I owe Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno one useful word for my functional, working vocabulary: contra- factual. The dictionary defines the word as presupposing that an idea or statement is false. In other words, fake. In a time of fake news and trolls, this is a real cause for concern.
I heard Diokno issue a different view after then Public Works Secretary Gregorio Vigilar warned that unless a megadike was built sooner than later in the lahar- ravaged Pampanga, the aqua industry in the fourth district of the province could be wiped out by the cascading volcanic sediment.
The Save San Fernando Movement led by the late Levy P. Laus was heavily pushing for the construction of the megadike as pledged by then President Fidel V. Ramos upon their appeal. The group was assisted by then Pampanga Gov. Bren Z. Guiao, who just recently lost lopsidedly to a popular action star, Lito Lapid. But the Laus-led group felt Guiao’s political influence was still necessary.
The movement’s frantic effort and, sometimes frontal pushback against the govertment’s earlier lackluster, if nonchalant, response to the calamity, was understandable. Lahar was licking at the then capital town’s door after burying under lahar much of nearby Bacolor town. In their estimate, around P100 billion worth of business assets, not to mention the economic boom that Pampanga had begun under Guiao and then President Cory Aquino’s initiatives, were greatly at risk.
After the government dropped the “ let- the – nature –take- its -course” line in favor of building an engineering intervention, the P 1 billion plus FVR megadike was green-lighted by FVR, hence the name of the project. The project was completed soon enough to allay the great fears of Pampanga leaders from the public and business sectors.
Why Diokno came up with his own view of the dire situation, it wasn’t explained. In any case, the completion of the megadike made his position moot and academic, perhaps preempted it. The province’s aqua industry is still intact and is even one of the pillars of a modern Pampanga under the vision of her own daughter, former President Gloria Arroyo.
As debatable is Diokno’s recent pronouncement that the Philippines will be the envy of Asia in terms of economic growth. He pegged the country’s economic rebound this year alone at 6 to 7 percent rate, beating every neighbor in the region. Given where we are at and where we have been in the last half a decade or so, we might as well think our economy is like Ferrari sportscar that can go from zilch to 60 or 100 miles in five seconds.
The pronouncement – a plan, a promise, a vision, a dream or even a utopia in the context of where we are now in light of many national predicaments from disease to democracy to debt seems—using his own word—contrafactual. The country is reeling from high fuel and food prices , the last one due to a dismal agricultural performance under the previous administration, heavily indebted due to the pandemic and unabated corruption, and dysfunctional government agencies undermined by the attack on their Constitutional mandate and independence.
These are only a tip of the iceberg.
What is another headwind blowing against the country’s position is that the world, as recently announced by the International Monetary Fund, is facing a double whammy, recession and inflation, not mention the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic on just about every country with some, like South Korea and China, still experiencing occasional surges.
By simple definition, an economist works on facts – genuflects before them, if you will , not fake data and information.He’s the oracle that dispenses a theory or plan as solution to a problem. In other words, an economist, unlike a politician, is not or can—should– never be contrafactual.
It’s possible Diokno knows something about us that we don’t. Or he’s more optimistic, guarded, even bullish, probably a default mindset of anybody in the discipline. But there are doubts about what he sees in the near future—this year. If politics cannot be left alone to politicians, so is economics to the professional practitioners of this discipline often called ‘dismal science’. Other voices should weigh in.
”Since the global financial recession of 2007-2009, criticism of the economics profession has intensified”, according to Richard Shiller. Their failure, Shiller added, has led many to doubt their contribution to society. “Ask five economists,” Edgar Fiedler said, “ and you’ll get five different answers—six if one went to Harvard”. Diokno didn’t go to Harvard but studied in two respectable American universities for masteral and doctoral degrees in economics . He has been a professional economist since, serving both sides of the political fence and had come out unscathed.
His stint under the second Marcos presidency will test his mettle. Recently, his boss
practically gas-lighted a member of his team when he expressed disbelief about the inflation rate in the country in June. “I don’t believe it’s 6 percent”, he flatly and loudly declared. Diokno explained the disbelief, and either clarify or confuse the issue even more. One local economist even compared Diokno to the unlamented former presidential spokesman Harry Roque for quarterbacking a presidential play.
Monsod, at one time or several times, has advised the new president to leave to his
economic team when dealing with the subject of the country’s economy. She has indicated impliedly that what Marcos Jr. knows about economics is equivalent to science in Timbuktu. In the meantime, the agency head that came up with the inflation number stands pat, even if the Young Emperor thinks he’s
royally garbed — and unimpeachable.
Marcos Jr. has pined for the so-called golden age which was supposed to have characterized the country during his father’s watch, dictatorship and martial law included. Diokno’s rosy economic prediction in dictator’s son’s first year seems to hew closely to that nostalgia of bygone era when rice could be had for P20 per kilo. Not so fast, the outgoing agriculture secretary, rice may even become more expensive with his forecast of rice shortage as 2022 ends.
Fact or fiction, Diokno will have to walk a tight rope.
