SONA 2015

SONA 2015: Favoring the rich, oppressing the poor – Aquino legacy, by the numbers

The LRT 1 privatization, cornered by the Ayala-MVP group, shows how the Aquino regime has favored the oligarchs at the people’s expense. Read more here (Image from Rappler)

One of the biggest legacies that President Benigno S. Aquino III will leave behind is how his regime has favored the rich and oppressed the poor.

Below are some numbers.

  • Php168.9 billion – total cost of the 10 public-private partnership (PPP) projects awarded so far by the Aquino administration (An updated report – as of 22 July 2015 – from the PPP Center now pegs the total cost at Php189 billion, reflecting the Php20.1-billion adjustment in the cost of the Cavite-Laguna Expressway from Php35.4 billion to Php55.5 billion)
  • Php104 billion – total cost of the four projects that the Ayala family and Indonesia’s Salim group, as represented by Manny V. Pangilinan (MVP), have cornered so far under Aquino’s PPP program both as a consortium and as individual proponents (the amount is now Php124.1 billion, reflecting the adjustment in the cost of the Cavite-Laguna Expressway) 
  • Php49 billion – total cost of the five PPP projects under Aquino where Henry Sy is involved
  • Php15.9 billion – cost of the lone PPP contract cornered by presidential uncle Danding Cojuangco’s San Miguel Corp. (SMC) under Aquino’s PPP program
  • Php97 billion – total cost of the two PPP projects of SMC that started with previous administrations but finalized under Aquino

Additional information on these PPP projects here

  • Php57.2 billion – total amount allocated in the 2015 budget to guarantee the profits and other commercial interests of investors participating in Aquino’s PPP program (more details here)
  • Php902.3 billion – total reported contingent liabilities of the Aquino administration arising from state guarantees on commercial debts and subsidies associated with PPP projects (more details here)
  • US$35.6 billion or 237 percent – increase in the combined wealth of the ten richest Filipinos, most of whom are in the PPP business, in 2014 compared to their combined wealth in 2010, as listed by Forbes (more details here and here)
  • 12 – number of Filipinos who landed in Forbes’ 2015 list of billionaires in the world, up from just five billionaires in 2010 (more details here and here)
  • 6th – the global rank of the Philippines in The Economist’s 2014 Crony Capitalism Index, with the billionaires’ wealth in crony-sectors such as utilities and infrastructure comprising about 13 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP); in 2007, the country ranked 9th (more details here)
  • 11.4 million – number of families who consider themselves poor, according to the first quarter 2015 survey of the Social Weather Stations (SWS); in the second quarter 2010 or the start of the Aquino administration, it was pegged at 9.4 million (more details here and here)
  • 7 out of 10 – number of Filipinos who believe that poverty did not go down under the Aquino administration, according to the May 2015 survey of IBON Foundation; the same number of people also consider themselves poor (more details here and here)
  • Php129 – increase in the daily cost of living in the National Capital Region (NCR) between June 2010 and June 2015 as estimated by IBON (request additional details here)
  • Php77 – increase in the daily minimum wage of workers (including allowance) in NCR between June 2010 and June 2015 (more details here)
  • 44 percent – the portion of the estimated cost of living in NCR as of June 2015 that can be met by the current minimum wage in the region (request additional details here)
  • Php8 per kilo – increase in the retail price of regular-milled rice between July 2010 and July 2015; well-milled rice increased by Php7 during the same period (request additional details here)
  • Php10 to Php13 – largest increase in fares of LRT 1, LRT 2, and MRT 3 implemented by the Aquino administration starting in January 2015 (more details here)
  • 4 – number of service interruptions every month in MRT 3 in the first semester of 2015, twice the recorded number of monthly incidents in 2010; 193 total incidents of MRT 3 service interruptions from 2010 to June 2015 (more details here)
  • Php3.98 to Php12.65 per cubic meter – increase in water rates in Metro Manila between July 2010 and July 2015 (request additional details here)
  • 0.4 percent – share of the housing budget to the national budget in 2015, even lower than the 0.5 percent in the 2010 budget (more details here)
  • 70,000 – estimated number of urban poor dwellers in Metro Manila that have been displaced by demolitions under Aquino to give way to PPP and other projects, according to Kadamay (more details here)
  • 9 million – number of jobless adults as of first quarter 2015, according to the survey of SWS; in the second quarter of 2010 or the start of the Aquino administration, it was pegged at 8 million (more details here and here)
  • 44 percent – estimated portion of workers who are contractual, non-regular or agency-hired in 2012, up from 37 percent in 2008, based on Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) data compiled by IBON (request additional details here)
  • 1,024 – increase in number of OFWs leaving the country everyday between 2010 and 2014, based on data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) compiled by Migrante (more details here)
  • 7 – number of OFWs executed abroad under the Aquino administration, the highest among all administrations, according to Migrante (more details here)
  • 144 – estimated number of workers killed due to occupational accidents under the Aquino administration, based on BLES data compiled by IBON (request additional details here)
  • 1.2 million – number of farmers who are still under leasehold arrangements (cited here; request additional details here)
  • 9 out of 10 – number of farmers who are qualified beneficiaries of CARP but are still landless, according to IBON (cited here; request additional details here)
  • 8 out of 10 – number of CARP beneficiaries who have stopped paying amortization and could be at risk of losing their land, based on Land Bank data (cited here; request additional details here)
  • 145 – number of farmers killed by suspected state agents under Aquino as of first quarter 2015; 55 – indigenous people killed; 13 – urban poor killed, according to Karapatan (more details here)
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3 thoughts on “SONA 2015: Favoring the rich, oppressing the poor – Aquino legacy, by the numbers

  1. Pingback: Revisiting the legacy of Noynoy Aquino | A Radical's Nut

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