Arroyo and Aquino economics are one and

the same
Communist Party of the Philippines
January 14, 2012
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyos Its the economy, student is a shameless paper of self-promotion
built on lies and half-truthsthe very same foundation on which, for nine long years, she built
her corrupt and brutal regime from 2001 to 2010. It presents itself as a professors critique of her
students economic policies, but is actually nothing more than a shallow political diatribe.
Arroyo tries to differentiate herself from Aquino in form, portraying herself as the hardworking
professor and Aquino as the easy go lucky student. However, she failed to point out any
crucial difference in terms of content, because in reality, there is none.
Aquino, like his teacher Arroyo, upholds the basic economic policies instigated by US
imperialism and pushed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Arroyo is no
original. And neither is her student Aquino. They both are disciples of neoliberal economic
policies and defenders of the Philippine semicolonial and semifeudal system. They both are
advocates of trade and investment liberalization, deregulation, denationalization and
privatization, which have resulted in economic stagnation and the peoples deteriorating socioeconomic conditions.
In terms of economic policy, Arroyo and Aquino, the teacher and the student, are so much the
same. Let us count the ways:
1. Arroyo and Aquino are defenders of the Expanded Value Added Tax. Arroyo considered it
her centerpiece fiscal measure. In full agreement with his teacher, Aquino refuses to
remove the EVAT imposed on oil prices and has imposed it on toll fees. In the face of the
continued slowdown in domestic production and economic activity, for both Arroyo and
Aquino, the EVAT, which taxes the ordinary people is the easiest way to generate
government revenue.
2. Neither Aquino nor Arroyo conforms to the idea of increasing workers wages
substantially to allow them to cope with rising costs of living. During the nine-year
Arroyo regime, daily minimum wages in the national capital region were on the average
increased by a mere P17. Last year, under Aquino, daily minimum wages were increased
by only P22. Both Aquino and Arroyo oppose the clamor to raise daily minimum wages
by P125.
3. As senator, Gloria Arroyo was one of the proponents of the Oil Deregulation Law when it
was deliberated on and eventually enacted in 1998. For nine years under her term as
president, she allowed foreign oil monopoly companies to jack up oil prices with
impunity, reaching unprecendented levels at around 2008. Her student Aquino is in
complete agreement. Despite growing clamor, he has refused to even hear petitions to

repeal the oil deregulation law. He has also refused to heed the demand for the removal of
the 12% EVAT imposed on petroleum products.
4. Arroyo was the principal proponent of the Mining Act of 1995. Like his teacher, Aquino
has campaigned to attract foreign mining companies, conforming to the misguided notion
that mining will bring development and employment. Neither Arroyo nor Aquino
considers the fact that mining contributes a mere 0.6% to total employment in the
Philippines. This minuscule input comes at an enormous cost to the Filipino people who
suffer the irreversible loss of their natural resources.
5. Arroyo was also the principal proponent of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act
(EPIRA) which deregulated the power industry. Despite the glaring fact that the EPIRA
has failed to bring down electricity rates as it promised, Aquino does not intend to have
the law reviewed or repealed, knowing full well that he counts among his campaign
supporters the Lopezes who hold vast interests in the power industry.
6. Aquino, like his teacher Arroyo, does not have a program for national industrialization to
spur domestic economic production and generate employment. Lacking such, the only
recourse of the Arroyo regime was to offer foreign big capitalists cheap Filipino call
center agents for business process outsourcing and intensify the deployment of overseas
contract workers. Aquinos employment thrust is no different. He will, however, have to
contend with the contraction of international labor markets and the current drive in the
US to reverse outsourcing and bring the jobs back to the US. In any case, both Aquino
and Arroyos economic policy fail to provide a strategic blueprint to resolve the chronic
and acute problem of unemployment that beset the Philippines.
7. Arroyo, like Aquino, is opposed to genuine land reform. In November 2004, when the
Aquino and Arroyo families were still friends, Arroyo ordered the deployment of the
military to suppress the Hacienda Luisita strike which resulted in the massacre of seven
farm workers. Similarly, peasant leaders in the Arroyo lands in Negros were suppressed
as they clamored for the free distribution of land.
8. Both Arroyo and Aquino are masters of statistical manipulation in covering up the grave
socio-economic problems of the poeple. In 2005, Arroyo was able to reduce the number
of unemployed without actually creating jobs simply by redefining employment and who
constitutes the labor force. In similar fashion, Aquino was able to bring down last year
the number of people living below the food threshold by reducing the daily food basket
(removing milk, for instance, from the morning meals of children).
9. Following his teachers footsteps, Aquino has continued and expanded the Conditional
Cash Transfer Program funded by World Bank loans. Both Arroyo and Aquino speak of
the CCT as an anti-poverty undertaking, in an attempt to make the people believe that
their conditions will improve through small cash infusions even as the conditions for
exploitation, oppression and poverty persist.
10. Aquino, as did Arroyo, pushes for the privatization or increasing role of private business
in providing education, health and other services. Aquino, like Arroyo, has cut back on

social spending, making education, health and other services increasingly inaccessible to
the people.
11. Like his predecessor Arroyo, Aquino gives little damn about the social wellbeing of the
people. Neither regime addressed the demand of the urban poor dwellers for on-site
development or in-city relocation, stubbornly insisting on dumping them in areas far from
their places of employment and with little opportunity to make a living.
12. Even as both Aquino and Arroyo are prone to profligate spendingArroyo has Le Cirqu
while Aquino has his Porsch, the student learned from his teacher that as president, it is
better to keep ones hand clean, and just let your men do the dirty work. The appearance
of clean governance allows bureaucrat capitalism to thrive under Aquino as during the
Arroyo regime. State privilege and power continue to be employed for the benefit of big
business interests, specifically of those who are supportive of or affiliated with the ruling
clique.
Finding a fundamental difference between Arroyo and her economics student Aquino is an
exercise in futility. Arroyos policies then, are Aquinos policies now. For that matter, their
policies are essentially the same as those of previous regimes since the inception of the
neocolonial state in 1946.
These are policies that oppose land reform and prevent national industrialization, progress and
economic modernization. These are policies that perpetuate the semicolonial and semifeudal
system and subject the people to perpetual exploitation, oppression and poverty.
Precisely because of the continuation of economic policies of the past, the Aquino regime is
increasingly becoming isolated from the Filipino people. The Filipino people are increasingly
disgusted over the deteriorating conditions under the Aquino regime and are bound to rise up in
their millions against the neoliberal policies of US imperialism and its puppet regime.