The Philippines is at risk of falling further behind its Asian neighbors in the region’s accelerating industrial boom unless education reforms and industrial policy move forward together, the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) warned Tuesday.
FPI chairperson Elizabeth Lee said in a statement Education Secretary Sonny Angara’s reform agenda and the administration’s Tatak Pinoy industrial strategy should “move in lockstep” to rebuild national competitiveness.
“Education and industry are mutually reinforcing engines of growth,” Lee said.
“Tatak Pinoy provides the blueprint for upgrading Philippine industries. Angara’s reforms ensure we have the skilled workforce to power that transformation. Without both, we cannot close the widening gap with Asia,” she said.
The group noted that industrialization continues to drive rapid economic gains across the region. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) attracted a record $230 billion in foreign direct investments in 2023, according to the ASEAN Secretariat and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), buoyed by strong manufacturing hubs in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
By contrast, the Philippines’ economy remains anchored on services, which expanded 6.3 percent in the first quarter of 2025, largely on retail and repair activities. These sectors generate steady but limited wage and innovation gains.
“Services provide stability, but industry delivers prosperity. That’s the leap our neighbors have made, and it’s the leap we have to take,” Lee said.
She said Angara’s education reform program focuses on upgrading teacher training, modernizing curricula and expanding technical-vocational pathways to better align learning with industry needs. These measures seek to temper the chronic shortage of industry-ready talent, a key barrier to scaling up manufacturing and innovation, she said.
Tatak Pinoy, formally enacted as Republic Act 11981, serves as the country’s long-term blueprint to upgrade manufacturing capabilities and strengthen innovation across value chains.
“Tatak Pinoy tells us what we need to become. Education reforms ensure we have the skilled people who can actually build it,” Lee said.
