Slower economic growth

In 2014, the Chinese government asked the Philippines to remove the grounded ship.

Philippine supply ships subsequently avoided Chinese blockades to deliver food, water and other supplies to the stranded garrison.

Chinese coast guard vessels blocked the two attempts to resupply the garrison on March 9, 2014.

Supplies were airdropped to the garrison three days later.

A supply ship with replacement troops successfully reached the atoll on March 29, 2014 by sailing through shallow waters where the PRC vessels, having deeper drafts, were unable to follow.

During the approach, Philippine crew members and troops on the resupply ship waved the peace sign at the pursuing Chinese coast guard crew.

Since then, the Philippine military has been sending monthly relief missions in the form of air-dropped provisions to the troops stationed in the shoal.

This American security adviser, Ray Powell, should not have been given importance by local social media to allow him to influence an elected President on matters involving the country’s national security which for obvious reason involves our foreign policy.

This explains why the young Marcos considers the incident involving the hosing of our coast guard by China as a grey area indicating that either the West wants him to remain ignorant of the situation and promote a proxy war in the South China Sea.

A reaction by the President could directly involve the country which the US wants us to do while not directly involving the US in a conflict.

Had we reacted aggressively to Powell’s report, the spraying of water cannon to our coast guard cutter could have officially started a proxy war in the Ayungin Shoal with PBBM playing ignorant of the incident.

Many Filipinos to this day are wondering why our territorial waters in the South China Sea have been demarcated too close to Palawan that they even violated our 12mile territorial waters where our oil and natural gas are found and where service contracts have been awarded to private companies.

Instead of the Philippines reacting violently against illegal occupation of Vietnam and Malaysia in the Thomas Shoal area, it seems that China is directly poking at our nose, even directly threatening to evict us in the area.

This is an unnecessary taunting against us by a mighty neighbor, China.

This has happened because since the time BBM came to power in 2020, he has become more antagonistic to China to a point of canceling some of the country’s worthwhile economic and developmental projects with them.

Many suspect the US is purposely doing this to make the EDCA bases in the Philippines viable and for the fact PBBM was installed by an unabashed proAmerican stooge.

Instead of being antagonistic to China, Vietnam extended peace offering to cultivate economic and developmental projects which it hopes could enhance their own security while Malaysia is mainly concentrating to mind its own business, knowing its position is the most tenuous among the claimant countries in the South China Sea.

Particularly, the US has remained silent because the Philippines was excluded in the Treaty of Paris.

Only the US and Spain signed the Treaty even if the demarcation of the Philippine boundary in the South China Sea was wholly disadvantageous to the country. We cannot blame China. It was the US and Spain that first demarcated the boundaries in the South China Sea.

The Philippines was a non-participant in that treaty, and is now made to observe the boundaries made by the contracting parties.

(rpkapunan@gmail.com)

THE economy disappointingly registered a slower growth in the second quarter of 2023.

Reduced government expenditures, including those for infrastructure projects, partly led to a sluggish expansion.

The Philippine economy expanded just 4.3 percent in the second quarter, slower than 6.4 percent in the first quarter and 7.5 percent a year ago, to bring the first-half growth to 5.3 percent.

The economy struggled amid an uncertain global environment that led to higher inflation and increased interest rates.

Some sectors of the economy are expanding at a faster clip, led by tourism, commerce and the services industry. But their contribution is not enough pull up the rest of the economy.

The higher costs of goods and services and prohibitive bank lending rates are a dampener for business operations and

The economy must expand by 6.6 percent in the second semester to keep the government’s 6-percent to 7-percent growth goal on track—and Mr. Balicasan thinks this is attainable personal consumption.

The inflation rate in the first six months of the year stood at 6.8 percent, or much above the government’s target range of 2 percent to 4 percent.

The government’s chief economist, National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Arsenio Balisacan. however, remains upbeat despite the unimpressive growth figure. The economy must expand by 6.6 percent in the second semester to keep the government’s 6-percent to 7-percent growth goal on track—and Mr. Balicasan thinks this is attainable.

His statement implies that the government may have to front-load some of the government’s programmed expenditures in the third quarter of the year to play catch-up with the gross domestic product target.

The GDP figures showed that the government final consumption expenditure and gross capital formation in the second quarter contracted 7.1 percent and -0.04 percent, respectively.

In simple terms, the government spent less on public works and on the construction of school buildings and infrastructure projects.

Higher expenditures on civil works, especially in the aftermath of strong typhoons and the heavy monsoon rain that destroyed bridges and flooded roads, will increase economic activities and consumption.

They may offset the slow economic growth in the first six months of the year.