Philippines lifts Metro Manila IT ecozone moratorium

MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. lifted a six-year moratorium on new PEZA-accredited information technology (IT) parks and IT centers in Metro Manila, signing Administrative Order (AO) No. 45 — a policy reversal that five Philippine property developers responded to immediately by filing IT park applications with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA).

Executive Secretary Ralph G. Recto signed AO No. 45 on behalf of the President, directing the PEZA Board to accept, process, and evaluate IT park and IT center applications in the National Capital Region for the first time since the Duterte administration imposed the moratorium under AO 18 in 2019.

AO No. 45 supersedes the 2019 ban, opening Metro Manila to new PEZA IT park development

According to a report from BusinessMirror, the five property developers who filed applications immediately: Arca South 1 (Ayala Land) Parqal (Aseana Holdings), The Yuchengco Center (San Lorenzo Ruiz Investment Holdings), Altaire (MJ Landtrade Development Corp.), and One Trium Tower (Triumvariate Development Corp.) — representing the queued development pipeline that AO No. 45 unblocked on signing. AO No. 45 supersedes Duterte’s AO 18, titled “Accelerating Rural Progress Through Robust Development of Special Economic Zones in the Countryside,” which had directed ecozone development toward provincial locations since June 2019.

The market pressure behind the reversal is visible in Colliers Philippines data: Metro Manila had approximately 7.9 million square meters (sqm) of PEZA-accredited office stock as of the first half of 2026, with 1.46 million sqm available for lease — but only 496,000 sqm of available space sat in the preferred central business districts (CBDs) of Makati, Bonifacio Global City (BGC), and Ortigas Center.

Metro Manila’s available PEZA-accredited CBD office inventory — 496,000 sqm across Makati, BGC, and Ortigas — is the supply constraint that AO No. 45 directly addresses, and the five immediate applications confirm that the development pipeline was ready before the policy reversal was announced.

“It’s a big win for IT-BPM and also real estate,” said Cristina Roque, Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry.

Metro Manila captures 70% of IT-BPM transactions as ecozone supply pressure eases

Metro Manila accounted for approximately 70% of all IT-BPM office transactions in the first quarter of 2026, with the remaining 30% distributed across provincial markets — a demand concentration that the six-year moratorium had allowed to outpace supply.

Global capability centers (GCCs), information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) firms, and multinational occupiers have consistently prioritized PEZA-accredited Metro Manila locations for access to deep talent pools, established infrastructure, and transport connectivity that provincial ecozones cannot replicate at equivalent density.

The moratorium on economic zones other than IT parks and IT centers remains in place under AO No. 45, limiting the policy opening to technology and business services while preserving the regional development orientation of the Duterte-era policy across other ecozone categories.

AO No. 45’s targeted scope — IT parks and IT centers only — positions the PEZA reopening as a technology-sector supply intervention rather than a broad ecozone policy reset, preserving provincial development incentives while addressing the Metro Manila IT-BPM office scarcity that has constrained sector growth since 2019.

For BPO operators and IT-BPM companies with Philippine delivery operations, AO No. 45 removes a six-year constraint on Metro Manila expansion capacity — with five new IT park applications already in process and GCC and enterprise IT-BPM demand concentrated in the CBDs where available PEZA space has been tightest.

The moratorium lift signals that the Philippine government views PEZA-accredited Metro Manila supply as a competitive requirement for IT-BPM sector growth in the current AI-investment cycle.

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