President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made an “embarrassingly false” statement when he claimed that the Philippines has one of the best performing economies in Asia as part of a “VIP Club,” former Cabinet Secretary Rigoberto Tiglao Jr. said.
Fresh from his trip to Switzerland, Marcos said in a statement that his attendance to the World Economic Forum (WEF) solidified the Philippines’ status as a member of the “VIP Club.”
‘Yung VIP Club ay Vietnam, Indonesia, and Philippines,” said Marcos in a statement. “‘Yun daw ang pinakamagandang ekonomiya sa Asya.”
However, in his January 25 column for the Manila Times, Tiglao said the “VIP Club” is an acronym that stands for Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.
“VIP is simply an acronym that some analysts in the last decade used to shorten their text when referring to the three countries that are in the second-to-the lowest tier in economic rankings in Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines,” he explained.
“The lowest-tier level are basket cases not fit to be considered as investment sites, except for the bold, such as Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Using VIP was also a bit of sarcasm since these three countries were the last to be recommended for investments, direct or portfolio, in those years,” Tiglao added.
The former Cabinet secretary said the “VIP” acronym is no different from the ABC used in the 1980s “to mean Argentina, Brazil and Chile — which were the first to collapse economically because of their huge debt burden.”
“Comparing us to Indonesia and Vietnam, we may be fucked, until we get a better, more intelligent president who thinks out of the box, and acts with intense urgency,” Tiglao said.
