PHILIPPINES
Analyst
Diwa Guinigundo
Former Central Bank Deputy GovernorDatabanks
Recent Country Insights
Political noise and its more serious impact
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 29 Nov 2024
It started with unity, and it might as well end up in one single stroke to rock the Philippine economy. The political situation in the Philippines seems to be getting more explosive from an economic standpoint. Indeed, the unity team of President Bongbong Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte wa...
Trump win: Philippines' gain or loss?
PHILIPPINES · Report · 25 Nov 2024
On November 5, 2024, the United States held its 60th quadrennial presidential election, with Donald Trump emerging as the 47th US president by a decisive majority. Trump, together with his vice president, JD Vance, are scheduled to be inaugurated on January 20, 2025. With a change in the ruling p...
The War on Drugs: Did Duterte testify against himself?
PHILIPPINES · Report · 04 Nov 2024
As a cornerstone of his presidential campaign, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, in his inaugural address on June 30, 2016, vowed to exert relentless and sustained efforts in the campaign against drugs and criminality. This appeared to be his priority as he delegated the formulation o...
Challenges in going digital while future-proofing banknotes
PHILIPPINES · Report · 28 Oct 2024
Working for greater digitalization, the BSP initiated the formulation and implementation of key policies and regulations, including the creation of the National Payment Retail System as well as the establishment of automated clearing houses (ACH), namely, InstaPay and PESONET, electronic fund tra...
Another weather devastation hits Manila
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 26 Oct 2024
Despite the government of President Bongbong Marcos spending about half a trillion pesos for flood control projects in just over two years, and there are about 5,000 of them, nothing seems to have come out of such massive public spending. Those projects were nothing to tropical storm Kristine, wi...
As fiscal space compresses, borrowings bloat
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 17 Oct 2024
It’s not surprising that the Philippine National Government (NG) should further increase its borrowings both from the local and external capital markets. With revenue collections amounting to P2.993 trillion for the first eight months of 2024, equivalent to 17.1% of GDP, and expenditures totaling...
More opposition to diversion of P89.9 billion to PhilHealth
PHILIPPINES · In Brief · 30 Sep 2024
A couple of days ago, former high-ranking officials including former cabinet secretaries joined the broadening section of Philippine society by issuing a statement opposing the diversion of P89.9 billion of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) funds to the National Treasury to...
POGO Operations in the Philippines: A case of violating Philippine laws
PHILIPPINES · Report · 20 Sep 2024
For the past several months, Filipinos have been closely monitoring what is now considered as an extraordinary case involving a Chinese national who seemed to have succeeded in securing Filipino citizenship, conducting business in the northern province of Tarlac and managing to win an elective po...
Some issues in the labor market
PHILIPPINES · Report · 09 Sep 2024
Some economists and market watchers have raised the issue that when inflation rate was 4.4% in July 2024 in the Philippines, unemployment rate was 3.1%. However, when inflation rate decelerated to 3.3% in August 2024, unemployment rate was reported to have swelled to 4.7%. This is not exactly inc...