A comparative study on the economic status of the

Philippines between the Aquino and Duterte

administration

by

Carissa Mae Abella

Paul Bagtas

Zara Bautista

Rhenz Pacaigue

Gabriele Talub

A Research Paper in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

Readings in Philippine History (GED103)

Introduction

Economy, based on the definition of Cambridge Dictionary (2021) states that it is the

system of trade and industry by which the wealth of a country is being made and used. Moreover,

the decisions are made through some combination of market transactions and collective decision

making. Individuals to entities such as families, businesses, and government participate in this

kind of process. Thus, this puts economic growth to the country.

The importance of having economic growth means that the national income, national

output and total expenditure rises. The economic growth can help various macroeconomic

objectives such as Reduction in poverty since the national output is increase that means that

households can enjoy more goods and services; Reduced unemployment since an economic growth

leads to a higher demand that are likely to increase employment; improved public services, with

the higher economic growth there would be a higher tax rates and with those taxes it can improve

public services; and Reduced debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratios (Pettinger, T., 2017).

As the definition and the importance of economic growth had been defined earlier, the next

phase to be tackled would be the handling of the economic growth under the Aquino lll

administration and Duterte administration. According to the officialgazette.gov.ph, that the

Aquino administration has been continuously improving upon the good governance reforms that

it has established, which includes strengthening the mechanisms for the immediate and efficient

delivery of services to Filipinos. With its reform agenda: “If we can rid the country of the culture

of corruption, then we can alleviate poverty and collectively move forward to secure an equitably

progressive Philippines.”, the administration has reformed its procurement and budgeting

processes to promote the efficiency and reducing the opportunities of corruption. In 2012, the
Philippines recorded one of its strongest years for growth and on the first quarter GDP of 2013,

recorded at 7.8%. and those gains of good governance are being translated into the improvement

of the quality of life of the Filipinos.

On the other hand, in Duterte administration that the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA)

reported the in the 3rd quarter of 2020 the economy of the Philippines shrank by and alarming

11.5%. Based on bworldonline.com, the government’s spending spre e is reflected in the country;s

budget deficit although the government has been successful in raising revenues through taxes from

15.2% of GDP in 2015 to 16.9% in 2020, its spending accelerated much faster.

Thus, this present study focused on comparing the economic status of the two

administrations, the former President Benigno Aquino lll and President Rodrigo Duterte, in order

to have a better understanding of its relevance to the people in the modern times as well as to gain

knowledge.

Statement of the Problem

This study aims to compare the economic status of the Philippines between the Aquino and

Duterte administration and thus answer the following questions:

1. What is the impact of the Aquino and Duterte administration to the economic status of the

Philippines?

2. Why do we need to compare the Aquino and Duterte administration?

3. How did the Former president Benigno Aquino III and President Rodrigo Duterte could

not have been more different?

Methodology

This section includes a visual representation of the methods used in this research in the

form of a flowchart (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Methodology Flowchart

Findings

Aquino Administration

As many economists or analysts will tell anybody, despite what his critics say, the late

former President, Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III has set an impressive economic blueprint for

current President Duterte to build upon. Aquino’s term has held the country’s GDP growth steady

from 5.8%-6.9% from 2011-2017 as it peaked in 2016 mostly driven by Industry and Services

according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (2017). This has been due to the increased rate and
efficiency among economies all over the country as seen in Figure 2 which according to a study

by Gochoco-Bautista, et al. (2019) was the “highest average rate of growth the economy had

achieved since the 1970s” allowing the Philippines to be tied amongst China and Vietnam as the

fastest growing economies in 2016.

Figure 2. Growth Rates of Regional Economies: 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 (at Constant 2000

Prices, in Percent) (PSA, 2017)

What makes this truly commendable is the fact that this was in contrast to what was

expected of our economy due to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, you can say that the

Philippines defied those odds. Furthermore, inflation was kept under 2% which was well within

the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ target of 2%-4% which may attribute as to why poverty has

declined from 25% to 21.6% over the span of Aquino’s term. However, things were not all, for

lack of a better term, rainbows and sunshine during this administration as there may have been

industries or branches which have observed slower rates of growth such as Transportation,
Communication, Agriculture and Fishing which would have been miniscule out of context but

these four industries actually comprised a significant percentage of our GDP and would have made

a much more significant rise in our economy had they increased like all the other industries.

