MANILA — The country has lost about P2.75 trillion from the second quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026 due to corruption and inflation, according to Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian.
The Senate leader made this claim during Thursday’s hearing of the Ad Hoc Committee on Reinvigorate Investment and Sustainable Economic Growth (RISE), saying this amount includes actual losses in the economy as well as opportunities lost.
According to Gatchalian, the country is experiencing its slowest economic growth since 2017, excluding the pandemic years.
He also mentioned that the Philippines is now second to last in terms of economic growth in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) due to self-inflicted damage or corruption and the Iran conflict.
“Hindi pa naman too late, we’re not saying it’s too late. What we’re saying is we need to get ourselves in order. We need to strategize,” Gatchalian said.
Senator Risa Hontiveros, chairperson of the ad hoc committee, said their goal is to “prioritize structural legislative reforms and long-term policy interventions aimed at sustainable economic growth.”
“Isang taon nang humihina ang ating ekonomiya. Mula 3.9 percent noong third quarter ng 2025, nasa 2.3 percent na lang ngayon,” Hontiveros said during their first hearing.
GDP growth further skids to 2.3 percent in second quarter
“Our urgent task is clear: make sure Filipinos do not fall back into poverty every time a crisis hits,” she added.
According to Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) Undersecretary Reynaldo Cancio, weakened consumer and business confidence—driven by governance concerns—resulted in a sharp reduction in public investments, particularly in infrastructure. These concerns were further compounded by the Middle East crisis.
“In the post-pandemic period, our economy recovered, growing steadily by an average of 5.8 percent from 2022 to 2025 amid a challenging global and domestic environment. However, as has been pointed out, we have seen a slowdown in the second half of 2025 to 3.5 percent, moderating further to 2.6 percent in the first half of this year,” said Cancio.
He added that total investments declined to negative 6.5 percent in the first half of 2026 from negative 5.9 percent in the second half of 2025. Public construction, in particular, registered a negative 32 percent growth in the first half of 2026.
According to Cancio, some ASEAN countries like Vietnam and Malaysia were able to take advantage of certain things, which the Philippines did not, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-related products.
He said that a bit of good news was that exports grew by 10 percent in the first half of 2026 compared with 6 percent in the same period last year.
Several resource persons were invited, including former Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo, who gave suggestions on how to address the economic problems.
“Kung makikita ng mga negosyante at mga nangangapital na seryoso ang ating bansa sa pagpo-prosecute, pagpapakulong ng mga plunderers ng public money, I’m sure the erosion of public confidence and business confidence will be addressed,” Guinigundo said.
He added that passing a genuine anti-political dynasty bill will help.
The Makati Business Club, meanwhile, said lowering the cost of power and improving its reliability will help. It also mentioned that the passage of the Freedom of Information bill is vital.
For AJ Montesa of the People’s Budget Coalition and WeSolve Foundation, Inc., government projects must be more people-centered and nature-centered. Instead of ayuda or financial packages, he said there should be more medium- and long-term solutions.
The committee also discussed the government’s response to El Niño.
According to the Department of Agriculture, the government has already reactivated the national task force on El Niño. Agriculture Assistant Secretary U-Nichols Manalo said the department does not expect agricultural commodity prices to spike.
According to Hontiveros, they will share their findings and recommendations with the Senate Committee on Finance to guide the budget process this year.