The fall of the Philippines: An international concern

A DECADE ago, the Philippines was a country of hope and promise. But those days are now gone. Today, the country is coping with weakening growth, an accelerating cost-of-living crisis, entrenched inequality, institutional corruption, extreme climate crises, and a foreign policy increasingly defined by strategic confrontation rather than the economic needs of ordinary Filipinos. The Philippines risks becoming a country that talks endlessly about development while it is ceaselessly undermining its foundations. Economic red lights flashing In the past few years, the government’s inflated growth ambitions, which cost Manila its international credibility, have given way to successive downward revisions. Now…