The celebrations are over. But president Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo's task goes well beyond tidying up after the party
celebrating her rise to the top seven months ago. She also has to
clean up the mess left behind by her predecessor, Joseph Erap
Estrada. The immensity of the task has slapped Arroyo squarely in
the face. In between knocking back $3,000 bottles of red wine and
holding cabinet meetings while chatting to friends and business
associates, Estrada very nearly succeeded in bringing about the
collapse of the Philippine infrastructure. And now, as Joel
Consing, HSBC's Philippines head of investment banking, puts it:
"It's going to be very difficult to get us out of the hole that he
dug us into."
The news that comes out of the Philippines is a public relations
nightmare for the relatively new administration. Foreign investors
are very jittery. Among other things they...
