This report critically analyzes the World Bank’s 2025–2031 Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for the Philippines, arguing that despite its rhetoric of development and partnership, the framework serves as a mechanism to deepen the country’s semicolonial and dependent economic structure. By situating the CPF within the historical trajectory of structural adjustment since 1980, the analysis demonstrates that while terminology has evolved—reframing structural conditionality as “policy reform” and state asset privatization as “private capital mobilization”—the underlying economic imperatives remain unchanged.
The study highlights how the CPF’s strategy of “de-risking” prioritizes private capital accumulation over public provision, effectively socializing risks while privatizing public assets across critical sectors, including healthcare, education, transport, and energy. It further examines how the framework’s alignment with US geopolitical interests—such as the Pax Silica initiative—further compromises Philippine sovereignty and agrarian foundations. Ultimately, the paper contends that the CPF’s reliance on debt-driven, export-oriented growth, coupled with the systematic exclusion of workers’ rights and the financialization of the informal economy, ensures that “growth without development” persists. The article concludes by outlining a people-centered counter-agenda focused on national industrialization, genuine agrarian reform, and the protection of public assets against global financial extraction.