Philippine FDI falls 23.9% as Zobel flags investment gaps

Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala used an Oct. 15 Makati Business Club speech to question Philippine competitiveness, as FDI fell 23.9% to $4.071 billion in January-July, Rappler reported in an opinion article Monday.

The decline, cited from a Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas report, sharpens concern that cost and skills gaps could steer factories, data centers and supply-chain projects elsewhere; Philippine power costs were almost 89% above Vietnam’s.

Rappler columnist Val A. Villanueva wrote that Zobel’s remarks amounted to a five-part investment checklist: talent, infrastructure, energy, regulation and institutional stability. Those areas, the column said, are the same conditions multinational companies assess before placing long-term capital.

“The real contest is between the Philippines and everyone else,” Villanueva wrote, arguing that local companies are competing within a wider regional contest for global capital.

The article said the Philippines is not facing an investment drought across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. It said regional peers are drawing capital as supply chains shift, semiconductor networks grow and data centers expand.

Education and energy were presented as the sharper constraints. The column cited the latest Program for International Student Assessment from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, saying 16% of Filipino 15-year-olds reached basic proficiency in mathematics, compared with 72% in Vietnam.

On power, the article cited a March 2026 benchmark for large business users showing Philippine electricity at about $0.153 per kilowatt-hour, compared with $0.119 in Thailand, $0.116 in Malaysia, $0.081 in Vietnam and $0.062 in Indonesia. That put Philippine electricity about 147% above Indonesia’s, according to the article.

Infrastructure offered a more mixed picture. Villanueva cited the World Bank’s latest Logistics Performance Index, saying the Philippines scored 3.3, roughly matching Vietnam, ahead of Indonesia, but below Malaysia and Thailand.

The column also cautioned against reading every signal as investor flight. It said a participant at the Jefferies-Regis Partners Philippines Conference reportedly observed fewer foreign investors than expected in Manila, but added that neither that observation nor the FDI figure proves investors are abandoning the country.

Zobel’s broader point, as presented by Rappler, was that no single conglomerate can solve national weaknesses in education, infrastructure, energy policy or institutional credibility. Villanueva wrote that the Philippines retains advantages including a young population, English-language capability, proximity to Asian supply chains, an established electronics sector and access to ASEAN’s growing market.