Race is on; Phl hits snooze
Why are our neighbors gaining ground while we’re losing it? The answer is as frustrating as it is obvious — they are building, while we are stealing.
Text size
Why are our neighbors gaining ground while we’re losing it? The answer is as frustrating as it is obvious — they are building, while we are stealing.
We probably know one person who loves signing up for fun runs. He has everything — expensive running shoes, moisture-wicking shirt, energy gels, and, of course, a very serious “training regimen.” But the moment the starting gun goes off, he suddenly needs to retie his shoelaces, stretch, and find a portalet.
Meanwhile, everyone else is already at the finish line, sipping coconut water and posting their medals on social media.
That person could very well personify the Philippine economy — all confidence during training, all excuses when race day comes.
The latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth numbers for the second quarter of 2026 make for a painful and brutal report card. Vietnam, our neighbor who used to be the tutored kid, posted a whopping 8.39-percent growth, followed by Malaysia at 6 percent, Singapore at 5.7 percent, and Indonesia at 5.29 percent. Even Thailand stayed ahead. While we, the Philippines, grew by a measly 2.3 percent.
We’re falling behind and eating the dust of our ASEAN neighbors while they move ahead, improve their infrastructure, attract investments, and grow their economies. We remain stuck in traffic — both on the roads and in our economy.
If you think Vietnam’s 8.39-percent growth happened by chance, well, it came from strong investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, exports, and easier business processes. Malaysia and Singapore are benefiting from the semiconductor and electronics boom, showing how tech and manufacturing investment can drive jobs and growth.
Here at home, our 2.3-percent growth was dragged down by a sharp slowdown in construction and investment. We stopped building and investing. The answer is a 10-letter word that has become the unofficial national sport — corruption. Unacceptably massive, unapologetic, and institutionalized corruption.
Foreign investors aren’t stupid. They read news reports of ghost infrastructure projects, overpriced government purchases, questionable flood control projects, and funds whose use has come under scrutiny. They watch lawmakers investigate the magical disappearance of billions of pesos, and they take note.
Why would any sane investor pour millions into a country where a project’s budget is 40 percent for the actual work and 60 percent for administrative costs that somehow end up in someone’s bank account?
Vietnam offers them a red carpet. We offer them a maze of red tape, a handshake that costs a fortune, and a guarantee that their investment will be scrutinized by a dozen agencies, each wanting a piece of the pie.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow because we’ve heard the “rising tiger” story before. We have a young population, an English-speaking workforce, abundant resources, and a strategic location. But potential means little or is useless without execution. And action becomes difficult when every peso is viewed as a potential kickback.
So why are our neighbors gaining ground while we’re losing it? The answer is as frustrating as it is obvious — they are building, while we are stealing.
Vietnam is pouring concrete for highways and ports while we are pouring billions into ghost projects that exist only on paper. Instead of setting up semiconductor plants like Malaysia, we have Senate hearings to investigate why the flood control project in a flood-prone province was made of sand and dreams.
We also have this bizarre habit of treating economic policy like a telenovela — full of drama, suspense, and cliffhangers, but little progress. We create laws, rules that contradict them, task forces to study the mess, and then another task force to investigate the first.
A 2.3-percent growth means fewer jobs, less money for public services, and a tighter squeeze on Filipino families. When the economy slows, tricycle drivers, sari-sari store owners, and daily wage earners feel it first. The rich have ways to protect their money, while the poor can only hope that rice prices don’t rise again.
We can’t blame the global economy forever. Inflation is a global problem, yet Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia face the same headwinds and still grow at 5 to 8 percent.
Should we simply accept being Southeast Asia’s slowpoke? We need to stop talking about infrastructure and actually build it. We need to stop scaring away investors with flip-flopping policies. Most importantly, we need to treat corruption as a national emergency. It is not just an inconvenience because every peso stolen is a classroom not built, a road not paved, a hospital not stocked, and a future not secured.
And then there is the debt. The national government’s outstanding debt stood at a record-high P19.39 trillion at the end of July 2026. As debt rises, every peso lost to waste and corruption hurts even more.
The 2.3-percent is a wake-up call — the alarm clock that tells us we’ve hit the snooze button too many times. While Vietnam is already working at the office, Malaysia is closing deals, and Singapore is counting its profits, we are still in bed, hitting snooze, wondering why the room is so dark, and blaming the electricity bill instead of the people who stole the light bulbs.
It’s time to get up. The race is still on, but if we don’t start running now and stop stealing the running shoes — we risk being called a “snail economy” and being forgotten.
