Statement of NEDA Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan
February 18, 2024

We recognize the significance and urgency of addressing the issues and challenges that have been highlighted by the survey results of OCTA Research Group released yesterday (February 17), particularly on inflation and food security, as well as on job creation and poverty reduction. The Marcos Administration is accelerating its efforts to manage price increases of basic commodities such as rice in light of the El Niño phenomenon we are experiencing and the continuing upward price pressure from the global rice market. It is making significant strides in realizing substantial foreign direct investments that will generate more and higher-quality jobs that will raise the incomes and purchasing power of Filipinos.

When President Marcos began his term, the Philippine economy was recovering from the record 9.5-percent contraction in 2020. The contraction set us back by about three years, with per capita gross national income (GNI) returning to its pre-pandemic level by the second half of 2023. We have recovered and have indeed outshone our Asian peers as we posted a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 5.6 percent in 2023, one of the fastest in the region. Further, while external factors and domestic policy coordination challenges resulted in higher inflation in early 2023, both supply- and demand-side interventions worked to bring this down to 2.8 percent by January 2024, the lowest since October 2020. Meanwhile, the labor market continues to show promise, with the unemployment rate reaching a historic low of 3.1 percent in December 2023, while the underemployment rate eased to 11.9 percent relative to its 12.6 figure in December 2022.

The Cabinet has taken to heart the President’s directives by ensuring that the necessary policies are in place: we are facilitating massive investments in physical and human capital to create better jobs and improve our economy’s competitiveness while deploying the entire arsenal of policy tools to make food available, accessible, and affordable to the Filipino people.

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