A white paper by the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy said the “analog economy” is a big factor in the Philippines, where actual money and offline transactions still exist.
While NCR has the highest number of households with Internet access (33.2%), the Pulse Asia survey revealed that it is the region that suffers most from intermittent Internet connection (55%) and expensive Internet fees (47%) compared to the rest of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
As a result, face-to-face interactions and analog practices are still pervasive in the country making social distancing economically costly, according to the World Bank-led report "Philippines Digital Economy Report 2020”.
