After the May festivities, it’s time to put things into their proper perspectives once more. The summer parties are over for the students, and time to troop into the classrooms again. For the fresh grads, it’s time to push those resumes into the fax machines or attach them to e-mails and hope for the best. The Philippine economy may not be rosy, but it can only get better from here (we hope so). The only difference between Manila and the rest of the third-world countries is the former’s penchant for being in this situation more often.
June will also be remembered as the month in which 1989 the Philippine National Bank’s (PNB) shares were first listed at the then-dual exchanges of Makati and Manila. It was made possible because of the leadership of Edgardo Espiritu — whose moral integrity and high ethical standard should be the example of our current crop of government officials. He quit as the Finance Minister during the Estrada administration and pursued his interest in running private corporations. The reason was obvious.
Over at the PSE, investors are digging their trenches and are preparing to be in for the long haul. The trend had been established, and the administration was offering no clear signs of relief. Short-term rallies will offer a “quick fix” for those who jumped the latest in this pain-bringing, if not perplexing, stock market. But many ‘long-termers’ who were blindsided by the sudden reversal of fortune in the early going of the forgettable Estrada administration – and which had remained in the doldrums during the equally anemic Arroyo transition period/administration – could either bottom-fish or average down at their comfort levels.
The month of June will see a lot of these prominent and honorable businessmen-politicians-stock investors in churches and other religious edifices attending weddings and shelling out huge amounts either out of necessity, the love for social gatherings, conceit, or to perpetuate the Filipinos bent for the ‘padrino system.’
We can only guess what litanies will be heard during the ceremonies. We could also wish that in their prayers, they would be fervently asking for the country’s economic salvation and not simply to recover – and then some – their political investments or, the country may ultimately be the most rotten one among the banana republics.
May the June wedding bells toll on the country’s economic recovery. Hang tough, Philippines!
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