The national economy has been on an upswing for the past five years and expanded 7.6% in the first half of 2013 -- a remarkable turnaround for a country once seen as an irredeemable non-achiever. The government targeted gross domestic product (GDP) growth of between 6.0% and 7.0% for the whole year, and now the question is whether that needs to be re-calibrated in the wake of the typhoon damage. The Philippines is no stranger to natural disasters, but Haiyan was in a class of its own, packing some of the strongest winds ever recorded by a storm making landfall. More than 4,000 people were killed, and up to 4.4 million, displaced -- twice the number that lost their homes after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. According to the International Labour Organisation, around 5 million workers -- equivalent to the population of Norway -- had their livelihoods temporarily or permanently destroyed. Risk modelling specialists such as AIR Worldwide have forecast the total economic loss at anywhere between $6.5 billion and $15 billion dollars. The Credit Suisse report said the post-Haiyan reconstruction effort would boost GDP in 2014, and it also forecast a short-term shot in the arm for the country’s current account delivered by a spike in overseas remittances. The amount of money Filipinos living abroad send home every year is equivalent to 10% of GDP and previous disasters have traditionally seen a sharp jump of up to 15% in the size of the remittances. But, even the best-case economic scenario envisages a long, grim struggle for the millions of traumatized victims of Haiyan, for whom silver linings offer little immediate relief. "Beyond the estimates of damage and reconstruction, it is important to consider the intangible losses," said Danilo C. Israel, senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Developmental Studies. "The loss in human lives, the loss of bio-diversity, the destruction of heritage sites, the loss of relationships -- it’s difficult to put a value on these intangibles, which can sometimes have a big impact on economic growth."
