In the early days of the new administration, President Marcos, Jr. and his cabinet are hitting the ground running. I am encouraged to see that among the top priorities are food resiliency and education. I am also encouraged by the attention to fiscal prudence. The economic team is likewise all hands on deck with efforts to slay inflation while keeping the economic recovery on track. The optimism of Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno about GDP – despite elevated inflation – is encouraging. He acknowledges that there is still adequate fiscal space for government to achieve its growth targets. Meantime, unemployment is starting to rear its ugly head, inflation has risen to 6.1%, the Philippine Peso has breached P56.00 to the United States Dollar and COVID cases are showing signs of rising. I believe that the government is doing reasonably well to get itself up firmly on its two feet. With so many moving parts, they need to settle the urgent issues while keeping an eye on mid-term strategic initiatives. It’s not easy, though, given the seemingly pressing needs of the country on almost all fronts – economic and social. The last thing the government needs is another armchair coach to tell them what to do. I am certain that there are enough well-meaning parties who are proffering advise – solicited or otherwise. So I will offer an aspiration instead: to step up regional development. The COVID pandemic exposed the soft underbelly of urbanization. As per the 2020 census, Metro Manila is home to about 13.5 million people. The daytime population swells significantly with people from nearby provinces and cities flowing into the region for work. During the pandemic, community transmission of the Covid-19 virus was difficult to contain due to the very high population density. Health care resources and facilities were stretched beyond its limits. Social distancing in public spaces was difficult to realize and mass transport capacity was impaired due to the need to keep one to two meters distance between passengers. With Metro Manila as ground zero for Covid, the impact to the economy was significant due to the concentration of industry in the urban region. Job losses were widespread as quarantine protocols were intermittently imposed. The drop in GDP was severe due to business closures and the restrictions on mobility. As provincial areas re-opened their local economies due to a decline in COVID cases, national economic recovery was retarded due to the National Capital Region (NCR) remaining under quarantine restrictions. Clearly, the concentration of industry and jobs in Metro Manila and the accompanying population congestion exposes the national economy to high levels of dislocation in the event of any crisis.Business continuity plans are region-bound and, therefore, largely inadequate. If there is one reflection from the pandemic that should infuse the new normal, it should be that we need to disperse economic activity outside of the NCR. Coincidentally, the implementation of the Mandanas Ruling of the Supreme Court this year could be a key enabler of regionalization. The ruling transfers an increased share of national government tax revenues to local governments. This can potentially allow Local Government Units (LGU) to invest more in the development of infrastructure that would encourage businesses to locate or relocate outside the NCR. In particular, LGU’s can enhance power, water and digital utilities that are essential to any business. This is on top of road and sea networks, of course, that assure accessibility and an efficient logistics supply chain. In a statement last June, 2021,Ndiame Diop, World Bank Country Director from Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand said, “We look at the implementation of the Mandanas Ruling not just as a transfer of resources but an opportunity to strengthen decentralization and improve social service delivery in the Philippines.” Another key enabler of regionalization is the government’s build-build-build program. It has been sustained for almost three administrations already and was identified as a key policy of the new government. Being able to connect the many islands of the Philippines is vital to assuring farm-to-market access. This will also be supplemented by the advent of motorization in the country which is essential to the free flow of labor, resources and goods. The previous administration issued as one of its post-pandemic goals the promotion of regional development. It seems, though, that this initiative was not able to get off the ground due to the protracted pandemic and was, eventually, overtaken by the elections. I am extremely hopeful that this is something that the Marcos administration will not abandon and will, rather, pursue with more vigor. For comments: [email protected]