CHICKENPIE.The OECD says the Philippine economy is in a “stagflationary shock.” The government says not to worry. H2 will be different.
H2 is always different. H2 never arrives.
Let me be fair: 3.2 percent growth is not a collapse. Indonesia grows at 4.8. Malaysia at 4.5. Vietnam is holding at 6.2. But the OECD wasn’t supposed to say 3.2 — they were supposed to say 5.1. That’s not a downgrade. That’s a rewritten report card between the time the teacher was watching and the time she looked away.
The technical phrase is “stagflationary shock.” Say it slow. Stagflationary. Shock. Like something you stub your toe on in the dark and then pretend you always knew was there.
Stagflationary means prices are up, growth is down, and there is no good move. You lower rates to juice growth: inflation spikes. You raise rates to kill inflation: growth dies. You do nothing: both get worse.
The Philippine version of this trap comes with a local flavor. Infrastructure spending that was supposed to pull us out of the dip is still in procurement, or in pipeline, or in that special government status called “ongoing.” The consumption-led recovery that was supposed to carry Q2 is being quietly held up by OFW remittances — the Philippines’ most reliable economic program. The one we never had to fund, design, or evaluate, because thirty million workers overseas funded, designed, and evaluated it with their own bodies, on their own time.
The OECD’s recommendation is structural reforms, competition policy, formal employment. These are correct. These will not happen by H2.
Here’s what will happen by H2: an election cycle heating up. New alliances on old banners. The economy will be the backdrop, not the subject. Growth numbers will appear in speeches as proof the policy is working, no matter what the numbers say.
The sari-sari store outside your window already settled this debate. Three coconut biscuits for ₱10 last year. Two for ₱10 now. No one is calling that stagflation. They’re calling it Thursday.
3.2 percent. The OECD wrote it down. The government will revise it upward by Monday. Somewhere in the middle is the actual Philippines — pushing through anyway, waiting for H2, folding the report card into a paper boat, sailing it into the gutter.
