Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin Diokno said Friday economic and business activities started to pick up in the third quarter following the easing of quarantine restrictions implemented by the government to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Diokno made the statement in reaction to the latest Social Weather Stations survey showing 40 percent of Filipinos believed the economy would worsen in the next 12 months.
“The SWS survey is based on perception of 2,000 adults. I cannot imagine how the economy will be worse off 12 months from now, coming from a record-breaking contraction in the second quarter of 2020, owing to the total lockdown in March, April and May,” Diokno said in a message to reporters.
He said the government gradually opened the economy in the third quarter, allowing some business activities to resume and more public transportation to operate.
“I expect that the economy will be more open in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter, more open in the first quarter of 2021 than in the fourth quarter of 2020, and so on. So it boggles my mind how the economy will be worse 12 months from now,” he said.
Diokno said the virus infection rate had started to flatten, with virus reproduction now below 1 and the government shifted from general lockdown to granular or localized lockdowns.
“We are in better shape now than we were three months ago. Based on available information, I truly believe that [the] worst is behind us,” Diokno said.
He said the survey was based on perception by a limited number of adults “with limited information.”
“Let me assure everyone that based on immediate past, nowcast and forecast data, the Philippines is now on its way to recovery. Hence, the economy would be in a better—not worse—shape 12 months from now,” Diokno said.
The pandemic triggered a 16.5-percent gross domestic product contraction in the second quarter following a 0.7-percent decline in the first quarter. This brought the first-half GDP performance to a decline of 9 percent, which meant the country entered a technical recession.
Economic managers predicted a 5.5-percent contraction for the whole year, deeper than their earlier projection of a 2-percent to 3.4-percent contraction for 2020.