Traffic and brownouts! NYT paints doom and gloom in the #Philippines as infrastructure gap widens!

The Philippine economy crawls along dragging behind it a monumental infrastructural disability...

"The 2.2 million vehicles a day that grind away on Manila's crumbling road system cost the country 876 billion pesos a year, or more than $20 billion, in lost productivity and wasted energy, according to a recent study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. That is a serious drain on an economy of about $250 billion."

The problem is really bad...

"Infrastructure problems have surpassed corruption as the leading economic obstacle, according to the most recent World Economic Forum competitiveness report, which is based on responses from people doing business in the country. Manila is plagued by power failures, chronic water shortages, an antiquated telecommunications system, deteriorating roads and bridges and a subpar airport."

But there is no relief in sight owing to the political intrigue and infighting in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential elections...

"Richard Javad Heydarian, a foreign affairs and economics lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University, said that although corruption investigations might keep infrastructure funds from being pocketed, they could also paralyze spending.

"'The ensuing political infighting and nonstop investigations could dampen the momentum for sustained infrastructure development,' he said. 'In short, the Aquino administration is confronting mammoth bureaucratic, temporal and political roadblocks in realizing its infrastructure development plans'."

Read the full article on the New York Times website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/business/international/strained-infrastructure-in-philippines-erodes-the-nations-growth-prospects.html