Earlier today, the investor relations office of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Department of Finance convened what was described to participants as a three-hour “Big Bold Reforms” forum for investors.
The media, however, was barred from covering it.
The guest list was notable. Present were some of the country’s most influential business figures, including Sabin Aboitiz, Teresita Sy-Coson, and Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala. Conspicuously absent was Ramon Ang, a fact that did not go unnoticed among attendees.
The questions posed during the forum were, by all accounts, straightforward and familiar to anyone who has followed the Philippines’ economic reform narrative over the past two years.
How can the private sector work more closely with the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.to attract greater foreign direct investment?
Beyond CREATE MORE and the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises reforms, what additional measures does the private sector believe are necessary to make the Philippines more competitive?
And most critically: what single action would most decisively restore investor confidence?
These are not new questions. What appears to be new is the context in which they are now being asked—and the urgency behind them.
Sources familiar with the discussions say that only a week earlier, the President—known within business circles as “Bonget”—met privately with many of the same tycoons to discuss the economy. According to these sources, the briefing went beyond macroeconomic indicators. The President reportedly outlined the current political situation, including what he described as continuing destabilization efforts by anti-government elements.
The response from the business side was direct and unusually blunt.
The tycoons, the sources said, told the President that the political impasse had to end. Not to be managed. Not to be deferred. Ended.
Their message was not hedged with conditions or softened with diplomatic language. They urged the administration to go after the “big fish” implicated in ongoing scandals and to send all of them to jail. The ask, as it was described to this writer, was unconditional.
That moment matters more than the list of reforms discussed at the forum.
For years, Philippine economic policy has been framed around incentives, tax rationalization, and regulatory streamlining. These matter and the reforms passed under this administration have been welcomed by investors. But what today’s closed-door gathering—and last week’s private meeting—suggest is that incentives alone are no longer the binding constraint.
The economy, in the view of those who actually move capital, has already absorbed a significant shock from unresolved scandals and prolonged political uncertainty.
Investor confidence does not collapse all at once. It erodes. It erodes when enforcement appears selective. When accountability is delayed. When everyone in the room knows who the central figures are, but sees no consequences follow.
If the administration fails to act decisively against those widely perceived as responsible for systemic wrongdoing, the implications extend well beyond headlines.
First, capital becomes cautious. Not necessarily hostile, but hesitant. Projects are slowed. Commitments are structured to minimize exposure. Long-term bets are postponed.
Second, reforms lose credibility. Laws like CREATE MORE and CMEPA are designed to signal seriousness. But when governance failures go unaddressed, those signals weaken. Investors begin to discount reform promises against political risk.
Third, inequality hardens. When elites appear untouchable, the cost of instability is borne elsewhere—by workers facing fewer job opportunities, by consumers paying higher prices, by communities waiting for investments that never arrive.
Finally, the administration’s own room to maneuver shrinks. Each unresolved scandal narrows the space for persuasion, making future reform efforts harder, not easier, to sell.
The decision to exclude media from today’s forum may have been motivated by a desire for candor. But transparency is not merely about who is in the room. It is about whether what is said there is eventually matched by action.
Investors, contrary to popular belief, are not allergic to risk. They are allergic to ambiguity—especially when it is political, prolonged, and unresolved.
The message delivered to the President, according to those present, was unmistakable: restore accountability, or accept that confidence will continue to bleed.
What happens next will determine whether today’s “Big Bold Reforms” forum is remembered as a turning point—or as another private conversation that failed to change the public record.
And that, ultimately, is what markets will be watching.