Despite the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Philippines still has the potential to become an economic powerhouse especially if it is able to take full advantage of its resources and make a mark in the global marketplace, Senator Sonny Angara said on Wednesday.

Angara made the projection in his lecture before graduate students of the Public Policy Program of Stanford University, highlighting how the Philippines managed to jump 10 spots in the Economic Complexity Index (ECI) from 45th in 2008 to number 35th in 2018.

The senator pointed out the Philippines ranking in the ECI is not bad, considering that the ranking places the country 4th in ASEAN behind only Singapore (5th), Thailand (22nd), and Malaysia (26th), and ahead of countries like Canada (39th), India (42nd), and New Zealand (54th).

“We’re recognized as a regional leader, suggesting that we must have been doing something right,” Angara said during the online colloquium.

ECI, which is part of the Atlas of Economic Complexity developed by Harvard University’s Ricardo Hausmann and MIT’s Cesar Hidalgo, primarily outlines the productive capabilities of a country based mainly on what it is exporting.

Countries that are able to produce more diverse, complex and uncommon products will score higher in the ECI and consequently, grow at a faster pace than those with a smaller export basket, including rich nations that rely heavily on their natural resources such as oil.

Though the Philippines has made significant strides in terms of economic complexity, the senator admitted the Philippines still has a long way to go before it can reach the level of productivity and growth that would result to better opportunities and prosperity for Filipinos.

For instance, Angara said one of the biggest challenges that the Philippine government has to resolve is how to keep its skilled workforce from going overseas.

“In the case of the Philippines, our domestic capability is bleeding out because our biggest export is in fact our people. It is said that there are at least 10 million Filipinos working overseas primarily because job opportunities at home are scarce or not lucrative enough to earn a decent living,” Angara explained during the virtual symposium.

Angara said this is why he came up with a “Tatak Pinoy” initiative in the middle of 2019 to find ways to help Filipino industries and professionals become more globally competitive.

Lawmakers, he said, envisioned that through this initiative, the Philippines may eventually produce and export more of its own complex, high-value products and services; encourage more foreign and domestic investments and create more job opportunities at home for Filipinos, “so they don’t have to leave anymore for greener pastures abroad.”

“The main way we want to achieve this is by linking economic actors—from both the public and private sectors—that could help each other in order to build a “social network” of stakeholders that share in the objective,” he stressed.

However, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic became the biggest challenge to this ingenuity. Angara pointed out some of the budgets initially set for “Tatak Pinoy” initiatives needed to be redirected to the government’s COVID-19 response and the purchase of much-needed vaccines.

Nevertheless, the lawmaker said he is confident this setback is nothing but a momentary pause: “And we have all the intentions to go back to high gear once things get back to normal.”

“In fact, the pandemic is proving to be a rallying point of sorts, as it underscored that the country needs to expand its domestic capabilities to make more things, including critical items like PPEs, ventilators, testing kits, disinfectants, and even vaccines,” Angara said.