Poor and vulnerable Filipinos feeling the effects of the Middle East conflict are set to get more support after the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a $1.5-billion loan from its Countercyclical Support Facility. The facility is a crisis financing window open to member countries across the region.
The lender announced the approval on Thursday, September 24. It said the funds will help finance the government’s Unified Package for Livelihoods, Industry, Food and Transport (UPLIFT) program.
“Every week this crisis continues to ask more of people who have little left to give,” ADB President Masato Kanda said.
UPLIFT gives financial relief to low-income Filipinos hit by fuel price increases tied to the conflict. Poor households, public transport operators and drivers, small-scale farmers and fisherfolk can receive fare discounts, fuel and fertilizer subsidies, cash aid, and medical packages under the program.
The ADB said its money will also help the government secure the country’s fuel supply and keep electricity, health services, food and medicine within reach of ordinary families. Part of the financing is set aside for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) coming home.
The conflict affects the Philippines in two ways. The country depends on imports for its fuel and fertilizer, so sudden jumps in world prices hit it hard. The region is also a major employer of Filipino labor. Around 1.1 million OFWs were deployed there in 2025, and their earnings made up about 18 percent of the $35.6 billion in remittances the country received that year.
At home, the Department of Finance has supported suspending excise taxes on liquefied petroleum gas and kerosene as prices rise. It has not made the same recommendation for diesel and gasoline.
The ADB chief continued: “They have a right to expect that the institutions serving them will meet their struggle with equal resolve. With this financing, we are backing the Philippines’ determination to keep its people secure and its future within its own hands.”
The new loan follows an earlier increase in ADB support. In August, as the conflict pushed up the government’s financing needs, the lender added $250 million to the Build Universal Health Care Program Subprogram 3, raising its total to $750 million.
In May, Kanda offered President Marcos $1.75 billion in additional support to help the economy withstand the Middle East tensions.
