MPIC earmarks over P200 billion for capex

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March 24, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) is raising its capital spending this year, setting aside over P200 billion to support and sustain the growth of its business units.

MPIC chief finance, risk and sustainability officer Chaye Cabal-Revilla said this year’s capital expenditures budget would be higher than last year’s P190 billion.

“That’s the budget we approved last year, but given the geopolitical conditions now, we feel that we might need to take a look at our budget again,” Cabal-Revilla  said on the sidelines of the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines sustainability forum yesterday.

“But we really haven’t done that since its seems it is still in the early stages now, so we don’t really know. But as far as we’re concerned, our capex plans are still in the pipeline so we haven’t stopped anything,” she said.

Among the group’s businesses, Cabal-Revilla said Manila Electric Co. would have the biggest capex to finish the company’s solar plants.

She said MPIC has also not adjusted its growth targets for 2026 yet despite the ongoing Middle East conflict.

“We’re in the process of quantifying the impact to us.

We pray that the conflict will end sooner. I think in the next few months we’re still going to be OK since we were able to diversify our supply chain earlier on,” Cabal-Revilla said.

“We’re still sticking to our target, which is double digit growth,” she said.

MPIC chairman, president and CEO Manuel V. Pangilinan earlier said he expects the ongoing conflict in the Middle East to impact the growth of the conglomerate this year.

“I think we will still show some profit growth, although it’s hard to predict because of the Iran situation,” Pangilinan said.

“But I think generally, the group should be  OK. There might be some slowdown in the rate of growth, specially profits, because the impact is not yet felt,” he said.

MPIC saw its core net income climb by 15 percent to P27.1 billion in 2025 from P23.6 billion in 2024, driven by the strong performance of its power, water and health care businesses.

Among MPIC’s core businesses, power contributed the largest share last year at P22.1 billion or 69 percent of net operating income, while water and toll roads contributed P7.2 billion and P6.1 billion, respectively.

Pangilinan said the global environment remains uncertain with ongoing geopolitical conflict in the Middle East and other external pressures affecting energy markets and investor sentiment.

Looking ahead, he said the group’s task remains on growing responsibly while maintaining financial discipline.