The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) refused calls to intervene in the foreign exchange market to help out exporters amidst plunging world trade.

Deputy BSP governor Diwa Gunigundo told reporters that the current drop in exports is due to the massive drop in demand from the country’s trading partners.

"How can we help exporters when it is the markets that are depressed," Guinigundo said. "Clearly we can't subsidize the US market so they would increase the importation of our products."

Electronics, which account for more than three-fourths of the country’s total exports have seen record lows in the past months as consumers in target markets, like the US, Europe, and Japan, drastically reduced purchases of high-end goods.

"We have been saying that trade was one of the major channels where the effects of the global slowdown would be transmitted to our economy," Guinigundo said. "The decline in exports looks even more precipitous because we were coming off a high level in 2007 and 2008."

He also added that it would not make sense for the government to set aside specific funds for specific industries when the market outlook is generally bleak across all industries.

A group of export manufacturers previously called for fund allocations from the government’s P330 billion stimulus package because their businesses, which fuels a host of other small and medium enterprises, and are major job generators, are dire strait.

But Gunigundo said the option of manipulating the exchange rate—meaning, keeping the dollar strong to make the exporters’ products cheaper and more competitive—would not benefit the economy as a whole.

He said keeping the peso week would distort the resource allocation, increase the cost of households that depend on imports, and increase the government’s foreign debt.

Taxpayers, he stressed, pay for our foreign debts, which account for about one-fifth of our annual budget.

"To me that is not a sustainable solution," he said.

The most that the government could do, according to Guinigundo, was to ensure that exports would have access to credit, including the credit surety program which would allow exporters to form cooperatives and borrow without collateral.