FOCUS: Has Ramos delivered promise to the Filipinos six years ago?
coup attempts in 1989, and with the Moro National Liberation Front ( MNLF) rebels in Mindanao, ending 26 years of Muslim conflict. All this was capped by the holding of clean, orderly and generally credible elections last May and an expected peaceful turnover of power to the next administration tomorrow.
“I shall be the last to claim them as my personal achievements as President but, during our watch, let us say that the lights were turned back on, the sick man had gotten out of the hospital, the teenage farce has grown up and more! We are a different country today than we (were) in 1992,” Mr. Ramos himself said during his valedictory delivered at the University of the Philippines (UP) last June 15.
Moreover, halfway through his term, the Philippines earned the monicker “Asia’s newest tiger cub” signaling the international community’s recognition of the gains and prospects of the country’ economy.
Thus, Mr. Ramos has largely been credited for the country’s impressive economic turnaround from where it was in 1992 as well as the return of political stability.
“His great achievement is leading the economic recovery from where we were in 1992 and in achieving political stability, especially with regard to the rightist rebellion, the MNLF. He also did his best to give us a free and clean election,” former UP president and public administration professor Jose Abueva said in an interview with BusinessWorld.
The business community shares the same view. In a testimonial given in Mr. Ramos’s honor last April, 21 business organizations in the country lauded the President for having restored investor confidence in the country.
This was aptly put by Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. President Sergio Ortiz-Luis in a recent interview. “Building up international confidence in the Philippines and simply holding up and progressing while everybody is regressing in this regional currency crisis speaks for his achievements,” he said. Mr. Abueva agreed that Mr. Ramos’s feat in improving the economy from where it was in 1992 cannot be disputed. He also noted that Mr. Ramos scores high in terms of empowering the people politically, particularly with the successful holding of the elections but doubts whether the President fared as well economically.
“The economic recovery cannot be doubted. In general, the economic reforms have been made which will have enduring effects but to claim that he has empowered the people economically is doubtful. There are so many caveats to that,” he added.
He said the best gauge of economic empowerment is in the success of the Ramos administration in reducing poverty and improving the lot of the 72 million Filipinos.
“In economic empowerment, it’s not so impressing. In general, he did turn around the economy but you’re not talking about distribution, it’s just growth. We are witnessing now that poverty is still very much present,” he pointed out.
The Ramos administration had targeted to cut poverty level in the country to just 30% of the population from 35% in 1994 and 39.9% in 1991.
But Mr. Abueva said this would be very difficult to achieve in the light of the currency malaise that led to a financial crisis in the Asian region. “In other words, the economic crisis and the currency turmoil overtook his administration,” he added.
UP Vice- President for Finance and Administration and NGO leader professor Leonor Briones shares Mr. Abueva’s views.