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As measured in terms of annualized gross domestic product (GDP), the country’s economy grew as much as 7.6 percent for the entire year of 2022. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported the full-year GDP growth rate in 2022 is faster than the 5.7 percent year-ago growth rate. The PSA noted the full-year GDP growth was even way above the target of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent adopted by the economic managers of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM).
Actually, the GDP growth target and projection have been set ahead by the economic managers of the immediate past administration of former President Ro-drigo

Duterte. The head of the economic team of advisers of PBBM – Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno in particular – was among them. Diokno was pre-viously the Secretary of the Department of Budget and Management before Mr. Duterte appointed him as Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor when he helped then draft and craft the post-pandemic economic recovery strategies and targets.

The setting of targets and forecasts take into consideration the expected scenarios in the future. For the year 2022, these included the full re-opening of the economy from the state of pandemic as well as the holding of the May national and local elections and change of administration.

Of course, the election spending and “binge” expenditure of people gradually coming out from the severe economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic fueled much the GDP growth. PBBM wisely did not take credit for the much-feted robust GDP growth in 2022 and only expressed elation for this.

In a video message reacting to the 2022 GDP growth, PBBM took the opportunity though to focus attention to the government’s need to embark on certain measures under his administration’s own economic goals. For the entire year of 2023, PBBM vows to trim down inflation rate, or the high prices especially of basic food products, to more manageable level. To him, this is the best means to deliver the benefits of GDP growth to all Filipinos down to the grassroots level all over the country.

“We must maintain, however, that growth rate. And that is why it has become so important for us to go out and attract investments into the Philippines. Be-cause that is the only way for economic activities to increase and therefore to grow the economy,” PBBM pointed out.

Obviously, PBBM is still justifying his going on eight trips abroad in the first seven months into his office at Malacañang. The same issue was raised to him during a sit-down panel interview at the Palace last Monday after his attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Switzerland.

In apparent off-the-cuff retort, the President disclosed, he has only two scheduled foreign trips later this year. He mentioned his state visit to Japan on Feb. 8-12 and this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit in November in San Francisco, California.

However, the ambassadors of the United Kingdom (UK) and France revealed to media one after the other last week that formal invitations were sent to PBBM by their respective governments. Envoys are known to closely adhere to protocols. What prompted these premature disclosures without official acceptance escapes me for now.

As of this writing though, there is no official word yet on whether PBBM will accept or politely decline the invites to him.

In May this year, the British envoy disclosed, the Buckingham Palace invited PBBM to attend the enthronement of King Charles III in London. The French envoy, on the other hand, revealed President Emmanuel Macron has reportedly sent to PBBM a letter inviting him for a state visit to Paris by the middle of this year.

Fresh into office, PBBM sent his youngest sister Irene and her husband businessman Greggy Araneta as his official representatives during the state funeral rites for the late Queen Elizabeth of Britain. PBBM and Macron had eyeball-to-eyeball chat already at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last year.

PBBM is scheduled to host at Malacañang tomorrow the annual vin d’honneur for the diplomatic community in our country. Doing this traditional New Year reception, the Chief Executive, along with top Philippine government officials, meet and greet each and every ambassador and the other foreign dignitaries and heads of various international organizations. This may yet to bring about another round of casual and informal invites.

Aside from strong bilateral ties, the ambassadors of UK and France touted their countries enjoy the robust trade, investment, and economic relations with the

Philippines. So likely, the two countries are in the radar screen of PBBM’s next trips abroad.

During the one-on-one interview in Davos with WEF president Borge Brende, PBBM cited Singapore contributed the biggest foreign direct investments in the

Philippines based from latest official records. Was this again a defense mindset after he went there twice last year? The first was a state visit and later a clandestine weekend trip to watch the Formula One Race.

In the same interview, Brende asked PBBM what are the main obstacles for the Philippines to achieve its goal to follow the South Korea model of “leapfrog-ging” to growth and economic prosperity. Brende gave him multiple choice. Is it – infrastructure; the quality of education; research and development; red tape; taxes; or, fiscal stability? To which PBBM retorted: “I guess again, all of the above.”

Nonetheless, PBBM insisted, all these obstacles are being addressed by his administration. He even revealed to Brende he entered into “sort of bet” with In-ternational Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Kristalina Georgieva of Bulgaria. At the meeting in Davos, PBBM chirped, he and his economic team sneezed at the IMF forecast of five percent economic growth rate for the Philippines.

“And we said: ‘Well, our projection is six and a half,’ and we’re still hoping that it will be able to grow beyond that,” PBBM quipped.

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