After living here for 13 years, I moved back to the States right after the Winnipeg Jets won their last AVCO Cup as champions of the World Hockey Association – that is, 1979. Consequently, my words today will be those of an American policymaker speaking on American policy issues.
The goal is to make up for past neglect which earned the Philippines the distinction of having one of the poorest public infrastructure in the ASEAN region. From 2016 to 2020, infrastructure spending as percent of GDP averaged 4.6 percent. In 2021, actual infrastructure spending reached PHP1.12 trillion or 5.8 percent of GDP.