AS the Philippines may not be able to escape its fate as the world’s most disaster-prone nation, good governance can turn the tide to resilience and growth, according to economists.
In a commentary by New York-based think tank GlobalSource Partners, economists Diwa Guinigundo and Wilhelmina Mañalac said the country’s vulnerability to natural hazards has long been compounded by weak institutions and corruption in public works.
Citing figures from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, the typhoons that battered the country in September alone have cost P822 million in infrastructure losses, while agricultural damages amounted to P916 million.
The Cebu earthquake also caused P6.8 billion in damage, which exposed the sorry fact that many of the public infrastructure were neither quake-resistant nor built to standard.
On top of this is the massive corruption in flood control projects, which cost the government P118.5 billion in economic losses from 2023 to 2025, according to the Department of Finance.
‘The moral indictment is clear: corruption kills growth, weakens resilience, and erodes trust,’ Guinigundo and Mañalac said.
For a developing country like the Philippines, they said, good governance is not a moral luxury, but an ‘economic necessity.’
‘When public works are marred by inefficiency and fraud, they not only waste resources but also weaken the very foundations of inclusive growth: connectivity, productivity, and resilience,’ they added.
To rebuild the ruins, the economists said that integrity, discipline and political will are needed.
‘The Philippines’ status as the world’s most disaster-prone nation is unlikely to change. What can-and must-change is how the country prepares, builds, and governs,’ they said.
What is inevitable, they said, is the result of choices made by institutions and leaders-not the recurring cycle of destruction and repair.
So far, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has taken bureaucratic restructuring to restore integrity and efficiency.
This includes digital transparency through an online project tracker, closer coordination with the Commission on Audit for on-site monitoring, rotation of engineers to disrupt local patronage networks and the creation of a Public Works Integrity Office to investigate anomalies and enforce discipline.
The Marcos administration has also established the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), a non-partisan body tasked to audit major projects, issue annual integrity reports and recommend the prosecution of erring officials and contractors.
‘These measures aim to institutionalize accountability and ensure that infrastructure spending contributes not only to physical capital but also to governance capital, the credibility and efficiency that sustain long-term economic growth,’ the economists said.