It was appropriate given the lack of progress on inflation and clearly signals the FOMC’s commitment to get inflation under control as soon as possible. The response of financial markets to the FOMC’s policy actions and communications indicate to me that the Committee retains the credibility and the public confidence that is needed to make monetary policy effective.
Our theme for today, “OFWs: Bagong Bayani, Ilan Ba Talaga Kayo?”, suggests that we are not yet certain exactly how many are our OFWs, and more generally, how many Filipinos are overseas. Accuracy in this aspect may really be a challenge because what we want to monitor are people who are always on the move. At present, there are various agencies producing OFW-related statistics.