AFTER ALL
Behn Fer. Hortaleza

WHATEVER else you may ascribe the strong rally of the Philippine peso, to the remittances of Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) or simple confidence of investors in the administration, the fact is it has now breached the P52-to-a-dollar rate and impressionistically closed last Friday at P51.91.

If it slides further to the P50 mark, surely we can all breath better. The peso’s purchasing power will have greatly increased and we can add a little something more to our shopping money or our marketing list.

Equities have also increased as Wilshire Associates upgraded the country’s credit scale from a 2 to 2.13 – the highest in the Asian region, so far, edging out Malaysia, China and India. That means the country can now call in those foreign businesses and investments, cut its big international debt interest and with some more luck, create more jobs for some 4 million Filipinos. Government acknowledges that OFW remittances did play a part in this now rosy outlook for Philippine economy but at the same time, the Central Bank governor and noted financial analysts attribute a good part of it to the bold fiscal reforms like the implementation of the Reformed VAT.

All these analysis by technocrats and experts of course do not mean a thing to the ordinary Pinoy eking out an existence amid the crunch. He will only need to see and feel that his peso buys more than it used to – that’s his simple and practical gauge. If it does not, and he would be the first to know that, no glowing rhetorics will convince him life in these islands had become better.

It will of course take time for such to be felt by the ordinary consumer who, right now, feels his world is closing in on him. But once he does, this administration, or any administration for that matter, will surely benefit from Juan’s own little sigh of relief and wide smile in the villages.

That is true economics, nothing fancy, nothing complicated.