Philippines won’t go into recession, says Diokno

The Philippines will not go into recession, the country's top economic manager said Wednesday.

Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno made the statement when asked about the Department of Finance's plans to mitigate the looming global recession during a Commission on Appointments committee hearing on his ad interim appointment.

"I can assure you, your honor, that given the data that we have, under very extreme conditions, we will not have a recession because we have a very young population," Diokno said.

"For example, our unemployment rate is now down to five percent—that is the lowest since before the pandemic. So I can assure you, given our focus on agriculture, restored mining, power industry, and manufacturing are working well plus we have opened up the overseas workers, we have increased the quality of our overseas workers, I don't think we'll have a recession, your honor," he added.

CA Majority Leader and Camarines Sur Representative Luis Raymund Villafuerte, who raised the question during the hearing, said while the projected economic growth is "very good," the country still needs to consider the global economy.