All in all, it hasn’t been a bad December for the country, notwithstanding the shocking “lucky punch” loss of Manny Pacquiao to Juan Manuel Marquez early this month.

For one, Nonito Donaire made up for that downer shortly thereafter by demolishing his opponent Jorge Arce, a Mexican like Marquez. Then, a beautiful surprise came when Janine
Tugonon almost made it as the country’s third Miss Universe. The lovely lass ended up as the first runner up and she may have been the victim of a hometown decision considering that the eventual winner was Miss USA and the beauty pageant was held in Las Vegas.

In truth, the Philippines has never been lacking in heroes. We’ve always had outstanding individuals who have done us proud as a people, be it in sports, business, the academe, and the religious sector, among others. We should not forget the country’s newest prince of the church, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who comes across as a most personable and likeable leader of the flock.

But while we have countless Filipinos who bring joy to our lives, we should never forget that a most important part of our collective existence is our economy.

We are one people, and are part of a country that has the rest of the world sitting up and taking notice.

This brings us to the third piece of good news we’ve had this last month of the year.

We rise or fall depending on the state of our economy, and as the year ends the Philippine economy is literally going great guns. As proof, global rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services this week upgraded its outlook for the country.

From stable, the country now has a positive ranking, according to S&P. The upgrade affirms the Philippines’ BB+ long term and B short-term sovereign credit ratings.

The Republic of the Philippines’ improved score was the result of S&P’s “reappraisal of the political and institutional factors underlying the ratings,” according to S&P credit analyst Agost Bernard. In simplest terms, the government is doing a lot of good things that make the country more attractive to both foreign and local investors. It is really the former whose decisions are swayed by the ratings given to any country by the likes of S&P. Local investors will always be around, but it is the foreign investors who can provide substantially bigger funds.

The quality of the investors is also dependent on a country’s investment climate. Any nation can bring in investors with hot money (money invested in the stock market), which can be pulled out at a moment’s notice with the first signs of instability.
 
Reason to celebrate
A positive rating given by S&P, on the other hand, usually entices institutional investors—from high value individuals to multinational companies—to bring in their funds for the long haul. They can become eager to put in money in infrastructure, tourism, property development and the like.

The one good thing about a positive grade from a credible body like S&P is that the handful of other global ratings firms are very likely to give the Philippines similarly high scores. Their methodologies might be different, but they all look at the basics of a nation’s economy. In this area, the Philippines is undoubtedly stronger now since the onset of the administration of President Benigno Aquino 3rd.

It is not only S&P that has effectively given the thumbs up to the government’s handling of the economy. Two Philippine-based think tanks which co-publish The Market Call could not help but take note of the country’s impressive gross domestic product in the third quarter of this year, which hit a surprising 7.1 percent.

With all the positive news on the economic front coming our way, there is reason to believe that 2013 will be even better. Election spending by the candidates could conceivably boost the spending power of a large number of Filipinos. The down side to this, however, is that excessive spending could have an inflationary effect. Unless curbed or controlled, the short-term gains from the free flow of cash in the months leading to the midterm polls may be undone by the mid-term loss of spending power of consumers.

With their improved outlook for the Philippines, S&P and The Market Call are telling one and all that this country will continue to move forward, unless something totally unexpected takes place.

But from where we sit, it looks like it’s going to be smooth sailing ahead for our country for the short- to medium-term.