Press Release
January 29, 2009

ROXAS SEEKS SENATE HEARINGS ON STATE OF ECONOMY

Frustrated over the lack of concrete measures to address the financial tsunami causing tens of thousands of Filipinos to lose their jobs, Liberal President Senator Mar Roxas today proposed that the Senate hold hearings to determine the state of the Philippine economy and how to deal with growing joblessness.

"Nakakainis na talaga. Noon pa man ay nakita na natin ang paparating na financial tsunami na ito. Pero nagbingi-bingihan si Pangulong GMA at hanggang ngayon ay wala pa akong nakikitang kongkretong aksyon mula sa kanya at ang mga economic managers niya (This is really frustrating. We have warned about this financial tsunami but Gloria played deaf and did nothing to address it. Until now neither she nor her economic managers have acted on it)," Roxas said.

He reiterated President Arroyo should stop her 'business as usual' attitude and push her economic officials to come up now with detailed safety nets on how to stop the continued bleeding of domestic industries.

In Senate Resolution No. 852, Roxas said Congress needs to pass legislation that will remedy the contraction of the economy due to tighter commercial activities in the local and global trade arena because of the financial meltdown.

Roxas noted dropping figures from the trade and labor sectors, including reports from major industry associations of decreased orders, lower or negative growth forecasts, reduced labor forces and even factory shutdowns and company closures.

Drastically hit by the global slowdown is the country's exports sector, with total merchandise export earnings in November 2008 dropping to $3.494 billion or by 11.9% from the November 2007 figure of $3.965 billion.

In particular, earnings of the electronics export industry posted a 17% year-on-year decline in November 2008 while income of businesses engaged in the export of apparel and clothing accessories went down by 15.8%.

On the labor sector front, Labor Secretary Marianito Roque had said 18,000 workers have been retrenched and 33,000 had been placed under reduced work hours as of January 26 because of the closure of mostly export industry-based firms.

The Ilonggo senator said the lethargic state of the industry could be due to the limping economies of the country's top export destinations, namely, United States of America, Japan, China, Netherlands, Germany, Taiwan, Singapore and Korea.

News Latest News Feed