News Analysis: Hype on Philippines' robust growth orchestrated by U.S., says research group

The recent pronouncement by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other U.S-based multilateral credit agencies that the Philippines will be Southeast Asia's economic driver this year is speculative and is aimed at attracting foreign investors, according to a study made by a local research group.

In a recent press statement, the IBON Foundation said that after the U.S. announced its so-called "pivot" to the Asia Pacific, the IMF and other credit agencies have continued to hype the Philippine economy as supposedly a "bright spot" compared to its neighbors.

IBON said that the supposed faster growth is being bandied around even if the Philippine economic growth is "artificial, unsustainable and not happening in the context of an economy-wide production."

In its bi-annual Regional Economic Outlook (REO) report, the IMF forecast the Philippine economy to grow despite global challenges.

According to the IMF report, the country's firm currency, strong overseas Filipino workers' remittances, earnings from the outsourcing and tourism sectors, stable government spending, all serve to protect the Philippine economy from volatile global conditions.

But IBON contradicted the IMF forecast, saying that the shallow and speculative sources of economic growth are not sustainable as shown in the slowing down of the country's economic growth in 2014. The Philippine economy grew by only 6.1 percent last year. In the first quarter of this year, Philippine growth further slowed to 5. 2 percent, the lowest since 2012.

The IBON Foundation is a Manila-based non-profit research, education and information development institution. It provides socio-economic research and analysis on people's issues to various sectors, primarily to grassroots organizations.

On several occasions, IBON has contradicted government policies and economic figures with well-researched analyses and studies.

IBON noted that prior to the Philippines other countries like Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa have likewise been hyped by IMF and other agencies as among the world's fastest developing economies.

However, recent economic trends in these countries show slowing growth, stagnant wages and massive capital outflows as well as intensive plunder of their natural resources. "This is because these countries have not undergone fundamental economic reforms and were merely hyped to draw in speculative foreign capital," the research outfit said.

IBON said that the IMF lacks the credibility to assess the economy of the developing countries like the Philippines because it has consistently pushed for neo-liberal reforms that only served the interests of developed countries and global corporations and which are oftentimes implemented at the expense of poor countries.

The research group also claimed that the United States is behind the strong lobby backed by millions of U.S. dollars in funds for the passage of changes to some economic provisions in the Philippine constitution all aimed at opening up the Philippine market to benefit U.S. transnational firms.

IBON reiterated the charge after the Lower House of the Philippine Congress approved on second reading the Resolution of Both Houses No. 1 (RBH 1) which aims to amend vital nationalist economic provisions of the Philippine Constitution.

This would include the scrapping of the limit of 40 percent of foreign ownership of Philippine companies and allowing foreigners to own lands in the country.

According to IBON, the United States has formed the so-called Partnership for Growth (PFG), a 33 billion pesos (739 million U.S. dollars) program which the administration of President Aquino entered into in 2011.

"The PFG aims to shape the Philippines' economic policy and institutional environment to become more open and profitable to U. S. investors and corporations," IBON said. It described the PFG as the most comprehensive U.S. intervention in the country's economic policy-making mechanism. Endi