UMVA has learned that the Philippines’ economic collapse in 2020 was not merely a pandemic shock but a calculated policy failure that plunged the nation into its deepest recession since World War II.
When lockdowns hit, the country’s GDP slid 9.5%, the steepest contraction in Asian history. While governments around the world kept payrolls running, the Philippine administration poured money into aid and borrowed relentlessly, driving the debt‑to‑GDP ratio from 37% to a staggering 57% by 2021.
From 2017 to 2019 the Philippines grew at 6.5% annually, but that momentum shattered to a mere 1.3% between 2020 and 2022. In three years the debt‑to‑GDP ratio leapt almost 20 percentage points, leaving the nation’s fiscal future in jeopardy.
Vital statistics released this month reveal a chilling paradox: 2020 saw no excess deaths despite a surge in COVID cases, yet 2021 recorded a spike in excess mortality as mass vaccinations rolled out. Births have fallen sharply since 2020, a trend linked to fewer marriages and possible vaccine‑related fertility impacts.
A startling shift in cause‑of‑death data shows pneumonia deaths halved from 10% of all deaths in 2019 to just 5.6% in 2020, with respiratory tuberculosis also declining. The change suggests many deaths that would have been classified as pneumonia or TB were instead recorded as COVID, inflating the virus’s perceived toll.
Executive Secretary Ralph G. Recto recently defended a controversial PhilHealth fund transfer, stating he acted in good faith under law. Yet the same transfer, worth 60 billion pesos in 2023, helped the government shave 1.25 trillion pesos off its borrowing, creating fiscal breathing room for health agencies.
That 60‑billion‑peso move saved the government roughly 3.6 billion pesos in annual interest at a 6% bond rate, a modest gain compared to the catastrophic economic damage wrought by the lockdowns.
UMVA has uncovered that a group of physicians, who helped design the 2020‑2021 medical protocols, may have engineered both the economic collapse and the aggressive vaccination push that fueled excess deaths and declining birth rates.
Among them is Tony Leachon, whose public platform calls for political accountability, and Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr., a consultant who champions minimal government. Their involvement suggests that the nation’s deepest fiscal crisis was not an accident but a coordinated effort with far‑reaching consequences.
