President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. signed Executive Order No. 121 in late July 2026, formally establishing the Electric Vehicle Incentive Strategy — EVIS — a ₱60 billion fiscal incentive program aimed squarely at a gap the Philippine EV market has had since it started growing: nearly every electric vehicle sold in the country today, from BYD to VinFast to Chery to GWM, is imported, not built domestically. EVIS is designed to change that math, offering manufacturers fiscal incentives specifically tied to local production, with the explicit goal of positioning the Philippines as a regional EV manufacturing hub rather than remaining a pure import destination for vehicles built in China, Vietnam, or elsewhere.
A “Time-Bound, Targeted” Program, Not an Open-Ended Subsidy
The order is structured deliberately as a time-bound, targeted framework rather than a permanent, blanket incentive — a design choice that reflects lessons the Philippines and other Southeast Asian markets have already learned from earlier EV incentive programs elsewhere: open-ended subsidies tend to be expensive, hard to unwind politically once industry gets used to them, and vulnerable to being captured by whichever manufacturers arrive first rather than genuinely building durable local capacity. EVIS instead ties its ₱60 billion in incentives to specific, presumably time-limited commitments from manufacturers to actually build vehicles or components in the country, with the stated aim of narrowing the price gap between EVs and comparable gasoline vehicles — a gap that, in the Philippines as everywhere else, remains the single biggest barrier to mass EV adoption regardless of how many showrooms or charging stations exist.
The Number That Matters Most: A 6-12% Price Cut
Government projections tied to the order estimate EV prices could decline 6% to 12% as a direct result of the incentive structure — a meaningful, real-world-relevant figure, not just a policy talking point. For a market where EV adoption has been growing quickly in percentage terms but still starts from a small base, a double-digit price reduction on the high end would be one of the more direct, structural levers available to accelerate mainstream adoption, more so than incremental charging infrastructure buildout alone (which, as BYD’s own July pivot toward charging investment illustrated, is already recognized industry-wide as the other major bottleneck). The two problems — price and charging access — are being worked on in parallel rather than sequentially, which is itself a meaningful signal about how seriously both government and industry are treating this transition.
Industry Reaction Was Immediate and Positive
Manufacturers already operating in the Philippines responded quickly and favorably. Mitsubishi Motors Philippines welcomed the order as “a significant step toward accelerating vehicle” adoption and local production efforts — a notable reaction from a manufacturer whose Philippine business has historically centered on conventional combustion vehicles and pickup trucks, suggesting EVIS’s incentive structure is compelling enough to shift even legacy, non-EV-focused manufacturers toward considering local electric production. That kind of reaction from an established, mainstream brand — rather than only the newer EV-native entrants like BYD or VinFast — is a genuinely useful early signal that the incentive design is reaching beyond the companies already committed to EVs anyway.
What This Means for Philippine Founders
EVIS is squarely aimed at large-scale vehicle manufacturers, but the ripple effects reach much further into the Philippine startup ecosystem than the incentive program’s own text suggests. A genuine push toward local EV manufacturing — even a partial one — creates real demand for an entire supporting ecosystem: local component suppliers, battery-adjacent manufacturing and assembly, EV maintenance and service networks, software for fleet and charging management, and financing products built specifically around EV ownership economics that look different from conventional auto loans. Founders building in Philippine mobility, cleantech, or industrial supply chains should treat EO 121 as a genuine signal of where government policy attention and manufacturer capital are both heading over the next several years, not just background regulatory news — a ₱60 billion incentive program aimed at building actual manufacturing capacity domestically is a meaningfully larger commitment than the market-access and dealership-expansion stories that have dominated Philippine EV coverage until now. The next few months, as the Department of Trade and Industry works out the specific eligibility rules and application process for manufacturers seeking EVIS incentives, will determine how much of that ₱60 billion actually reaches smaller, Philippine-based suppliers rather than flowing entirely to the large multinational assemblers best positioned to apply first.
Share this article