Over ambitious?

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Right after the President's State of the Nation Address where she outlined ambitious infrastructure plans for the whole archipelago, that included the building of airports, RORO ports, bridges and roads; Fitch Agency, a global rating agency immediately pointed out that the government's fiscal performance for the first half of the year has been disappointing thus far, and even went as far as predicting that the budget deficit could balloon to P125 billion this year, a figure that is approximately twice the estimated target of P63 billion.

The finance department was quick to dispute that the government's P63 billion budget deficit is still achievable, primarily by banking on the proceeds from the privatization of several government assets, figures that were not included in the Fitch forecast. The poor first half collection performance of the BIR and the BOC, the main revenue generating arms of the government, was also highlighted as the major reasons of the growing deficit, but the finance secretary did promise that their second half performance would be better.

The projects outlined by the President during her SONA are indeed necessary catalysts for growth and progress, but if our government resorts to massive debt as the financing solution for these projects, it may do our country more harm than good. If Fitch is right, and our finance officials are wrong, GMA's administration may have bitten off more than it can chew in the name of progress.

The good news is that something can still be done about this. A healthy dose of reality, which can come from independent third party groups such as Fitch, is always good for our ambitious leaders.

They have the raw, unmanipulated data that can be used to confirm or debunk these findings, if in their objective reassessment of the situation they find that they were wrong, it would be in the best interests of the country for them to admit the mistake and make the necessary adjustments. If the Filipino people can tolerate GMA's broken promise of not running for the presidency, they surely wouldn't mind if a few airports, seaports, bridges or roads that were promised in a speech were put on hold because the country couldn't afford it anyway.*