JC Punongbayan

Debt, Dictatorship, and Decline: The Enduring Economic Impact of the Philippines' 1980s Crisis One of the enduring economic puzzles in East Asia is the Philippines' lagging economic performance since the late 20th century. This paper examines the long-run consequences of the country's sovereig...

📘 Title: Debt, Dictatorship, and Decline: The Enduring Economic Impact of the Philippines' 1980s Crisis
👨🏼‍🏫 Authors: JC Punongbayan (UPSE) & Emmanuel S. de Dios (UPSE)
📍 Journal: Review of Development Economics
🗓️ Date of publication: 4 October 2025
🔗 Read here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

💡 We quantify the lasting economic scars from the Marcos-era debt crisis of the early 1980s—showing how authoritarian mismanagement set the Philippines' growth path back for decades. A fresh contribution to understanding the long shadow of the Marcos dictatorship on our economy.

🎉 NEW JOURNAL PUBLICATION 🎉

Happy to share my latest journal article in Review of Development Economics (SSCI, Scopus), co-authored with UPSE Prof. Emeritus Emmanuel S. de Dios!

🧾 Bottom line: The “boom & bust” of Marcos’s rule shows how dictatorship traded lasting development for power & rents—leaving deep scars on the PH economy.

🧠 Highlights:
– Growth built on debt & short-term gains
– No shift to sustainable dev’t path
– Cronyism, rent-seeking, bad trade policy
– Debt crisis + collapse in the 1980s

🔍 Marcos’s martial law years (1972–86) saw early growth fueled by borrowing & favorable global winds—but these same choices sowed the seeds of collapse by 1984–86.

📍 Book: The Marcos Years: The Age of Crisis and Repression, edited by Ferdinand C. Llanes
🗓️ Date of publication: February 2023
🔗 econstor.eu/bitstream/10... (working paper version)

[RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT]

📘 Title: Martial law and the Philippine economy
👨🏼‍🏫 Authors: Emmanuel S. de Dios, Maria Socorro Gochoco-Bautista, & JC Punongbayan (UP School of Economics)

With Nazi helmets, for fuck’s sake.

DOGE....government waste alert...

🧾 Bottom line:
Far from a “golden age,” the Duterte and early Marcos Jr. years illustrate how complacency, disinformation, and misplaced priorities can derail economic momentum and deepen structural weaknesses in the Philippine economy.

– Duterte stayed popular despite econ troubles—disinfo & personality politics at work.
– Marcos Jr.’s first year = weak governance: inflation, agri fiascos, Maharlika risks.
– Long-term threats: education crisis, social protection gaps, energy shortages, fiscal strains.

🧠 Highlights:
– TRAIN, CREATE & “Build, Build, Build” fell short.
– 2018 inflation + pandemic recession exposed weak econ management.
– Poverty drop in 2018 owed more to earlier growth & 4Ps than Duterte’s policies.

Games, Changes, and Fears: The Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr. | ISEAS Publishing Rodrigo Duterte’s rise and the Marcoses’ return to power have captivated Southeast Asia watchers and the rest of the world. That the spectacle of strongman rule has allured most Filipinos is no longer...

📍 Book: Games, Changes, and Fears: The Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr. (edited by Aries Arugay and Jean Encinas-Franco, published by ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute)

🗓️ Date of publication: April 2024

🔗 bookshop.iseas.edu.sg/publication/...

[RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT]

📘 Title: Much a Duterte about nothing: Continuity, complacency, and crisis in the Philippine economy (2016–23)
👨🏼‍🏫 Author: JC Punongbayan (UP School of Economics)

🧠 Key finding #3:
High electricity prices also deter foreign investors + hurt expansion of local firms.

💡 Policy insight:
If PH wants to revive manufacturing, we need cheaper & more reliable electricity.

🧠 Key finding #1:
High power prices → industry peaks earlier at lower income levels → declines faster afterward.

🧠 Key finding #2:
🇮🇩 Indonesia (low power costs) → metals & chemicals boomed.
🇵🇭 Philippines (high costs) → shifted to less power-intensive, labor-intensive subsectors.

🔍 Why did PH deindustrialize so early?
Our study shows high electricity prices played a big role. ⚡️

Using data from 33 countries (1980–2014) + PH regions (1990–2014), we find that costly power discouraged investment in power-intensive industries.

📍 Journal: Journal of Asian Economics, Vol. 61
🗓️ Date of publication: 16 April 2019
🔗 Read here: doi.org/10.1016/j.as...

[RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT]

📘 Title: The role of power prices in structural transformation: Evidence from the Philippines
👨🏼‍🏫 Authors: Majah Ravago, Arlan Brucal, James Roumasset & JC Punongbayan

💡 Whether you’re a student, policymaker, or fellow social scientist, I hope this interview inspires you as much as it did me.

#EconTwitter #Economics #Philippines #UPSE #SocialScience

🧠 Highlights:
✅ Why you need to learn mainstream economics to critique it
✅ The rise (and limits) of empirical methods in economics
✅ The role of UPSE in shaping Philippine technocracy
✅ Advice for young economists on theory, passion & responsibility

We talk about:
▪️ His years as a student activist
▪️ His mentors, especially José Encarnación Jr.
▪️ His work on trade, economic history, and institutions
▪️ UPSE’s legacy and influence in Philippine policymaking

🔍 What is it about?

This interview traces the intellectual and personal journey of Prof. Emeritus Noel de Dios—from his early Marxist roots to his engagement with neoclassical economics and institutional theory.

📘 Title: Conversations with Social Scientists: Economist Emmanuel S. de Dios, PhD
👨🏼‍🏫 Author: JC Punongbayan (UP School of Economics)
📍 Journal: Social Science Diliman
🗓️ Date: August 2024
🔗 Read here (FREE to download): journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/so...

[RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT]

I had the honor of interviewing one of the country’s foremost economists: UPSE Prof. Emeritus Emmanuel S. de Dios.

🧵We talked about his intellectual journey (including his Marxist roots), the role of UPSE in society, and his advice for young economists.👇

[In This Economy] Trump’s tariff letter to Marcos, annotated Apart from being badly written, the letter reeks of Trump’s economic illiteracy, which is now on the cusp of bringing down the global trading and economic order

My latest Rappler column, an expanded annotation of Trump's 20% tariff letter to President Marcos Jr. Trump's economic illiteracy is bringing down the global economic and trading order.
www.rappler.com/voices/thoug...

🧠 To thrive in the next 50 years, the journal must pivot to more urgent topics (like climate, education, AI, and public finance), embrace the “credibility revolution” in economic methods, and invest in greater public visibility.

🧠 Bottom line:

While the PJD has been a cornerstone of development policy research in the Philippines, it remains undercited and underrecognized.

🔍 The piece identifies the PJD's key strengths—such as its multidisciplinary focus and contributions to trade, agriculture, health, and public economics—as well as key weaknesses, notably low visibility and limited uptake by global indexing services.