2009 SONA of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
I would like to comment on one of President Arroyo's report that: "...the Philippines had the lowest economies in Asia ever since."
She was wrong about it. During the Marcos regime, the dollar conversion rate was: US$1=PHP 1 peso. Meaning that the economy during that time was doing well compared to other Asian countries. She even showed a GNP chart presentation and before the EDSA revolution started, the GNP was going up the chart and it went drastically down after the EDSA revolution and was consistently down until her term came up.
To be fair to her, she did a good job in recovering the Philippine economy when it started to plunge after the EDSA revolution and she must not include the term of President Marcos. At that time, we were one of the strongest economies in Asia and the US government knows about that. The only problem during that time was not the President itself but as the old saying goes: "In every man's success or failures is a woman behind".
If we were to turn back time and the political scenario was different, meaning the EDSA revolution did not happen, I believe that our economy was the strongest in Asia and there would be less OFW's during this time.
Well, President Arroyo did report that the economy will be stable in the next generation after her term and I think she knows why and that report is more realistic. I wanted to discuss this further starting from the period of Marcos and how this can be done but I guess it would be better to point this out in another blog topic.
This is just a few thoughts to plunder after hearing the SONA of the President yesterday.
