The President on Friday acknowledged that corruption issues have affected economic growth after the government became cautious in releasing infrastructure funds particularly with regards to flood control projects.
PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. said his administration intends to increase public spending on infrastructure for the remainder of 2026, in an effort to boost GDP growth rate.
PHOTOGRAPH courtesy of PCO
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is making assurance that public spending will accelerate in the remaining two quarters of the year, even as he acknowledged that public spending on infrastructure projects is lagging by seven percent because of delays in bidding out some projects due to irregularities in flood control infrastructure projects.
President Marcos in a luncheon with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines on Friday, said, “Growth rate is heavily dependent on public spending. That has been delayed. Usually, when the NEP (National Expenditure Program) is issued, the contracts that are contained within the NEP are already bid out so that when January 1st comes, the projects can proceed. It’s a way of saving time and making sure that projects proceed immediately.”
He said what happened in the 2026 NEP was that, after close examination, most of the projects and contracts were not bid out.
Seven percent shortfall
“They were bid out towards the first quarter of this year. That’s why we have delayed public spending. But we have done many measures to accelerate the rate. And as of the second quarter of this year, we are only at a shortfall of 7 percent year-on-year. We will increase the activity for the rest of the year so that GDP growth rate will show an increase,” the President said.
Earlier, the Department of Economy, Planning and Development (DEPDev) said the Marcos administration targets to complete nine infrastructure flagship projects totaling P215.95 billion by the end of 2026.
One of these projects, based on DEPDev data, is the P51.72-billion-worth Malampaya Phase 4 Project and Drilling of Bagong Pag-asa, a project of the Department of Energy.
Big-ticket projects
Also targeted for completion within the year are the Department of Public Works and Highway’s big-ticket projects, namely the P35.74-billion Cavite-Laguna Expressway, the P24.9-billion Metro Manila Flood Management Project, the P23.2-billion NLEX-SLEX Connector Road, and the P3.35-billion Cagayan de Oro Coastal Road.
The Department of Budget and Management on Tuesday transmitted the P7.2-trillion NEP for Fiscal Year 2027, equivalent to 21.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, and six percent higher than the P6.793-trillion budget for 2026.
In terms of inflation, the Middle East tensions, which made the price of crude per barrel accelerate tremendously, have made headline inflation rise.
Inflation rate still high
“So, all of these things were really to try and bring those levels down. Our inflation went down a little bit in the last quarter by about point two, point three percent. But we’re still quite high,” the President said.
Headline inflation eased by 6.2 percent in July 2026, down from 6.4 percent in June.
The Philippine Statistics Authority said this brings the average national inflation rate from January to July 2026 to 5.0 percent, which remains above the government’s target range of 2.0 to 4.0 percent.
