The Global Financial Crisis, Vulture Funds, and Chinese Official Development Assistance: Impact on Philippine Infrastructure Development

Abstract

The infrastructure-development program remains the Philippine government’s main hope to lift the economy. Yet in raising capital to finance the infrastructure program, there has to be a higher level of confidence in the ability of the Philippines to follow through with reform that will reduce corruption and political interference. The 2008 global financial crisis materially shifted the focus of equity capital from developed markets to emerging markets and the focus of debt from emerging markets to developed markets. On top of this, recent variants in the capital and debt markets such as vulture funds and Chinese official development assistance (ODA) emerged as white knights or dark knights. These variants need to be in harmony with local economic and good governance practice to maximize the benefits to both the donor/lender/investor and the recipient/debtor/investee parties. This article highlights the experience in the Philippines in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the investment of vulture funds in MRT3 urban rail project bonds, and Chinese bilateral ODA financing in the NorthRail mass transit project.