TRADE Secretary Alfredo Pascual boasted a few weeks ago that $19 billion worth of investments pledged during the 24 foreign trips of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. have already been actualized or have commenced implementation 'as of June' this year.

That is a lie. Even if one assumes that Marcos' or his wife's sheer charm or eloquence convinced some foreign companies to invest in the Philippines, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data show that actual direct investment inflows into the country (excluding reinvestment of earnings, which aren't inflows) in the first 21 months of Marcos' rule totaled only $3.3 billion, or a sixth of Pascual's figure of $19 billion.