Floods and money

Two apparently unrelated events:

- TONY LOPEZ

Two apparently unrelated events: 1. The Philippines is No. 1 in the world in terms of being prone to natural disasters, by a wide margin, over No. 2 India and No. 3 Indonesia.

“Global risk drivers include social inequality, structural vulnerability and weak health systems. These reduce adaptability and resilience — even in wealthy countries, for example, through austerity measures in key societal sectors,” reports the WorldRisk 2025.

The No. 1 natural disaster is flooding. Floods are 44 percent of all natural disasters.

2, The Philippine economy is also facing a disaster of a different kind ~ the deepest quarterly growth slump in three years; some say in 11 years, excluding COVID years.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the value of goods and services produced in a given period, grew by just four percent in the third quarter, July-September 2025, below the 4.3 percent GDP rate in the second quarter (April-June) of 2022, just before Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. took office. And the worst is still to come. Or maybe not, if the President executes some creative countermeasures.

Two factors are blamed for the steep drop in economic growth. Flood control corruption. Consumers are in no mood to spend, disturbing given that the “ber” shopping season is upon us.

The economy is powered by consumption, not production. We don’t manufacture anything significant — except ghost projects (with tons of falsified documents) and 1.8 million babies a year, many of whom grow up to age 15 without knowing how to read, how to write and how to count beyond 20.

In third quarter 2025, growth in government spending, or consumption fell to 5.8 percent, from 18.7 percent in first quarter 2025, the height of the election campaign. Still, the 5.8 percent growth is double the measly 2.6 percent growth in first quarter 2024, and far better than the negative 1.3 percent in Q4 of 2023.