The Philippines retains its stature of being a moderately free economy according to the latest results from the Index of Economic Freedom. The index was the subject of discussion and analysis in the ILS Philippine Performance Report released last February 5, 2016 and was based on the 2016 report provided by the Heritage Foundation.

The Index of Economic Freedom is an annual index and ranking created by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal in 1995 to measure the degree of economic freedom in the world's nations.

For 2016, the Philippine economy, with a score of 63.1, ranked 70th out of 186 countries. This is an improvement from the previous year’s score and rank, 62.2 and 76th place, respectively. In comparison to its neighboring countries, the economy is performing well in terms of economic freedom, having fared better than the average score of economies in the Asia and the Pacific region which is at 59.0.