On 16 June 2026, CRIF brought together leaders from banking, logistics, energy, government, and technology at The Peninsula Manila for CRIF Forum Philippines 2026, the first stop in our CRIF Forum 2026 regional series, which continues across Asia in the months ahead.
The day opened with special remarks from H.E. Davide Giglio, Ambassador of Italy to the Philippines, reflecting on the role of international collaboration in building trusted economic partnerships. Joey Donasco, Managing Director, Philippines, CRIF, then welcomed attendees and framed the forum theme: Empowering Growth with Trusted Data.
Across six sessions, one idea came through consistently: trusted data is not a technical feature. It is a business foundation.
The Philippine Growth Picture and Where the Opportunities Are
Michael L. Ricafort, Chief Economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), opened the programme with a clear-eyed read of where the Philippines stands.
2025 GDP growth sits realistically at 3 to 5%, with 2026 consensus at 5.5 to 6%, partly driven by the pre-election spending cycle building toward the May 2028 presidential elections. On the risk side: inflationary pressures persist (BSP forecasting inflation toward 6.3%), the peso has stabilised but remains sensitive, and El Niño conditions are expected through early 2027, with rice at 9% of the inflation basket already at a 10-month price high. Geopolitically, China-Taiwan tensions and the US-Iran situation continue to cast a shadow over commodity prices and supply chains.
The near-term opportunity Ricafort flagged: Philippine government bonds are now included in the JPMorgan Emerging Market index, and 5-year yields have come down from over 7.5% to around 6.7 to 6.8%. For those willing to move, locking in rates ahead of a potential cycle turn is the call.
Longer term, the structural story remains compelling. The BPO sector generates 2 billion in revenue and employs close to 2 million people. OFW remittances rank fourth globally. Tourism is at 6 million visitors, well below Thailand and Japan at 40 million-plus, suggesting significant room to grow. The Philippines is projected to rise to among the top 15 to 20 economies globally by 2050 to 2075.
AI Adoption: Why 80% of Companies Are Not Seeing Returns
The fireside chat on AI trust featured Pierre Curay, CEO and Co-Founder of Insight Supply Chain Solutions, in conversation with Giorgio Costantino, Executive Director, Global Analytics & Consulting Services, CRIF.
The conversation cut to the heart of a gap most organisations are quietly sitting with roughly 80% of companies globally have introduced generative AI, but 80% of those report no material business impact. Only around 5%, concentrated in telco and tech, are seeing real returns.
Four blockers came up: technology complexity, competitive pressure (AI has become a boardroom-level conversation), regulatory exposure (the EU’s DORA and AI Act are shaping global expectations), and the human factor, including skills gaps and the difficulty of moving from pilots to managing risk at scale.
From the logistics side, Curay shared how Insight Supply Chain Solutions ran AI and manual processes in parallel for three months before trusting the output enough to send purchase orders directly. The ROI was concrete: headcount for repetitive analytical tasks came down from three or four people to one, and tasks like deck-building compressed from half a day to 25 minutes.
The shared conclusion: trustworthy, consistent data is the prerequisite for any AI initiative. Human oversight remains non-negotiable for high-stakes decisions. Agentic AI should augment decision-making, not replace accountability.
Data Readiness: Bridging Strategy and Execution
The first panel of the afternoon, moderated by Kavitha Subramanyam, Multi Country Sales Director, CRIF, brought together practitioners navigating data quality and governance challenges in their own organisations: Andrea Wee, Head of Credit Risk Management Unit, FirstGen Corporation; Rai De Jesus, Vice President, Procurement, PLDT and Chief Procurement Officer, ePLDT; and Jaypee Soliman, Salary and Pension Loans Business Head, CitySavings.
The session explored what it actually takes to turn data strategy into scalable business outcomes. The conversation covered the gaps in data quality, governance, and operational capability that prevent organisations from making the trusted decisions they aspire to, and the practical steps being taken across credit, procurement, and lending to close them.
Cyber Resilience: The Whole Chain Has to Hold
The risk and resilience panel was moderated by Robert Sanchez Paguia, JD, MPM, Division Chief, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC), and featured Sheryll Cando, Chief Risk Officer, PETNET, Inc.; Carlos “Titus” Manuel, President, Philippine Computer Society (PCS); Josh Quinto, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, PayMongo; and Angel Redoble, Chairman and Founding President, Philippine Institute of Cyber Security Professionals (PICSPro).
Third-party vendor risk was identified as a top concern: when a vendor fails, external stakeholders see it as the organisation’s failure, not the vendor’s. Human behaviour remains the critical weak point, with social engineering via SMS phishing, vishing, and QR code scams driving most fraud. A structural challenge specific to the Philippines was also raised: almost all cybersecurity and AI tools are built abroad, leaving technological sovereignty as an open question.
