Many were left scratching their heads after Sandro Marcos, the son of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Ilocos Norte’s first district representative, was asked by local media in his province to weigh in on the consequences of a weakening peso against the U.S. dollar.
ICYMI, the peso has been continuously falling to new all-time lows due to ballooning inflation rates, and is currently trading at around PHP58.93 to one dollar.
When asked about the matter, Sandro, a Development Studies graduate from the London School of Economics, gave an answer that caused some to question his econ credentials
“The peso is not weak, because the peso is weak. The peso is weak because the dollar is strong,” he said in a video that has been making the rounds online.
The seemingly specious logic spawned several memes making fun of the presidential son’s statement.
Political comic artist Tarantadong Kalbo was quick to satirize the now-viral comment.
T o n g u e T w i s t e r s 😛 pic.twitter.com/2kwFRBFDSf
— Tarantadong Kalbo (@KevinKalbo) October 11, 2022
Even teen singer Elha Nympha weighed in on the matter with a play on Sandro’s statement.
One netizen joked that he would use Sandro’s analogy at work:
“I would like to make one thing clear…my work is not late because my work is late. My work is late because the deadline you gave is early,” he said.
Sandro Marcos quote on the peso vs dollar is now a meme. https://t.co/sAiBHzMsae pic.twitter.com/KSO1rtlKdv
— Noemi L. Dado (@momblogger) October 11, 2022
But was Sandro’s comment really as silly as some are making it out to be? To be fair, after the viral soundbite the neophyte politician went on to explain that investors tend to buy more dollars in times of global crises, raising demand and thus its value. He argued that the peso was performing better against other currencies, proving that it was not as weak as others thought.
Economist JC Punongbayan contended that Sandro’s commentary about the strong performance of the dollar was technically correct… it just wasn’t the whole story.
Punongbayan explained that the US dollar was strong particularly because the US Federal Reserve raised policy interest rates to curb high inflation — context that the economist argued Sandro left out in his explanation.
He also had issues with Sandro’s conclusion that the Philippines should simply “sit back and hold tight,” and that the weak peso was fine due to the increased value of remittances from overseas Filipinos. Punongbayan argued that the high remittances were countered by the Philippines’ high inflation rate, which has led to the rise of prices in basic commodities.
He added that since Sandro’s father is also the sitting agriculture secretary, the latter should work to ensure consistent crop production and allow for more importation to relieve commodity shortages.
Public budget analyst Budget Babe also said Sandro’s explanation could have been made simpler, since he wasn’t the first to point it out.
“‘The peso is weak because the dollar is strong. The dollar is strong because the Fed raised interest rates to abate US inflation.’ Couldn’t the explanation be made as simple as this? Global news covered US inflation and rate hikes for months. It just needed repeating,” she wrote.
