Moving beyond the crisis entails a wide range of development challenges and opportunities for the Philippines under the President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. administration.

While the investment-led, export-oriented, manufacturing, and agricultural approaches offer viable and effective solutions to economic problems, digitalization is the critical enabler for recovery and sustainable growth. The use of digital technology offers much more in terms of speed, efficiency, and reach.

Cognizant of the unlimited opportunities at hand, President Marcos Jr., in three of his 19 priority bills, emphasize the need for digital transformation, i.e., the E-Government Act, E-Governance Law, and the Internet Transactions Act. Read More

“A friend to all and an enemy to none” was the phrase used by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.  to define his independent foreign policy. To a large extent, this signifies continuity with reference to past presidents’ standpoint, domestically and internationally.

Change, however, lies on the dynamics involved in operationalizing the policy amid the ever-changing global environment of interconnectedness and uncertainty. Read More

The dust has settled.

After the first State of the Nation Address (Sona) of the President, which characterized the state of the nation as “sound” and which outlined his 19 legislative priorities, governance opportunities abound.

Consequently, the paths to good governance became more pronounced as the eight-point socioeconomic agenda of the Marcos Jr. administration was spelled out by Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno in a post-Sona economic briefing. Read More

The Stratbase ADR Institute has published its Occasional Paper for July 2022. It is entitled “Building Back Better Towards Inclusive Growth with Innovative Public Sector Governance” and authored by Charlotte Justine Diokno-Sicat, PhD., a Research Fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and President of the Philippine Economic Society.  This paper analyzes the prospects and challenges of the new administration anchored on the main question: “How… Read More

In the inaugural address of President Marcos Jr., he gave much emphasis on the need for national unity and his concern of being one with the Filipino people in the dream of peace, progress, and brighter future. 

With respect to the need of addressing post pandemic development, the new president devoted attention to sectors and issues that are also publicly preferred to be prioritized, such as agriculture, food sufficiency, OFWs, teachers’ upskilling, the energy supply, infrastructure plan, the need for investments, pollution, climate change, pandemic management, and tourism alongside having a comprehensive, inclusive economic plan. Read More

The inaugural speech of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. was a preamble to his first State of the Nation Address (SONA). The SONA provided a broader explanation and discussion of the concerns, issues, and sectors that need to be prioritized as tackled in the inaugural speech.

Among other important things, the economic agenda of the Marcos Jr. government envisions that the country would achieve middle-income status by 2024 and economic growth of 6.5% to 8% from 2023-2028.

Meanwhile, the headline goal or target for average inflation is 2%-4% between 2024 and 2028. The targets also include improving foreign exchange to between P51-P55 per $1 in 2023-2028, increasing the exports of goods by 6% from 2023-2028, and imports by 8% in the same period. Read More

As the new administration begins its six-year term, the Stratbase ADR Institute, together with Democracy Watch Philippines, organized a virtual town hall to reveal the results of a commissioned study on the Filipino voter’s perception of the conduct and legitimacy of the 2022 national elections. Election experts and democracy advocates from the academe, civil society, and government, engaged in a deep dive discussion to give their insightful analyses of the survey data and important learnings that can further improve the administration and voter experience of the automated election system.  Read More