After the missteps in its very recent past, the country is enjoying a resurgent economy and a renaissance in decency, good governance, and great leadership under the administration of President Bongbong Marcos
From bad to good.
That’s the simple way of describing the state the country is now in. Like a “before and after” picture in plain economic and political terms.
From the dark days of the pandemic when the country was in a fog of political uncertainty and a dicey sense of health and well-being. A time a little way back when the economy was hemorrhaging with the nation’s coffers nearly being depleted with trillions of pesos in borrowings to buy billions worth of vaccines, personal protective equipment (PPEs), facemasks, faceshields that turned out to be useless, and other emergency measures.
From the recent past when the nation was in the doldrums of precariousness and a cloud of an impunity-like pallor hang over the entire nation when thousands died not only from a deadly disease but as a result of an overzealous and cult-like prosecution of executive commands, like the Talibanic-execution of the past police campaign against illegal drugs that only eradicated small-time shabu peddlers.
From a period when the nation’s leaders, instead of being exemplars of decency and deportment themselves, were tragic models of indecency and toxicity to the current renaissance of hope, goodwill, and a return to decency and good leadership.
Yes, in a span of three short years, the Philippines turned from being a poster child of economic and political backsliding to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world as well as a model of good governance run by a government that follows a legal and rules-based system.
Like the proverbial Phoenix, the country has risen from the gray ashes of the past six years to become an up-and-coming economic star in the Asia Pacific region.
The Philippine economy grew by a robust 6.3 percent in the second quarter. Even with a persistent inflation that still hovers at 4.4 percent the growth is faster than the 5.7 percent expansion in the first quarter and the 4.3 percent increse for the same period in 2023.
Skeptics may scoff at the macro expansion as premature gloating but they will be boondoggled by the fact that the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has managed to clip the nation’s intransigent poverty rate by a hefty 15.5 percent last year. This feat is made more remarkable by the fact that the cut is even lower than the poverty rate the country had before the onset of the pandemic in 2018.
Respected international economic watchdogs such as Moody’s Analytics, the DBS Bank Angsana Council and Bain & Company have praised the country’s economic resurgence.
DBS and Bain & Company predicted a 6.1 percent annual growth rate for the Philippines. Moody’s said that the favorable outcome was generated by base effects, growth in exports, and robust government spending.
The country is indeed reemerging from the recent years of uncertainty and is well on its way to become an upper middle income economy by 2025 as well as a moderately prosperous nation by 2040 as envisioned by President Bongbong Marcos.
Last month, after Japan’s Rating and Investment Information, Inc. gave the Philippines its highest credit rating to date, President Marcos announced that the country’s “cycle of poverty can be broken;” apparently with good planning, great leadership, and sustained growth.
“Bagama’t ito ang kauna-unahang credit rating upgrade ng aking administration, hindi po tayo hihinto rito. We will keep giving our best to make sure that every Filipino benefits from our economic growth until we break the cycle of poverty,” the President said.
The Department of Finance (DOF) revealed last month that “lifting millions of Filipinos from poverty is doable by 2028.”
“Mga eight million ang kailangan natin, eight million alisin (from poverty) by 2028. Doable naman iyon,” DOF Undersecretary Domini Velasquez said in a media briefing.
“We are on track actually to bring down the poverty rate to a single digit by the end of the President’s term,” said Velasquez, the chief economist of the Finance department.
The country’s economic expansion started to steadily climb from 2000 to 2009 when the economy grew by an average of four percent. This growth jumped to 6.4 percent during the administration of President Benigno C. Aquino III. The sustained growth only went down during the administration of President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
This year the Philippines is forecast to have the second fastest expansion in Southeast Asia, overtaking Indonesia (5.7 percent), Malaysia (4.5 percent), Thailand (2.8 percent), and Singapore (2.5 percent).
With its resurgence in the economic front, the country is also enjoying a kind of rejuvenation in the area of governance and leadership.
After being universally excoriated in the recent past by what foreign observers said was a wanton disregard for human rights in the previous administration’s anti-illegal drugs campaign as well as an unseemly tolerance of China’s encroachment in the West Philippine Sea, the Philippines has regained its place as a nation that respects human rights and a rules-based international order.
And knowing that the country’s economic growth is often sidelined by administrative inconsistencies and policies that often get reversed by subsequent administrations as well as political partisanship, President Bongbong Marcos have called on the nation’s leaders to be united, saying that all Filipinos stand to gain in his plan to bring the country to a higher middle income nation.
This explains President Marcos’ Bagong Pilipinas program, a battlecry for unity and of coming together to help the country move forward and sustain its economic growth.
The President’s call rings true especially among the country’s political class because the country has a tendency of being pulled down by too much partisanship and wrangling among its political leaders.
Early last month, President Marcos called on all political leaders to work together in uniting the nation and improving the lives of all Filipinos, instead of sowing discord and division. “Unity is the key for us to move forward,” President Marcos declared.
“If we are spending our time, our resources and energies with opposing one another for political means, then we have little time, resources, and energy left for transforming our country into a better place; to transform the lives of our people,” the President said during the forging of an alliance between his Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) and the Nacionalista Party (NP) making the administration coalition the largest political bloc in the country.
He called on all political leaders to continue working for the dream and aspiration of turning the Philippines into a better country for all Filipinos.
“And to say that… when we leave office, that we leave (with) the Philippines as a better country and we leave the Filipinos in a better condition than we found them when we first came into office,” the President said as he enjoined all leaders of all stripes and persuasions to join him in sustaining the nation’s progress instead of sowing discord and division among each other.
