It's not the usual credit card like Visa or Mastercard. It's World Bank's latest ribbon pinned in the breast of the country's economic performance. "The Philippines is joining the ranks of gold credit card holder", declares Joachim von Amsberg, World Bank's country representative.
And what prompted the World Bank to confer this distinction? Mr. von Amsberg attributes this to the country's fiscal outturns and government's commitment to achieve its consolidation on target. Basically this is the same consideration that credit rating agencies like Standard and Poor, Fitch and Moody's used in upgrading our standing from negative to stable. So what else is new?
This is the catch: With this good fiscal performance, World Bank will commit more loans to the already credit-saddled Philippines. Business Mirror, in today's (Nov. 10th) issue reports that a fresh loan is in the offing from World Bank to the tune of 250 M US Dollar. That's 12.29 B in Philippine pesos using today's exchange rate of Php 49.95 to the US dollar. The advantage of the said loan is that it is not a tied loan, not much conditionality except to provide for GOP counterpart - that is, the government can use the proceeds for any purposes it may deem and free of the usual compliance to certain policy reform or structural adjustment.
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