MBC: No room for ‘business as usual’ in gov’t in 2027

MANILA, Philippines — One of the country’s leading business groups is warning that among the headwinds facing the Philippine economy in 2027, the biggest could be a failure to make meaningful changes that leaves the government stuck in “business as usual.” For Makati Business Club (MBC) executive director Julia Abad, allowing the status quo to persist risks undermining efforts to rebuild business and public confidence in government, whose credibility has taken a hit from the flood control corruption fiasco. “There’s a lot of things that need to change this year,” Abad said in one of her first media engagements since becoming MBC’s first female executive director in July. “If that just continues on and things don’t change, that’s what we don’t want to happen.” Abad, who previously served in government under the late President Benigno Aquino III, said rebuilding trust would require sustained improvements in public spending and infrastructure investment rather than a temporary rebound. “Trust, as a human thing, is very fragile,” she said. “Once you start to rebuild that, for example, public spending goes up. Investing in the right kinds of infrastructure, it has to continue.” “Otherwise, if things go back to the way it was, then the trust that you start to build starts to erode. And that is really not good for government [and] it’s also not good for business,” Abad added. MBC chair Edgar Chua said restoring that confidence would require both better government spending and policy reforms. Among the measures MBC wants pursued are a freedom of information law, the easing of bank secrecy rules and a “genuine” anti-political dynasty law—reforms Chua said could help restore confidence in the country’s institutions. Chua likewise acknowledged that government underspending has weighed on the economy, although he stopped short of writing off 2026 and said there was still time for agencies to accelerate disbursements. In the first half, government infrastructure spending fell 40 percent to P367.4 billion, with agencies facing tighter scrutiny following the flood control controversy that erupted in the second half of 2025. But Chua stressed that catching up should not mean spending for its own sake. The government, he said, must ensure that public funds go toward productive projects while rebuilding confidence in how taxpayer money is used. “If our countrymen don’t have confidence, can you imagine the foreign investors?” he added. With all headwinds considered, Chua conceded that economic growth could turn out slower than the government’s already-lowered projections, although he expressed hope that the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) would ultimately prove correct. In June, the DBCC slashed its economic growth target to 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent for 2026. For Chua, however, the bigger challenge is eventually returning the economy to a much faster growth trajectory that raises living standards and lifts more Filipinos out of poverty. “The country needs a sustained growth of minimum 7 percent to bring the country—especially our poor countrymen—out of poverty,” he said. “If your economy grows only as fast as your population, you’re only running to stay in place.” INQ