Good news, bad news

First, let's talk about the good news: A powerhouse investment firm in the region is projecting that the economy of the Philippines will be growing at the fastest pace in Southeast Asia, with the regional bloc also continuing to evolve into a promising investment hub. According to Maybank’s Kim Eng, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth of the Philippines is expected to remain strong at 6.4 percent in 2017, with the momentum continuing to 2018 at 6.5 percent – outpacing the 5.3 percent average growth rate for ASEAN-6 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines).

Businessmen also share the same optimism. The 2017 First Semester Executive Outlook Survey recently released by the Makati Business Club said that the economic outlook is bullish, with bigger investments expected to come in. The projection remains bright, the MBC said, with a large majority of respondent senior executives saying their companies will be pouring in more investments in the coming year with an average amount of P785 million.

The London-based PriceWaterhousCoopers has projected that the Philippines will become the 24th largest economy in the world by 2030, and will rise even more to the 19th spot by 2050 (the projections were based on GDP at purchasing power parity). PwC’s report titled “The long view: How will the global economic order change by 2050?” further said the Philippines would overtake the Netherlands, Argentina, Poland and Malaysia by 2030.

Another good indication that more investors are looking at the Philippines as a very good investment destination is the high level of interest generated by the country’s chairmanship of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) this year – a golden opportunity as it coincides with the regional bloc’s 50th founding anniversary. The Philippine Economic Zone Authority is actually looking at the country’s hosting of ASEAN as an expansion initiative that would spur development in potential economic zones especially in Mindanao.

At the US-ASEAN business council roundtable discussion held in Washington a few days ago, the PEZA delegation highlighted investment opportunities in Mindanao to executives from US companies such as Cargill, Citi, Lockheed Martin, Albright Stonebridge, Medtronic and several others. All of these are very promising developments that augur very well for the country and Filipinos.

Now for the bad news: We are getting a lot of negative publicity especially in relation with President Rodrigo Duterte’s ongoing war against illegal drugs. Western media outfits have been coming out with articles and editorials almost every single day painting “very bleak portraits as if the entire country has been thrown into a bloody civil war,” as one very incensed supporter of the president put it.

The president’s tirades against the United States as well as the European Union have also been getting a lot of coverage, making President Duterte the most talked about leader internationally today. In all my years observing presidents from Ferdinand Marcos down to Cory Aquino and up until today, I have never seen anyone get so much international media attention as President Duterte. The scary part is that this could turn us into another Venezuela as pointed out by a business tycoon during a private dinner the other night, with President Hugo Chavez “bludgeoned” by the western media and turning Venezuela into an international pariah.

The New York Times, for instance, keeps devoting significant space to Duterte. A story about him would come out on Saturday, then on Sunday, and again on Monday or Tuesday and so on. “Rodrigo Duterte” has become such a familiar name, and this is probably the reason why he is currently the frontrunner in Time magazine’s 2017 100 most influential people poll, ahead of such notables as Russian president Vladimir Putin, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, Pope Francis, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and even US president Donald Trump. Last year, President Duterte was on Forbes magazine’s 74 Most Powerful People list that had Putin, Trump, Germany’s Angela Merkel, China’s Xi Jinping and the pope at the top of the list.

Yet despite the controversies, and while many may cringe at the rough language of the president, a large majority of Filipinos continue to be supportive of him and his efforts to rid the country of criminals and eliminate the drug menace.

This kind of duality in perspective – what I call the “bad news-good news” effect that the president seems to generate, can perhaps be best illustrated by the experience of one of my friends when he was in Singapore. He told me about the reaction of this taxi driver when he found out that his passenger was from the Philippines. “Oh, Philippines. Your president Duterte, he’s a killer!” That’s the bad news. But then the taxi driver’s next comment surprised my friend even more: “I like him, your president. He’s very strong leader!” That’s the good news.

Actually, there is a lot of good news that is happening all over the country which could be written about. On many occasions, the president had said he doesn’t really care what people say or think about his leadership style, professing love for this country as his ultimate concern. But the president also needs to realize that what he says could have a major negative effect on the country – like the potential economic sanctions from EU nations. We can also expect a negative backlash on OFWs should these countries decide to tighten up in hiring Filipinos.

The bottom line is – we need to balance the “for domestic consumption rhetoric” versus the “for international consumption rhetoric.” Because in the end, it’s not the President – but all of us – who will be affected by the consequences.