The COVID-19 pandemic has not only ended decades of steady growth for the Philippine economy, but also plunged the country into its most serious recession since after World War II and even worse than the 1984 economic crisis that led to the ouster of then President Ferdinand Marcos.
The interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) confirmed that economic production was worse than originally thought as it downgraded its gross domestic product (GDP) projection from the original forecast of -4.5 percent to -6.6 percent last July.
Beating 1984
The DBCC now expects the country’s P19.516-trillion economy to have contracted by a record 8.5 to 9.5 percent for the whole year,…
Keep on reading: Slowdown worse than during Marcos era