![“Panimula pa lang naman po ito because they had a very limited period of time given to them by the President, [which was] 30 days,” Roque said Tuesday. “Magpapatuloy pa po ang imbestigasyon ng DOJ at ng Ombudsman.”/PN](https://www.panaynews.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/says-Palace-spokesman-Harry-Roque-696x464.jpg "Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. is glad to announce du")
MANILA – The full weight of lockdowns due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic pushed Philippine’s economy to plunge by much more than expected in the second quarter, falling into recession for the first time in 29 years, according to Malacañang.
The country’s economy shrank by 16.5 percent in April-June from the same period last year – the biggest slump in the government’s quarterly GDP data dating back to 1981, the Philippine Statistics Authority said on Thursday.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, however, remained optimistic that the country can recover soon. He pointed out that COVID-19 also has adverse economic impact on countries like Singapore, Indonesia, United States, France, Spain and Mexico.
“Our resolve to recover at the soonest possible remains strong,” Roque said. “The economic managers of the Administration have put together a phased and adaptive economic recovery program to create jobs.”
Among the economic recovery programs of the administration were the Philippine Program for Recovery with Equity and Solidarity to fight the pandemic’s effects on business and livelihood and the restarted Build, Build, Build programs.
“The main contributors in our drop were the decline in manufacturing, construction, and transportation and storage – sectors that were greatly affected by our strict lockdown,” Roque said.
“We expect an improvement in the performance of these sectors during the second semester of the year, with our gradual reopening of the economy, as well as our proposed stimulus measures,” he added.
The Palace has also urged Congress to fast track the passage of Bayanihan II, or the Bayanihan to Recover As One, as well as the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises or CREATE Act to help businesses recover and generate employment for our people.
Based on the report of Philippine Statistics Authority on Thursday, the Philippine economy shrank by 16.5 percent in April-June, which is the country’s worst performance on record based on the available data since 1981.
A “technical recession” is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP but is mainly caused by an isolated event – in this case a pandemic – rather than an underlying economic problem./PN
