Nathan

Philippines, Politics

Disclaimer: I just heard these or read these somewhere recently, and I am just expressing my opinions.

Lately, the Philippines is feeling the toll of the upcoming elections on dirty politics, stock market, and possibly other areas.

With the elections in 2010 coming closer and closer everyday, more and more politicians start to bash each other, airing out each others’ dirty laundry in public. Political ads started to air at least 1 year before the actual voting day, which was totally unsurprising, considering we’re talking about Philippine politics here. Well, even if elections are still far away, they are already into the habit of trash-talking others. There have already been a lot of controversies, and they are growing each day. I am not amazed at how they just sprout like mushrooms whenever that time is near, and not during the lulls of their term’s duration. If you can remember Villar and his ever-famous C5 project or the more recent Lacson’s expose on Erap, among others. There are a lot more, if you just sift through the news. It’s just saddening.

Up until the past weeks, the Philippine stock market is doing great, following the DOW trend. However, just recently, PHISIX started to trend sideways, against the flow most traders were foreseeing. According to M. Sayo,

Whereas almost every stock market around the world registered new 52-week highs last week, the PSEi dropped lower instead and has even broken below its medium-term support line at around 2815. Could this be a cause for concern, or, could this drop actually be an opportunity to buy? That is the big question that everybody is asking right now? Some say that the market dropped last week because of politics. – The Phisix Weekly Chart (updated every week, latest September 22, 2009)

We can only speculate, but through experience, most will say that good news take time to have a visible effect, but we can immediately see the effects of bad news. So, what happened to the market? Yes, it’s probably caused by politics, with the most recent expose of Lacson. Everyone is on the edge waiting for the market to zoom upwards, as it is due.

There was news that the Philippines will have a critical power/electricity problem come 2010. That’s just amazing. And the first time this news was heard? Was regarding the possible problems that this might entail to hamper the poll automation. Earlier, businessmen reacted by saying that they should have been informed, as they were the most impacted. True enough, when there is lack of power, households can survive, but businesses and industries wont. Many will once again be jobless and paid less. So, everything seems to be tied with politics. Why does the issue on electricity rise now? We had a similar problem back in 1998. There were severe power interruptions during the time of Ramos. Now, it’s Arroyo. There has been (not sure if there is still now) an Arroyo-Ramos connection. So, is this purely coincidence? I don’t know, and I have no proof to back it up.

From the current tandems, it seems that Aquino-Roxas has a better edge compared to Teodoro-Puno. It’s still a long way from now. I’m sure it will be an “interesting” fight, among the candidates, as it always have been. Let’s just see.

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