“The Philippines is aging like Japan.”

The word for what worries Japan is population ageing. The UN marks the stages by the share of people aged 65 and over: past 7% a country is an 'ageing society', past 14% an 'aged society', and past 21% a 'super-aged' society. Japan, at 29.8%, is the oldest country on earth.

Within ASEAN the shift is real but uneven. Thailand (15.4%) and Singapore (13.7%) are already ageing fast — Thailand grew old before it grew rich, the classic worry. The rest of the region, the Philippines included, is still young.

At 5.5% aged 65+, the Philippines is the second-youngest in ASEAN after Laos, and below even the 7% threshold where ageing is said to begin. Its concern is the opposite of Japan's: a huge young generation to educate and employ — the 'demographic dividend' — not a shrinking workforce supporting a wave of retirees.

That dividend is temporary. The Philippines will age too, just decades later; the policy question is whether it gets rich first, the way Singapore did, or grows old first, the way Thailand is.