Last push for recovery: all hands on deck

Now, the hard part begins. After co-signing a joint manifesto of commitment with the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), the government must demonstrate its capacity to deliver the goods: further easing business regulations, completing vital infrastructure projects, and most importantly, improving the management of the pandemic.

ECOP leaders deserve commendation for boldly declaring last June 21 their determination to create one million jobs within the next six months. They discerned the urgency of slowing the economy’s decline. New variants of the coronavirus threatened to bring about another spike in cases even while the government began to ramp up its vaccination efforts.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported last July 1 that the unemployment rate dropped to 7.7 percent in May from 8.7 percent in April. This one percent drop of 410,000 in the ranks of the unemployed was achieved as a result of the easing of quarantine measures and putting more jabs into arms as vaccine supplies increased.