Cesar Purisima named Asia’s top finance exec anew

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima. AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines’ Finance chief Cesar V. Purisima received his fifth “finance minister of the year” citation, beating his Asian counterparts for the award handed out by FinanceAsia.

In a statement Wednesday, the Department of Finance (DOF) said Purisima was recognized by the online financial publisher for “his leadership in driving the turnaround story of the Philippines” as head of President Aquino’s team of economic managers.

The Philippine official edged out the finance ministers of Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan for the award.

Since assuming the post in 2010, Purisima has an equivalent number of awards for each year in service, the DOF noted. Purisima was hailed finance minister of the year for Asia by Emerging Markets in 2011; was Euromoney’s finance minister of the year in 2012; and a repeat awardee of Emerging Markets as well as The Banker’s finance minister of the year for Asia-Pacific in 2013.

“Purisima was lauded for steering the economy away from stagnation and towards broad-based growth, resulting in the Philippines reaching investment grade status from major credit rating agencies. Last quarter’s 6.9-percent GDP [gross domestic product] growth exceeded expectations and marked 12 straight quarters of above 5-percent GDP growth, comfortably putting the average quarterly growth rate under the Aquino administration at 6.02 percent,” according to the DOF.

“The award truly belongs to President Aquino and my colleagues in the Philippine Cabinet because the economic growth and fiscal reforms are truly a team effort, proving that ‘good governance is good economics,” said Purisima during the awards ceremony last Feb. 4. “We have proven yet again that the Philippine miracle is not a one-hit wonder. We’re here to stay, and we are ready to play big in the world stage.”

He said that, during the past four year of the Aquino administration, “the Philippines has achieved what we set out to do: We grew at a 6-percent average and cut the deficit to an all-time low.”

He also pointed out that “stocks are up 125 percent since we took office and foreign direct investments rose 64 percent from January to October 2014 alone.”

According to the DOF, FinanceAsia also cited Purisima for pushing sin tax reform, which reportedly helped in increasing the 2014 budget for healthcare by 57 percent, compared with the previous year, as a result of the largest excise tax collection in 13 years.

“Reforms beget rewards. This award strengthens our resolve to double down on reforms: Rationalize fiscal incentives, modernize our revenue generating agencies, and engineer a competitive and equitable tax structure for all Filipinos,” said Purisima.