The international spotlight is on the Philippines this week as host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders’ summit, which will be attended by leaders from 21 major economies, including the United States, China and Japan.
The Philippines has long been seen as a basket case, in part because of decades of misrule stemming from the gross abuses of former president Ferdinand Marcos. However, times have changed and the archipelagic nation is finally stepping out of the shadows of its more illustrious neighbours.
According to the World Bank, from 2011 to last year, the Philippine economy grew by an average of 5.95%, surpassing Vietnam and Indonesia’s 5.7% as well as Singapore’s 4.2%.
Elsewhere, the Philippines is also fast catching up. From 2010 to 2014, the country soared from 134th to 85th place in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (an increase of 49 places), compared with Indonesia’s 110th to 107th and Vietnam’s decline from 116th to 119th.
The Philippines’ iconic IT-business process outsourcing (or BPO) sector last year brought in US$18 billion (RM79 billion) in revenue – providing some 1.3 million Filipinos with middle-class jobs and salaries that underpin a consumer-led boom in housing and transportation.
One man, Philippines president Benigno Aquino III, has been central to this transformation. Nonetheless, when Aquino ran for president in 2010, many detractors accused him of being little less than a shallow, inexperienced political princeling, seeking to leverage off the aura of his martyred father Benigno Aquino Jr and his then recently deceased mother, the former president Corazon Aquino.
On the cusp of this week’s Apec summit in the Philippine capital and six months before Filipinos go to the polls to elect his successor, the president was upbeat in a 90-minute interview in the jewel-like confines of the historic, Narra-wood-panelled Malacanang Palace.
“Give the Filipino the right environment and he or she will shine,” he said, adding, “(Our success stems) from the fundamental belief that the greatest resource of this country is our people.”
To prevent unemployment among graduates, for instance, Aquino has pushed for greater coordination between education providers and the industry. His administration has also expanded a Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, which helps poor families keep their children in school. Under him, the Department of Health has also enjoyed a 300% budget increase.
But his success has not only been economic. Aquino has won plaudits for his crackdown on corruption. He allowed prosecutors to move against both his predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and a number of senior senators, as well as countenancing the impeachment of controversial Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, saying: “Now the highest positions are also being made to account for their actions.”
He added: “We started out with the phrase, ‘If you eliminate corruption, you can eliminate poverty’. We will not tolerate the situation where cronies become monopolies ... because it just keeps us where we are. We don’t grow. We actually stagnate.”
Asked what he sees as his signature achievement during his term, Aquino said: “The rekindling of the pride of Filipino... their attitude, their perceptions of the present and future.”
Of course, problems remain. Infrastructure spending is lacklustre at only 4% of gross domestic product. Manila’s electricity rates are amongst the priciest in Asia-Pacific. Traffic is still awful and the Ninoy Aquino International Airport remains far from ideal.
Also, Aquino’s goal of reducing the number of “balikbayan”, or overseas Filipino workers, appears to have stalled, although the overall number has fallen to 9.1 million from 10 million previously.
There is also the nagging question of whether the turnaround can continue after Aquino leaves office. As he explained: “I would say my nightmare would be everything that has been achieved will get unravelled in the next six years.”
He was forthcoming on the South China Sea issue, insisting that the on-going territorial dispute with China had not hurt trade and tourism ties.
As he told me, in 2011, Chinese companies invested US$600 million in the Philippines while more than 800,000 Filipinos visited mainland China annually. Clearly, he wishes not to let the dispute define his country’s bilateral relations with China.
Despite The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration’s recent ruling that it could hear the Philippines’ request for adjudication against China on the issue, Aquino stressed: “Our actions are not meant to exacerbate tensions. We do not envision ourselves as having offensive capability against anybody.”
Aquino also welcomed the impending formation of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) Economic Community.
“I’m a firm believer that you cannot have a sheltered economy and expect it to grow. We cannot have those inefficiencies and expect to be able to compete on a worldwide basis,” he said.
“We see ourselves as having a bigger voice on the world stage because of our presence in Asean, especially since we have one of the biggest populations proportional to the rest.” – TODAY Online, November 18, 2015.
* Karim Raslan is a columnist who writes on Southeast Asia and the author of five books.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
Comments
Please refrain from nicknames or comments of a racist, sexist, personal, vulgar or derogatory nature, or you may risk being blocked from commenting in our website. We encourage commenters to use their real names as their username. As comments are moderated, they may not appear immediately or even on the same day you posted them. We also reserve the right to delete off-topic comments