Manila, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles) – The Aquino government blasted a recent article in Forbes magazine claiming that the Philippines’ economic boom is a bubble waiting to burst.

The article was authored by economic analyst Jesse Colombo who writes that the Philippines’ economic progress and status as an emerging market  —  often touted by President Aquino in his state of the nation address and speeches abroad — is deceiving. Colombo points to the continued disparity between the few rich people and the rest of the population and that investors’ insatiable hunger for emerging market debt has caused the Philippines’ external debt to spike in recent years.

Specifically, Aquino’s Budget Secretary Florencio Abad challenged the claim by Colombo that the Philippine government has been running a budget deficit since 1999, which includes the last 5 years of the Aquino administration.

Pointing to the graph showing the deficit years, Abad said Forbes magazine seems to have inverted the graph, and that the bars showing the deficit should be pointing upwards instead of downwards.  He said this is how the graph should look like:

It appears that Abad failed to  recognize the source of the graphic — the Aquino administration’s own Department of Finance.