Forensic Accounting: Hidden Balance of Payments of the Philippines

An examination of the available data between 1990 and 2005 reveals that the balance of payments of the Philippines does not record large amounts of international transactions. Unrecorded international transactions for this period amount to US $192 billion (in 1995 U.S. dollars). The results suggest a serious problem in the government’s macroeconomic management of the Philippines, and expose a weak or weakening capacity in the governance of international transactions.Edsel Beja, Jr. is a PERI Research Scholar. He is Deputy Director of the Ateneo Center for Economics Research and Development, and Assistant Professor at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.