Joey's magic

Close your eyes, suspend your disbelief, count to 10 and open your eyes to Joey Salceda's magic show featuring a highly successful BBM photo-op with Donald Trump at the White House.

- BOO CHANCO

"Don't look at the 19 percent," Salceda urges us. "Effective tariffs on Phl exports were just at 6.65 percent, thanks to exemptions negotiated prior to the PBBM visit. After PBBM visit, effective rate was reduced further to just 6.3 percent despite having little room for downward adjustment."

That's not all, Joey says. "The one-percentage-point reduction seems more like a goodwill gesture for our continuing talks on Phl-US FTA."

"In other words, there wasn't much to reduce, so PBBM discussions had to go beyond trade."

Salceda is probably right. The numbers he crunched may be a more accurate way of viewing the headline 19 percent tariff.

Salceda claims before BBM arrived in DC, "we got 20 percent on 31 percent of exports, instead of 20 percent on 100 percent of exports early on. It's a 69-percentage point reduction in covered trade value...bringing the weighted average tariff rate down to 6.6 percent from the 20 percent."

But how come the government negotiators are not talking about it this way? Only Joey, the kibitzer, is. Instead, we get this from the Trade Secretary, one of the two lead negotiators.

"For now, since it was already announced by President Trump, then it's final. But of course, we're really hoping we can bring it down," Trade Secretary Cristina Roque told reporters.

Roque said the US was asking for zero tariff for all American goods entering the Philippines. While the Philippines is hoping to still reduce the 19 percent tariff, Roque said the government could no longer offer anything to the US.