The first 100 days: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

PHILIPPINES - In Brief 10 Oct 2022 by Romeo Bernardo

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100 days have passed since Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., the late dictator’s son and namesake, was sworn in as the 17th President of the Philippines. So far, he has behaved as we expected, i.e., not like his father. Although we had said that this is both good and bad, the overall net sentiment of businesses seems to lean towards the former. That his main concern is the redemption of the family name is perhaps the key takeaway during these early days. Below is our assessment of the positives and negatives of his government so far. The good The President’s appointments for the economic cluster deserve the first mention. We count here not just the core oversight functions – finance, planning, budget and industry, central bank – but several key agencies (the “++” for lack of a better term) – foreign affairs, public works, transportation, energy, trade and industry, labor and migrant workers. The naming of a five-person[1] private sector advisory council directly in touch with the President seemed to have bolstered confidence that this will be a business-friendly administration. Thus far, we consider the following successes of this economic++ cluster: A medium-term fiscal consolidation program containing concrete macro targets that seemed to have convinced markets of the new government’s commitment to fiscal sustainability. The sovereign has continued to maintain its investment grade credit rating and despite current volatile global financial conditions, was able to raise $2 billion worth of global bonds from the international capital markets at relatively tight spreads.[2]Fast-tracking the revision of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT...