Write-off

Rarely are years written off even before they began.

- ALEX MAGNO

2026 is in peril of becoming such year for our economy.

In the third quarter of this year, Philippine GDP grew by only four percent. The running estimates in business circles is that our growth further slowed to only three percent in the fourth quarter. We are definitely missing the government target of at least 6.5 percent growth for the year.

Our multilateral partners, the World Bank and the ADB, have dutifully reflected the slowdown in our growth. They have lowered their growth estimates for this year and the next.

Foreign direct investments in our economy have fallen off dramatically. Many of our own companies are shelving expansion plans until they get a better sense of how the country will fare. The mood in the boardrooms is gloomy.

Our main revenue agencies - the BIR and the Bureau of Customs - are both missing their targets. That raises the possibility that our chronic budget deficit could run out of control, setting the stage for a credit downgrade that will harm us all.

We have managed to tame our inflation rate. But this does not mean that prices are going down. It means that prices will still be rising but at a slower clip. The long period of elevated inflation, especially of food prices, took its toll on the purchasing power of our wages.

Our peso and our stock market have been among the worst performing in the world. They are symptoms of strategic weaknesses in our economy that remain unaddressed. We have a government that is trying to subsist on crafty public relations rather than on substantive economic reform.