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Philippines' Arroyo Pledges Campaign Against `Speculators' as Peso Slides

``I raise a renewed warning against currency speculators, as well as hoarders and profiteers,'' she said in a statement on her Web site without elaborating. ``Our economy is sound and strong, there is absolutely no sense in extreme scenarios.''

The peso yesterday fell to 56.20 to the U.S. dollar, its lowest close on record. It traded at 56.175 at 11:08 a.m. in Manila, according to the Bankers Association of the Philippines.

The peso has fallen 1.14 percent since the start of the year on concerns that movie actor Fernando Poe Jr., who has no political experience or platform, will win presidential elections in May. Moody's Investors Service last week cut its rating of the country's debt by one level to Ba2, two levels below investment grade, citing political risks stemming from the election and the government's rising debt.

Standard and Poor's and Fitch Ratings last year cut their ratings to the same level.

Poe had the support of 36 percent compared with 27 percent for Arroyo in Social Weather Stations' Jan. 16 to 22 survey.

The central bank yesterday said it has doubled the staff monitoring banks' foreign currency transactions and last week said it may raise key interest rates for the first time in three years to stem the peso's slide.



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