Duterte Administration

Duterte’s ideology for his whole “Build Build Build” program as he okays the construction

of various infrastructure across Luzon was that it was “the fastest way to raise the GDP” which in

a sense may be correct as stated earlier, Transportation including Storage were among the slowest

growing sectors in the economy. It is as if Duterte decided to simply go along with what Aquino

has already laid down and improve on what needs improving and for a time this strategy has

actually worked as the average GDP growth from 2017-2019 was 5.8% not too far from what

Aquino has achieved in his administration. In 2019, inflation was kept at 1.7% which was lowest

it has been in three years, furthermore improved labor market conditions and increase in sustained

household incomes have led to the continued decrease in poverty thus leading the Philippines to a

not amazing but strong economy at the time. Unfortunately, all this went horribly wrong due to

the entrance of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Millions of Filipinos, businesses and companies

have lost their livelihood and this has hurt the economy greatly as the GDP “growth” has yielded

-9.6%, the lowest it has ever been post WWII according to an article by Oplas (2021). All the

unemployment combined with the continuation of the Duterte’s BBB programs and rather

questionable COVID response policies has put the nation in a very difficult situation economy-

wise as we are rapidly falling behind the rest of Asia who are also affected by the pandemic such

as Myanmar which has managed to increase its GDP by 3.2% in 2020. The GDP’s strongest

contributors such as remittances and tourism have all taken a toll as job opportunities for Filipinos

in and out of the country slowly disappear due to a lack of finances due to lockdowns. Finally,
attempts to revitalize the economy by lifting lockdowns multiple times in NCR has led to surges

in COVID cases which will only hurt our economy even more. To summarize, the Duterte

administration was doing a good job continuing the blueprint laid out by the previous

administration, however the COVID-19 pandemic has led to extremely unfortunate circumstances

and equally questionable policies to because for great economic decline.

Conclusion

The study generally aimed to compare the Philippine economic status under the

administration of Former President Benigno Aquino III and President Rodrigo Duterte. To do so,

the following conclusions were established in context of the three specific objectives stated in this

study:

Impact of the Aquino and Duterte administration on the economic status of the Philippines

Due to the 5.8%-6.9% from 2011-2017 GDP growth during the Aquino administration

which has been perceived as the highest average rate of economy growth since 1970’s (Gochoco-

Bautista et. al., 2019), the following impacts have been observed: (1) inflation has been kept under

2%, (2) poverty has declined from 25% to 21.6%, and lastly (3), transportation, communication,

agriculture, and fishing have slower growth rates.

On the other hand, the Duterte administration was able to continue maintain the GDP

growth of the previous administration until 2019 as the GDP growth was kept on 5.8% and

inflation on 1.7%. However, the administration was not able to handle the economy properly

during the pandemic as the following impacts were observed: (1) -9.6 GDP growth, (2) massive

unemployment, and (3) disappearance of GDP contributors such as tourism and remittances.
Why the two administrations must be compared

Comparison of two administrations will help people understand the occurrence of inflation

and unemployment during the term of each president. Data regarding GDP growth and economic

rates will determine whether the administration has been effective annually.

How Former President Benigno Aquino III and President Rodrigo Duterte could not have been

more different

Initially, President Rodrigo Duterte was able to maintain the GDP growth of the previous

administration until 2019 as the GDP growth was kept on 5.8% and inflation on 1.7%. Moreover,

the said administration had improved labor market conditions and increase in sustained household

incomes that continually decrease poverty. This is not more different to the economic status during

the Aquino administration. Therefore, the two administrations are doing great economically if the

pandemic was not present.

Recommendations

The researchers recommend sourcing information more formally through accounts,

archives or other records besides the internet. Though data was collected from actual news outlets

and even government websites, further confirmation with concrete evidence will help support the

conclusions drawn from the collected data.

 References

Gochoco-Bautista, M. (2019). How Has the Economy Fared under the Duterte Administration
So Far? In I. Deinla & B. Dressel (Eds.), From Aquino II to Duterte (2010–2018): Change,
Continuity—and Rupture (pp. 127-144). ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute

Oplas, B. (2021). “ High growth under PNoy Aquino and tax cuts under Duterte”.
https://www.bworldonline.com/high-growth-under-pnoy-aquino-and-tax-cuts-under-duterte/

Pesek, W. (2021). “Duterte cannot build his way out of Philippines' economic troubles”.
Retrieved from https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Duterte-cannot-build-his-way-out-of-
Philippines-economic-troubles

Philippine Statistics Authority (2017) “Philippine economy posts 6.9 percent”. Retrieved from
https://psa.gov.ph/content/philippine-economy-posts-69-percent-growth