Cebu’s play for ASEAN capital

The Cebu Economic Forum 4.0 last September 8 and 9, 2026 did what good forums rarely do. It stopped selling beaches and started selling predictability. Seemingly, this forum reinforces what Governor Pamela Baricuatro said in a summit earlier this year that “capital is on the move, and Cebu is ready to capture it.” That framing is correct, but to truly entice investors, we must be brutally honest about where we stand.

Truth to tell, ASEAN was inundated with Foreign Direct Investments (FDISs), surging to $225 billion in 2024 and hitting a record $244.17 billion in 2025. Yet that flood was never equal. Singapore sits at the top with $150.9 billion, up 11% and capturing about 62 percent of all ASEAN inflows, followed by Indonesia at $21.44 billion despite a 13 % drop, then Vietnam at $20.35 billion, Thailand at $19.1 billion, and Malaysia at $15.39 billion with the fastest growth at 51 % driven by data centers. The Philippines trails at $7.79 billion in BSP net figures to $9 billion in UNCTAD books, the lowest in five years, and at the bottom are Cambodia, Laos, Brunei and Myanmar at $1.07 billion.

Honestly, Singapore’s strength is not low tax rates. It is certainty. Contracts are enforced, power is stable, and a permit means a permit.

Where does that leave the Philippines? What we did right, we actually did right. We passed CREATE MORE, liberalized retail and renewables, and finally brought the 2026 SIPP roadshow to Cebu. That was smart. We have the demographic dividend and the English-proficient talent that made us a services superpower.

What we did wrong is we made doing business expensive and unpredictable. Actually, our problem is not that we lack investors who want us. We lack a cost structure that lets them stay. Remember, when an investor chooses Vietnam over us, he is not just choosing wages. He is choosing power at 40 percent cheaper than ours, ports that do not congest for three days, and a bureaucracy that does not ask for the same document five times.

What we failed to do is the most painful. We failed to lower power costs through real competition, to connect islands with cold-chain and reliable shipping, to make MSME formalization easier than staying informal, and to craft an industrial strategy beyond BPOs and remittances.

Therefore, we must do three things. First, enhance what we did right by making incentives automatic and time-bound, not discretionary. Grant the benefit when performance is delivered, not when someone approves it. Second, correct what we did wrong by killing unpredictability. One portal, one timeline, one accountable office. We must stop entertaining populist shocks like a sudden P1,200 minimum wage that tells investors we reprice labor without repricing productivity. Third, do what we were supposed to do but never did. Treat power and logistics as economic reforms, not technical projects.

We, in Cebu, can help the country.  First and foremost, we shouldn’t ask for charity investments.  Instead, offer leverage. Beyond tourism, Cebu is a production platform backed by strengths in semiconductors, electronics, advanced manufacturing, engineering and technology-enabled services, as well as a skilled workforce and strong global connectivity.

Given that strength, four potentials are real and bankable.  Semiconductors and advanced manufacturing anchored in the Mactan Economic Zone with direct air cargo to all of Asia is potential because we already have the base, the engineers, and the ecosystem.  Healthcare and education is another as we produce roughly 30,000 to 35,000 graduates every year and our hospitals can serve the entire Visayas-Mindanao corridor. Logistics and food, particularly the proposed mega food hub on the Balili property in Naga City, is potential because it slashes post-harvest losses that today destroy farm margins.  Both IT-BPM 2.0 and green energy services are potential because our creative, high-value tech talent has significantly lower attrition than Manila.

Undeniably too, our value proposition to prospective investors is simple. In Cebu, your port is 30 minutes from your factory, your engineers speak your customers’ language, and your local government finally understands that capital does not follow slogans. It follows systems.

Frankly, the Philippines cannot win the ASEAN race with Manila alone. It needs a second engine that actually works. For investors tired of Singapore’s cost, Vietnam’s overheating, and Indonesia’s complexity, Cebu is the most balanced bet in all of ASEAN. We do not attract capital with beaches. We attract it with systems worthy of our people.