Many investors who have followed the Philippines for the last few years have become jaded by the claim that the good times are just around the corner. Administrations have come and gone, coup attempts flourished and failed, and always the sentiment seems to be that the nation's maladies are on the way out. It's being said again. But this time there is cause to look more closely at the claims. To see why the picture looks a bit brighter this time, it's instructive to look at what's wrong with the country and what's being done to put it right. Top of the list, by a distance, is the fiscal situation. In 2004, government debt was equivalent to 79 percent of GDP. Worse, interest payments on that debt accounted for 37.3 percent of all revenues that year (and got worse in 2005)-meaning that more than a third of all incoming money, in a country with between a third and a half of the population below the poverty line, was going straight to debt servicing rather than vital expenditure on infrastructure, education or health.
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