FOR a number of reasons, 2023 was a period of outstanding progress for the Philippines. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. marked his first full year in office in the middle of that year. The Covid-19 pandemic emergency — although the country had long recovered from it — was officially declared at an end worldwide. Economic growth for the year reached an admirable 5.6 percent, making the Philippines one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. Inflation, a serious concern at the beginning of the year, steadily improved as the months passed, helped by sound monetary policy and good fiscal management. The progress of the country, overall, was reflected in business results as well, with most of the Philippines’ top companies reporting strong revenues and healthy profits.

As 2023 progressed, it became clear that the Philippines was working steadily on building resilience for an uncertain future of significant political changes around the world, technological disruptors and, of course, a deepening climate crisis, which cost the country more than half a trillion pesos in 2023 in spending for adaptation, mitigation and calamity recovery efforts. In the next few years, the country will likely look back to 2023 as the year that “future-proofed” the Philippines and made its continuing progress possible.

The number of statistics and insights from the banner year of 2023 is seen with the benefit of hindsight. The greater, more rewarding challenge facing fiscal managers and captains of industry would be to predict economic health and wellness for the next three to five years. By plotting growth and risk factors through data science analytics and geopolitical analysis, the public and private sectors would better discern strategies for economic agility and resilience. To look into the future of macro- and microeconomic systems would enable policymakers to calibrate through the lens of the Philippine Development Plan 2023 to 2028, wherein digital transformation is seen to be in full swing by the end of the period, increasingly powered by renewable energy as the country moves toward meeting the target mix of 35 percent by 2030.

The Philippines’ top enterprises

As has become standard, “The Manila Times 500 and the Next 500” (TMT500) rankings are based on total revenue. Additional rankings, according to total net income and percentage gains in revenue and income, are also provided, as they have been in past editions.

Among the top 20 companies in the Philippines, there has been little change in the rankings from 2024 with 18 companies remaining in this august group for the second year in a row, and the top six places being unchanged from 2024. This year’s ranking does welcome two newcomers to the top 20, however; those being BDO Unibank Inc. (BDO) and subsidiaries, moving up to 14th place this year from 28th place last year, and Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. (Toyota), which advanced from 21st place last year to 17th place in this year’s rankings. Both companies progressed on the back of impressive revenue growth; BDO’s P240.2 billion in revenues was an increase of 42 percent from a year earlier while Toyota logged a nearly 25-percent increase in revenues to P214.1 billion.

BDO and Toyota gained their top 20 spots at the expense of Puregold Price Club Inc. and subsidiaries, which despite posting a respectable revenue growth of 8 percent to just over P199 billion, still slipped two spots to 21st place in the rankings. San Miguel Global Power Holdings Corp. also fell from the top 20, dropping from 13th to 28th place on the back of a 23.4 percent contraction in its revenues; this was, in part, an unavoidable consequence of volatile fuel prices throughout the year — something that, unfortunately, may be an ongoing problem with armed conflict spreading in the Middle East.

While San Miguel’s energy concern may not have had the best year, the total revenue leader and the topnotcher in this year’s rankings — as has been the case for the past several years — is, once again, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and its subsidiaries. San Miguel’s total revenue actually slipped by nearly 4 percent to P1.447 trillion versus P1.507 trillion the previous year, but SMC experienced outstanding growth in its net income, which expanded by just over 67 percent to reach P44.7 billion. As a leader in the food and beverage sector, transportation infrastructure, energy and packaging as well as other sectors, it is not unreasonable to say, as we have noted in previous years, that as SMC goes, so goes the Philippine economy, simply because of the company’s sheer size and reach.

In second place, and for the second year in a row the only other company besides San Miguel Corp. to have revenues exceeding P1 trillion was Top Frontier Investment Holdings Inc. Top Frontier is a mystery to most people, as the Ramon S. Ang-chaired holding company takes a background role in most of interests, the largest being SMC, where Top Frontier owns about 66 percent of SMC’s common stock. The company also has a majority interest in Clariden Holdings Inc., which has extensive investments in the mining industry.

Rounding out the top three spots was Petron Corp. and subsidiaries, whose P801 billion in revenues was 6.6 percent lower than the previous year but which also enjoyed a significant growth in net income, gaining 51.3 percent to P10.1 billion. In fourth place was perennial strong performer SM Investments Corp. and subsidiaries, which saw its total revenues grow by a robust 11.4 percent to reach P616.3 billion. In fifth place in the rankings, for the second year in a row, was the Manila Electric Co. Inc. or Meralco and its subsidiaries, the nation’s largest electricity distributor, which grew its revenues by a modest — but still respectable — 4 percent to reach P443 billion.

Among other noteworthy performers in this year’s rankings were the government-owned Government Service Insurance System or GSIS and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. or PhilHealth, which gained the seventh and 15th spots in the top 20, respectively. This can be taken as a healthy indication that the state-run pension and insurance funds are on solid ground. Among companies besides those already mentioned that had outstanding growth in their businesses during the year are three of the country’s biggest banks: Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. Inc. or Metrobank, whose revenues grew by just over 50 percent year-on-year to P153.6 billion; Bank of the Philippine Islands or BPI, which saw a nearly 41-percent increase to P145.6 billion; and government-owned Land Bank of the Philippines, which increased its revenues by 34 percent to P125.8 billion.

The fact that the Philippines’ biggest companies can maintain consistent strength through an ever-changing economic environment, particularly in a period of heightened uncertainty, is reassuring. These are the companies that are behind the dry statistics that are used to measure the health of the overall economy; the giants on whose shoulders the country stands.