On IPRI 2025, power exchange, and the energy mix

On Oct. 15, the Property Rights Alliance (PRA, US) — a sister free-market think tank of the Tholos Foundation of which I am among the international fellows — released the International Property Rights Index (IPRI) 2025, holding its global launch in Brussels, Belgium at the EU Parliament. The report was authored by Dr. Sary Levy-Carciente, a Hernando de Soto Fellow, and edited by Lorenzo Montanari, Executive Director of the PRA.

- BIENVENIDO S. OPLAS, JR.

The IPRI is composed of three core components: Legal and Political Environment (LP), Physical Property Rights (PPR), and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). I included the results for 2025 and the results of the previous three years in the accompanying table. The Philippines is not faring well mainly due to our low score in LP, meaning the legal and institutional issues that cover the extent of corruption, among other factors. So far, we are at similar level as Vietnam. (See Table 1.)

The ongoing large-scale corruption scandal involving just the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and not including — yet — many other departments with their own skeletons in the closet, is adversely affecting the country’s investment environment, credibility of other reform programs especially in fiscal economics, and the public’s declining respect for both the Executive and Legislative branches.

CALAMITIES AND POWER EXCHANGE

There have been many strong storms then big earthquakes (especially in Cebu and Davao) this month alone. There is a need for energy independence of certain island-provinces in case the transmission lines and cables serving the Panay-Negros-Cebu, Leyte-Bohol sub-grids, and the Mindanao-Visayas grid, are damaged or destroyed.