President Ramos score well on economic front

President Ramos score well on economic front

By Cecil Morella

MANILA (AFP): Filipinos no longer curse the dark, and renewed
investor confidence has ushered a modest economic rebound as
Fidel Ramos reaches the half-way mark tomorrow of his six-year
term.

But violent crime and some diplomatic setbacks have taken the
shine off his achievements. Resurgent terrorism in the country's
south also poses a major challenge for the 67-year-old ex-general
who has said he wants to spend more time in the golf course after
1998.

The economy grew 5.1 percent last year and 5.2 percent in the
first three months of 1995, with investments providing the major
thrust, after Ramos solved a three-year energy crisis, moved to
improve infrastructure and opened up key sectors.

He has led leaders of the country's much-weakened communist
insurgency, along with Moslem guerrillas, to the negotiating
table to work out a political settlement. Peace talks with
military rebels who mounted seven coup attempts against his
predecessor Corazon Aquino are also underway.

The ruling coalition captured a large congressional majority
last month, ensuring it will be no lameduck for the rest of its
term.

Major U.S. credit rating agencies have since upgraded the
Philippine sovereign debt along with those of several large
Filipino firms.

"We believe that the rating agencies' actions reflect a
positive assessment of the strengthening fundamental economic and
political trends in the Philippines," said Joyce Chang, emerging
markets analyst of Salomon Brothers Inc.'s Hong Kong subsidiary
in its latest country report.

To be sure, major economic hurdles remain, chief among them
the shoring up of public finances through more effective tax
collection. Inflation is also rising, which experts warn could
eat up whatever gains the economy has made.

Critics say economic expansion has not trickled down, with
unemployment remaining in double digits and rising.

The hanging in Singapore in March of Filipina maid Flor
Contemplacion forced Ramos to downgrade ties with Singapore and
take a long hard look at the fate of 4.5 million of his
compatriots working mainly in blue-collar jobs overseas.

And since the Philippines kicked out U.S. military bases in
1992, it has found itself in a territorial dispute with regional
giant China, which last year occupied a reef claimed by Manila in
the Spratly islands in the South China Sea.

Crime is also a sore point, with the country's police forces
-- which Ramos once headed -- held in low esteem due to
perceptions that some lawmen are themselves mobsters.

Although the number kidnappings for ransom, rife at the start
of his term, has dropped, banks are robbed every week, with
heavily armed gangs striking with impunity, on two occasions
hitting banks near public functions attended by the president.

Scores of police officers are under investigation for
allegedly murdering one such gang and then covering up to make
the killings look like a shootout.

A new generation of Islamic extremists is on the warpath in
the south, sacking a Christian town with the loss of 53 lives in
April and giving the Manila government an impetus to make peace
with the mainstream Moslem insurgency.

Ramos, this Roman Catholic country's first Protestant leader,
remains on uneasy terms with the church hierarchy, which not only
continues to oppose his birth control policies but has taken
sides against other government policies including tax reform.

Ramos is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term,
but despite denying that his party plans to amend the
constitution, he has not yet taken any concrete steps to groom a
successor.