in surprising and unpredictable ways. Likewise, we make a similar bargain at the dinner table, accepting low levels of mercury and arsenic in the food we eat and the water we drink, as long we’re kept informed and the low levels do not cause illness.
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Of politics and coral reefs
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N y local commuter taking public transportation to or from downtown Davao won’t fail to notice the so-called common poster areas set aside for candidates’ campaign materials that are more or less of the same dimension as mandated by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), The rationale behind this rule is to assure a level playing field for all candidates, rich or not so rich. But the fast-moving passenger bus, jeepney, taxi or private vehicle is no great help to their passengers trying to recognize the faces of candidates appearing on the posters, much less their names, the way some ‘crawlers’ on your TV set ‘run’ instead of ‘crawl’ from right to left across the bottom of your TV monitor and you’re not fast enough to get the instant message. All that expense to produce those materials end up being wasted on a string of blurred images as in a kaleidoscope. And that probably holds true in thousands of other common poster areas from Aparri to Jolo. Is that what the Comelec likes to call “level field”? Beats me. xxx IN yesterday’s issue of one of the country’s leading broadsheets there appeared an item on its front page captioned “Ph has SE Asia’s lowest forest cover”. The story came out in connection with the celebration of World Earth Day. It made mention of the fact that in the past 100 years our forests have dwindled from 30 million hectares to only 7.2 million or the second lowest forest cover in Southeast Asia, if second place is any consolation. The item also said we have one of the most extensive coral reef areas in the world, although 40 percent are in “poor conadition” and only 2 percent are still in “excellent condition”. When I was growing up in what is today Surigao City, I often saw roadrollers (pison ) crushing coral to pave the town’s streets. That was why our streets appeared white. Once in a while some of the still uncrushed coral along the edges of the streets would prick our bare feet if we wore no shoes or slippers. I was too young then to understand what the environment was all about, much less that coral reefs are part of our rich bio-diversity, whatever that meant. Now that I am aware of our environment and its importance to humanity, I often wonder how much of Surigao’s coral reefs had been reclaimed from the depths of the sea to pave our streets with. It surely must have been considerable. has the intervening half century or more since that time helped to restore Surigao’s exploited coral reefs back to their original state? I certainly hope so.