TAG: Philippines
Underpinning President Rodrigo Duterte’s 2016 campaign was a pledge to pursue constitutional change in the form of a federal political system. This issue is quite divisive, and it remains unclear whether lawmakers will enact constitutional change. However, a plurality (43%) of CEOs who participated in the latest OBG Business Barometer: Philippines CEO Survey say a switch to a federal system or the empowerment of local government units would be advantageous or very advantageous to the country’s economic development, against 40% who think this would be disadvantageous or very disadvantageous.
Before his election to the highest office in the land in mid-2016, President Rodrigo Duterte presented himself as an agent of change, the political outsider based in marginalised Mindanao who would shake up a political system historically dominated by powerful family dynasties.
As the rhetoric from the US White House swerves from combative to compromise and back again, uncertainty in the global trading environment is creating potential pitfalls for emerging markets the world over. In the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which counts China as its largest trading partner, member states watch with trepidation as President Donald Trump ramps up threats of levies on nearly all Chinese products shipped to the US.