Quote Originally Posted by jhnkvn View Post
Do you think I'm not getting my facts straight? In fact, I'm drawing stats from the Central Bank's then external debt arm -- the MEDIAD or Management of External Debts and Investment Accounts Department and Financial Plan Data Centers, the World Bank, the IMF, ADB, and the CIA World Book, etc. to name the most drawn sources. I am an investor by profession. Drawing data is like.. my forte in arguing and validating a hypothesis.

The Philippines was not in an economic crisis yet in the 1970s. It started in the 1980 when short-term high interest borrowings dwindled our current account to service debts. Want a more detailed timeline?

Early 1970s were exceptionally great. We had a current account surplus of 5% GNP in 1973 as an example.

In 1974 to 1978, borrowings began escalating. Propelling this was the first oil shock to the country and then the government capital spending to spurn development.

By the end of 1970s, the Philippine debt/GNP ratio was high. But was not of alarming levels. It was comparable to that of Korea, of Indonesia, and below Latin America average. You can argue that commercial bank liabilities grew from $1b (1975) to $3.7b in 1980 but the fact remained that the central bank maintained foreign currency assets that are still large enough to maintain 4 months worth of imports.

It was on October 1983 when the central bank announced difficulty to meet debt obligations of $24.4b. A decade is certainly a far cry to the "early" economic crisis in the 1970s.

True, we did turn to the IMF in 1962 and 1970 to meet a balance of payments but really now.. it was Macapagal who was sitting in office on the first tranche. Marcos didn't assume his first term until 1965 and many historians deem his first term to be truly positive (1965 to 1969). Second, governments turn to the IMF for so many reasons and not just to meet debt obligations. When the IMF is offering lower-than-market loans, of course it's better to secure a credit rather than issue out government treasury bills. Again.. we'll go back to the infrastructure and development issue.
Read it again, from the get go, debt talaga ang nasaisip. Sabi mo impossible hindi mabayaran utang. Ayan na nga, hindi makabayad 2b utang kaya restructure.

The country refuse to fix economic problems di ba?