BBM must really think so poorly of us to claim he made his recent Singapore F1 Grand Prix trip to bring in investments. Indeed, other presidents before him justified their expensive foreign junkets the same way and we always just rolled our eyes.
We might let such blatant attempts to fool the people pass when times are not as bad as they are now.
But our limited fiscal space has left more vital needs inadequately funded, so the trip’s optics were horrible.
As of October 2026, BBM has undertaken 47 foreign trips since assuming office in June 2022. Over the course of these 47 trips, the government claims to have generated a staggering P4.019 trillion (approximately $72.18 billion) in investment commitments spread across 148 distinct projects.
According to the administration, this pipeline has successfully funneled about $19 billion (P1.1 trillion) into an “actualized” or operational phase. It counts any project that has been approved by PEZA or the BOI. It cannot point to any physical bricks-and-mortar factories that have risen and been funded by completely new foreign capital.
From a strict macroeconomic standpoint, there is no independent auditable figure that proves a presidential foreign trip directly caused a factory to appear.
For one thing, the vast majority of the values announced immediately following a presidential trip are based on non-binding Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) or Letters of Intent (LOIs). These are polite expressions of corporate interest, not signed contracts.
A significant portion of the “actualized” investments announced after foreign trips comes from multinationals already operating in the Philippines (such as major Japanese automotive or electronics firms).
When these companies expand existing facilities, the government frequently includes their routine capital expenditure in the presidential trip totals to augment the report card. In reality, these investments were largely pre-planned by local subsidiaries and would have likely materialized even without a presidential visit.
If the objective is to attract investors, BBM need not go abroad but instead, work harder to make the country attractive. Corruption and red tape are still making potential investors go elsewhere and BBM has not done much to fix those sticky problems beyond press releases.
In Vietnam, foreign companies sign agreements and can break ground on a factory almost immediately. Vietnam provides a centralized bureaucratic apparatus, highly competitive electricity rates and pre-cleared industrial zones. The physical factory materializes rapidly because the domestic environment allows it.
On the other hand, a foreign investor inspired by a presidential trip arrives in the Philippines only to encounter high power costs, localized permitting delays across various local government units and a poor infrastructure and logistics system.
Even with special initiatives like the “Green Lanes” policy (Executive Order 18), the transition to an actual physical manufacturing site is delayed, often for years.
There is a persistent data mismatch between the administration’s celebratory press releases and the cold numbers of the BSP that show a massive discrepancy between the P4 trillion claimed and the reality on the ground.
If tens of billions of dollars from these trips were truly materializing into physical infrastructure, national net foreign direct investment (FDI) would be skyrocketing. Instead, official BSP data shows long-term capital inflows actively contracting.
The full-year net FDI reached $9.398 billion in 2024 but tumbled to $8.122 billion in 2025, and stood at $4.071 billion for the first seven months of 2026, compared to the $5.350 billion recorded during the exact same period last year.
Rather than massive waves of entirely new industries, the actualized dollars are predominantly confined to expansions of existing Japanese electronics factories in Cavite/Laguna/Batangas, tech data center constructions in Rizal and a handful of local solar/wind farms.
The Philippines is currently so unattractive to investors that even foreign firms already operating here are investing less than they used to.
Data from the BSP confirms that a significant driver behind the contraction in FDI inflows is a decline in “investments in debt instruments.”
In the language of central bank accounting, “investments in debt instruments” refers primarily to intercompany borrowings. This represents actual credit and financial support sent by foreign parent companies or global head offices to fund the operational expansions and cash flows of their existing subsidiaries in the Philippines.
Multiple monthly indicators across 2026 show steep contractions in debt instruments. For instance, total net FDI plummeted significantly in Q1-2026 largely because parent companies held back on expanding local debt lines.
Foreign companies in the Philippines seem to be just settling existing liabilities rather than taking on new financing from their head offices.
Global head offices are also choosing to repatriate more profits rather than keeping them inside the Philippines. Reinvestment of local earnings has consistently trended downward alongside debt instruments.
Will Pax Silica change our investment attractiveness?
Pax Silica fundamentally changes why foreign capital might enter the Philippines. Up to this point, presidential trips have functioned as general market roadshows.
Pax Silica, by contrast, is a geo-economic initiative designed by the United States and 23 other allied nations to aggressively de-risk and decouple critical technology sectors from China.
While Pax Silica alters the macroeconomic justification for investing, it does not magically fix the domestic realities that stall actual construction.
Critics, including local think tanks and independent economists, point out that the massive $40 to $70 billion projection remains “conceptual” and highly prone to the same over-inflation seen in previous travel pledges.
Even if deals are solidified with anchor entities like Foxconn, the capital deployment will still conform to multi-year phases. It will not instantly reverse the current central bank data showing record-low intercompany debt support and contracting net FDI inflows.
In the end, there is no way we can avoid cleaning our house first and presenting a better investment climate, whether it is Pax Silica or a Grand Prix presidential roadshow.
Boo Chanco’s email address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on X @boochanco.