A militant party-list lawmaker allied with the incoming administration urged President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to appoint fresh faces to the country’s top economic agencies, saying it would help him a lot in pursuing true change for economic reforms and progress.

Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello made the call as he noted that with old faces reigning economic agencies, the Philippine economy has endured two decades of misguided policies that has led to the unraveling of industries and increased vulnerability to international market shocks.  

“If there is any lesson the incoming president can learn from his mother’s reign, it is that sound economic policies are essential to building a stable and strong democracy,” he said.

Bello explained that the accession of the first Aquino administration’s team of economic managers and advisers to the demands of international creditors and the major players in the world economy “brought the country to the doldrums, where it is still marooned.”

The lawmaker, a known economic analyst, identified the prioritization of the repayment of foreign debt incurred by the Marcos regime through the Automatic Appropriations Act as one of the failed policies of the Aquino administration that weakened the state’s capacity to infuse capital into the economy, the direct impact of which was the stagnant 1.0 per cent average annual GDP growth rate in the 1980s and 2.3 per cent rate in the first half of the ‘90’s.

“President Cory’s economic managers and technocrats also laid the groundwork for the process of deregulation, tariff liberalization, and privatization that reached its apogee during the presidency of Fidel Ramos and was consolidated under the presidencies of Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,” Bello added.

Bello identified the following qualities for some of the top economic managers:

“For the Department of Finance, the urgent need is for someone who will no longer serve as the bearer of the IMF’s message to raise the value added tax or the subservient tool of the bankers that have delivered the world to the current global financial mayhem.  For the Department of Trade and Industry, we must have a figure who will courageously stare down the neoliberal establishment and steer the Philippines away from free trade to fair trade, to managing trade for development purposes.  For NEDA, which is a planning agency, one must have, at a minimum, someone who believes in planning, in the role of the state in positively shaping and disciplining markets. ”

Some of the names being thrown around for the top positions are Makati Business Club Executive Director Bertie Lim for the Department of Budget Management (DBM), and UP School of Economics Professor Cayetano Paderanga, Jr. to resume service as Secretary-General of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA).

“While it may be tempting to recruit old familiar faces, President-elect Noynoy must take the lead in breaking with the old failed policies and appoint people who can help bring about the country’s long awaited economic resurrection,” Bello said.