ONE of the biggest questions surrounding any newly elected president is who he will select to fill key roles in his administration, and the most critical of these is the several positions that comprise the government’s economic team.

Until this week, the mood of markets, potential investors and the public at large has been, objectively speaking, apprehensive on this score. During his campaign, President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had expressed his policy aims in only general terms, and once elected, took a longer time than is typical to begin naming people to his team.

However, Marcos has addressed those apprehensions in a comprehensively positive way with the nominations of Dr. Arsenio Balisacan as director-general of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), Dr. Benjamin Diokno, current governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), as Finance secretary, and Dr. Alfredo Pascual as Trade secretary.

Dr. Balisacan is returning to the post he held under the late

President Benigno Aquino 3rd, moving over from the Philippine

Competition Commission which he has headed since its inception.

As economic growth during the

Aquino term was some of the highest in the country’s modern history, his appointment bodes well for the economy’s recovery from the doldrums of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr. Diokno steps into the Department of Finance after having served as President Duterte’s first secretary of the Department of

Budget and Management (DBM) and then as head of the BSP, where he has done an admirable job. Diokno’s appointment is a welcome sign of continuity, even more so than Balisacan’s; he has for the past six years had a close working relationship with the DoF under

Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd, and has said that he will seek to retain most of the current assistant and undersecretaries, as well as National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon.

Dr. Pascual is in some ways the most formidable of the three in terms of the breadth of his experience, which will elevate the importance and effectiveness of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in economic policymaking. Dr. Pascual is perhaps best known for his position as president of the University of the Philippines from 2011 to 2017, where his biggest accomplishment was to broaden the university’s research activities. In addition to that, he also has extensive experience in both investment and development banking, having worked in the private sector and for a number of years at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Dr. Pascual is also the current president of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).

With these three appointments, the only remaining spot to fill on the economic team’s roster is that of secretary of budget and management, but with these three experienced and highly qualified appointees now available to advise that selection process, we are confident the eventual choice will be equally promising.

Unfortunately, these gentlemen will have no time to ease into their respective roles, given the economic challenges faced by the country. Although the economy is not in a state of crisis, the comfortable margin that existed at the beginning of President Duterte’s term in office has all but vanished. The new team will have the difficult task of simultaneously strengthening government revenues while finding ways to reduce economic stress on households and small businesses, two objectives that are often divergent. At the same time, the economic team will be tasked with facilitating growth engines through trade and development. While the economic direction of the Duterte administration may provide some foundations to build on, the current state of the economy strongly suggests that merely continuing them will not be enough, and that many new ideas will have to be implemented.

Still, we believe that if anyone is capable of successfully meeting the challenges, this group can, and that sentiment seems to be shared by the business sector. The results will of course be the final judgment, but we welcome the new appointees, and look forward to those results with optimism rather than uncertainty.

“The new economic team will have the difficult task of simultaneously strengthening government revenues while finding ways to reduce economic stress on households and small businesses, two objectives that are often divergent.