Steep fall to 10-year low makes peso a loser among regional buddies

As it slid to over 10-year lows in the past two weeks, the peso was the lone currency among emerging markets in the region that has weakened against the US dollar during the first two months, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data showed.

A market analyst believes the peso was weighed down by a slew of factors, including uncertainties in the leadership at the BSP and the rise in human rights violations.

“Add to these the market expectation that larger fiscal deficit spending would widen the trade deficit and possibly bring the current account to a deficit, [underpinning] the strong demand for US dollars …,” said ING Bank Manila senior economist Joey Cuyegkeng.

During the Jan. 3-Feb. 27 period, the peso depreciated 1.09 percent against the US dollar, Rosabel B. Guerrero, director at the BSP’s department of economic statistics, said in an e-mail last week.

Other currencies appreciated against the greenback in the same period: the Indonesian rupiah gained 0.96 percent, the Chinese yuan rose 1.04 percent, the Malaysian ringgit strengthened 1.06 percent. So too did the Thai baht, Singaporean dollar, Japanese yen and South Korean won, Guerrero said.

Last Feb. 17, the peso breached the 50:$1 level for the first time since Nov. 16, 2006. —BEN O. DE VERA