Philippine central bank Governor Nestor Espenilla said he is recovering from early stage tongue cancer diagnosed in November last year, assuring that it will not distract him from work.
“My doctors say that I’m now cancer-free,” Espenilla, 59, said in a mobile-phone message to reporters from Jerusalem, where he is on a pilgrimage with his wife and friends.
The governor said he had surgery soon after finding out about the cancer, which he described as “very early stage and quite localized.”
Espenilla said that “for insurance” he also went through radiation therapy, which caused speaking difficulties due to dry throat and mouth sores.
These problems will be resolved in time and doctors expect full recovery in a month or so, he said.
“So I don’t expect this curve ball to slow me down,” said the governor, who is seven months into the job.
“I just have to hang on and be patient. Meanwhile, it’s work as usual for me. Onward with the financial market reforms,” he said.
Before revealing his health condition, Espenilla devoted one-thirds of his written comments to assuring that the central bank’s decision to cut the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) amid rising prices would not fuel more inflation.
He told foreign-exchange speculators that the monetary authority is selling US dollars from its reserves.
“That in itself also has the effect of draining peso liquidity from the system, which causes a self-correction,” he said. “Analyst fears of ensuing looser monetary policy that can fuel more inflation is really unfounded.”
The Philippine peso, which has fallen 3.8 percent, is the second-worst performing emerging-market currency this year after the Argentine peso.
On Monday last week, the Philippine peso fell the most in three weeks after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced a cut in lenders’ RRR from 20 to 19 percent.
While the move effective next month is to free up 90 billion pesos (US$1.7 billion) from banks’ vaults, Espenilla said this is not monetary easing.
Espenilla, who last week said that an interest-rate hike remains on the table amid the fastest inflation last month since 2014, said the central bank can also use the term deposit rates to signal monetary policy stance.
“If BSP wants to change the monetary policy stance, BSP will signal that overtly, by changing the policy rate [reverse repurchase rate or RRP],” Espenilla wrote.
“But it can also do that more subtly without necessarily changing the RRP rate, by allowing the market-determined TDF rates to rise [or fall] by altering auction volumes,” he added.
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