Ayuda helped mitigate the unemployment shock in April last year but this dropped to just token amounts afterwards despite millions still being unemployed and in desperate need of assistance.

Endless lockdowns and lack of fiscal stimulus caused the Philippines to have the lowest employment rates in Southeast Asia. The government hasn’t learned and this is still our problem.

Things were bad for the economy even before the pandemic with the Duterte watch seeing the worst job generation of six administrations in the post-Marcos era. Poor pandemic response just made things even worse.