The Philippine economy remains sluggish as the Marcos administration approaches the end of its second year, a think tank suggested on Tuesday.
Policy group IBON Foundation in its Midyear Birdtalk argued the current administration fails to fulfill the standard set for itself in fixing the said problem.
“We’re not only sliding backwards, but this administration is trying to convince us otherwise. It’s using a lot of hyperbole,” IBON Foundation executive director Sonny Africa said.
He noted that despite the Philippines having the second-highest gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in Southeast Asia for this quarter, it is also one of the slowest in the region.
“Our GDP as of last year was the slowest in 12 years. We are exactly right where we were before the lockdowns and the pandemic,” Africa said.
The group revealed the Philippines is 150th among 200 countries in the world to attain middle-income status, something that the administration aims to achieve.
Moreover, the country ranks 4th in inflation and second-highest in unemployment among Southeast Asian countries, the same report cited. Slow exports and weakening foreign investments also mar the economy today.
Focusing on spending, households and government expenditures are slowing down in their respective rates. Wealth between the rich and poor is also seen with stark contrast as 66 percent of Filipino families are earning P26,000 and below.
IBON Foundation suggested the President is not entirely at fault as the current economic systems have set these consequences already in place.
What drives now the nation’s monetary performance is overseas Filipino worker (OFW) remittances that covered the losses in other aspects.
The group now asks the government to focus on domestic measures to boost the economic performance and alleviate its problems. This includes increasing living wages among workers, investing on areas such as education, and expanding assistance programs.
On top of this, they would also like to see a long-term, strategic national industrialization policy that would help ramp up critical sectors in the economy such as manufacturing. With Rolando Ng III
