Author: Cielito Habito, Ateneo de Manila University

By all indications, the Philippine economy is already in recession. With last week’s announcement of an insignificant 0.4 per cent first quarter growth in the economy, government statisticians forthrightly described the economy as ‘teetering into recession.’

What they really meant is that based on the technical definition of the word— two consecutive quarters of falling output or negative growth — we are on the way to being officially in one. But how is this so, when the economy’s growth was still reportedly positive?

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