The Philippines fell to 53rd and last place in the Bloomberg COVID Resilience Ranking.

The Philippines slid three spots from December's report.

'' The Philippines drops to the last of the 53 ranked economies once again, a position it held for three of the five previous months,'' Bloomberg said.

''Difficulties administering vaccines in remote areas continue to be a vulnerability as the country sees an omicron surge worse than other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand,'' said Bloomberg.

Acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles said in a Palace briefing that Bloomberg should have looked at the country's growth rate.

''That is the best indicator, the basis for resilience in any country. In the bottom line, you look at the economic growth of any country,'' said Nograles.

On Thursday, the Philippines grew 5.6 percent, beating the Development Budget Coordinating Committee's forecast of three to five percent.

The report is a gauge to show how far each place is from pre-COVID levels of normalcy. DMS