On resilience strategy, the consensus was clear: true resilience requires the entire chain to hold, covering people, technology, vendors, and their vendors. Governance has to be enterprise-wide from the board down. Maturity means being prepared, able to respond, able to recover, and able to bounce back in a stronger position than before.
The panellists also made the case for a different relationship between risk, compliance, and the business. These functions should be partners embedded from project inception, not gatekeepers brought in at the end. Trust, as one panellist put it, is a product feature, not an afterthought.
Beneficial Ownership: Knowing Who You’re Dealing With
Mary Ann Dizon-Rodolfo, National Coordinator, PH-EITI, Department of Finance, took the spotlight to make the case for beneficial ownership transparency as a foundation for sound business decisions.
Beneficial ownership data, meaning who ultimately controls a company, is becoming one of the most critical inputs for decision-making across banking, insurance, investment, and supply chain management. The session explored how the Philippines is advancing its beneficial ownership transparency agenda through PH-EITI and national disclosure frameworks, and what access to better, more reliable ownership data means for organisations seeking to manage risk, strengthen compliance, and build more confident business relationships.
Supply Chains, Geopolitics, and the Limits of Lowest-Cost Logic
The executive session, moderated by Marvin Lorilla, Senior Manager, Regional Sales, CRIF, brought together Joannah Regino, Head of Supply Chain, Meralco Energy, Inc. (MSERV); Gerard Magadia, President, Philippine Institute for Supply Management (PISM) and Vice President & General Manager, Procurement Shared Services, Yuchengco Group of Companies; Ihor Kruchynenko, Chief Risk Officer, Home Credit Philippines; and Erick Chua, Head of Commercial, Grab.
Sourcing strategies are shifting. Lowest-cost logic is giving way to a more comprehensive view: total capability, financial viability, cybersecurity readiness, and sustainability compliance. Philippines-specific pressures compound this, as the archipelago geography creates inter-island logistics disruptions and local vendor requests for upfront payment add a layer of financial risk that procurement teams have to account for.
Kruchynenko shared how macro conditions flow directly into credit portfolios at Home Credit: rising gas prices and inflation are visible across 13 million customer accounts. Natural disasters including volcanic eruptions and earthquakes affect both customers’ ability to repay and partners’ ability to operate. The response has been to use IFRS 9 and BSP frameworks to build forward-looking reserves, not just post-crisis buffers.
Chua shared how Grab monitors driver-partners in real time for daily earnings as a leading credit indicator, combining real-time signals with enough absorptive capacity to manage disruptions that cannot be prevented. Regino and Magadia added the procurement dimension: visibility across the supply chain is no longer a nice-to-have. It is the baseline for resilience.
On trusted data, the session surfaced something important: the trust gap between supply chain partners is rooted in data fragmentation, not just technology. Suppliers guard confidentiality. Lenders demand accuracy. Banks require validation. Data silos are the result. Transparency on how data is sourced, processed, and shared is the non-negotiable baseline. As one panellist put it: the winners will not be those with the most data, but those who move fastest with the right data.
Government’s Case for a Trusted Digital Future
David Almirol, Undersecretary for e-Government, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), closed the forum with a keynote on how connected government infrastructure is becoming a foundation for inclusive growth.
He opened with a scenario that made the stakes immediate: a mother in a remote village needing to register a newborn, claim a health benefit, and open a savings account. Today that requires days of travel and redundant forms. With interoperable systems and a trusted digital national ID, all three could be done in a single visit or from her phone. “That single change,” he said, “restores time, dignity, and opportunity.”
The Philippine Government Interoperability Framework (PGIF v0.0) is set to publish imminently, establishing harmonised standards for all government ICT systems and enabling whole-of-government data sharing. Republic Act 12254, the e-Governance Act, was signed in September 2025. The GovPH super app now integrates over 1,000 government services and has generated over 1 million in value within two years of launch, with the e-Travel system cited as a proof point many attendees have already experienced firsthand.
Across six sessions and a full day of conversation at The Peninsula Manila, a few things became clear.
Organisations that are building well are not waiting for perfect conditions. They are investing in visibility into their supply chains, their vendor ecosystems, and their customer portfolios, and they are building the data infrastructure that makes fast, informed decisions possible.
They are also treating trust not as a compliance outcome but as a design principle. In AI, in credit, in cybersecurity, in government services, trust is built before it is needed, not retrofitted after the fact.
Thank you to every speaker, moderator, panellist, and attendee who made CRIF Forum Philippines 2026 a success. These are the conversations that move things forward.
