Gov’t data: NCR residents lost average of P51,133 in annual income in 2020

MANILA, Philippines—Recession induced by the pandemic in 2020 slashed annual incomes of Metro Manila residents by at least P51,133 after the Philippines’ political and business nerve center suffered one of the biggest drops in gross regional domestic product (GRDP).

Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data released on Thursday (April 29) showed that the National Capital Region’s (NCR) GRDP, or the value of goods and services it produced, fell 10.1 percent to P5.6 trillion in 2020 from P6.2 trillion in 2019. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, NCR’s GRDP rose 7 percent in 2019, a faster pace than the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 6.1 percent that year.

Using 2018 as base year, Paciano Dizon, PSA-NCR regional director, told a press conference that NCR’s GRDP in 2020 declined to levels last seen in 2016 (P5.2 trillion) and 2017 (P5.5 trillion).

Dizon said that besides the pandemic, the eruption of Taal Volcano at the start of 2020 and the typhoons that battered the country before 2020 ended also impaled NCR’s economic performance.

Since Metro Manila and neighboring provinces were worst hit by a surge in COVID-19 cases, the country’s longest and most stringent quarantine measure was enforced that led to millions of job losses nationwide. This contributed to an 11.2 percent annual drop of average full-year income in NCR to P405,399 from P456,532 per resident in 2019.

The lower incomes led to a 9.6-percent reduction in per capita household consumption expenditure in NCR to P216,824 in 2020 compared to the average of P239,835 spent in 2019 by each Metro Manila resident.

On a per region basis, the biggest GRDP decline posted last year was the 13.9-percent contraction in Central Luzon, where annual per capita income slid 15.4 percent—the fastest pace across all regions—to P152,683 from P180,396 per person in 2019.

The second-largest drop in GRDP last year was recorded in Calabarzon with 10.5 percent, where annual per capita income shrank to P157,890 from 2019’s P179,868 per individual.

All of the country’s 17 regions registered GRDP drops in 2020. After Central Luzon, Calabarzon and NCR, three regions posted the fourth-biggest decline of 9.9 percent—Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR), Cagayan Valley, and Central Visayas.

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) had the smallest GRDP contraction in 2020, with only 1.9 percent.

Assistant Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Greg Pineda said the regional economies of NCR, Central Luzon and Calabarzon were mostly interconnected and accounted for the bulk of the national output.

Since these three regions also suffered from the most COVID-19 cases and the strictest lockdowns, it followed that the national GDP was impacted.

The Philippines’ GDP fell by a record 9.6 percent last year—its worst post-war recession.

Dizon and Pineda both pointed to the lower output in NCR’s services and industry sectors in 2020, which inflicted the huge job and income losses.

TSB