Accountancy Department

College of Business & Accountancy

Notre Dame University, Cotabato City

Econ 131 – Economic Development

ASSIGNMENT

Summer 2020

Name: Humphrey Miles M. Tamon Class Schedule: 7:30-9:00 am

Instructor: Prof. Isidro Valensoy

From the statistics provided by the PSA, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by  0.2

percent in the first quarter of 2020. Fourth quarter of 2019 showed GDP of 6.7percent, obviously this

downturn is not ideal. The major economic sectors that were impacted because of this pandemic were the

agriculture, fishing, forestry; and Industry contracted by 0.4 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively. On the

other hand, Services posted a growth of 1.4 percent during the period.

Now, is the declaration of lockdown by the Philippine government a wise choice/decision?

Economically speaking I think we’re messed up given the data provided, but in this pandemic it is

impossible to make risk-free decisions and I believe obsessing over pros and cons of the lockdown is not

really necessary because most of the world are affected. Scientists agreed that the virus primarily

spreads between people via droplets that fly 6 feet through the air when an infected person coughs,

sneezes, or speaks and William Schaffner—an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University,

emphasizes that "The farther away you are, and the shorter duration of contact between you and other

people means you get less efficient virus transmission.. " With these facts, in order to save lives the

pandemic has forced the government to freeze the economic activity in order to avoid large gatherings

because as studied, gatherings of any kind are “super-spreader events”. How this decision affects the

economy? – the statistics provided by the PSA only exemplified that the tradeoff for better health is a
painful global recession, it is clearly evident that as the economy continues to freeze the more people get

jobless, this in turn could lead to poverty and other more related problems. Aside from that, Business

Process Outsourcing (BPO) was delimited in short, the supply chain was somehow disrupted.

What was the Philippines’ pandemic response? – Unfortunately, Philippines is one of the late

countries to follow travel restrictions and the manner was decidedly in a way of militaristic fashion, that is

why the administration’s response were perceived by many as incompetent with militarism. The

Philippines was late in keeping up with the preventive measures of neighboring countries, and the virus

was being underestimated. As to the economy aspect, Philippine economy may lose between P276.3

billion and P2.5 trillion, depending on how the coronavirus pandemic develops in the next few months

according to government think-tanks. Over 2 million employees were displaced during the first five weeks

of the Luzon-wide ECQ wherein about 70% of this were affected by temporary business closures and

30% employees were subject to alternative work arrangements and other more issues. But despite all of

these there are measures actually that the Duterte’s administration provided, the authority launched

P1.17 trillion 4-pillar socioeconomic strategy to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and eventually recover from

it. Pillar 1: Emergency support for vulnerable groups and individuals, Pillar 2: Expanded medical

resources to fight COVID-19 and ensure the safety of frontliners, Pillar 3: Fiscal and monetary actions to

finance emergency initiatives and keep the economy afloat and Pillar 4: An economic recovery plan to

create jobs and sustain growth.

This pandemic is uncertain, most of the countries across the world were new to this virus. For me,

degrading the authority as to their plans and actions won’t help. We as Filipinos can help and share ideas

on how to prepare and recover, let us just cooperate and be obedient as to the rules being implemented

instead of just criticizing. We will heal as one.