The Philippines is again set to receive a grant from the US government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation after being deemed eligible for the MCC's threshold program. 

MCC Chief Executive Officer Alice Albright said the Philippines "stood out" and has improved in several criteria on third party scorecards.

"The Philippines, amongst several other countries, stood out. This country is really on the right path way forward. We’re back here," Albright, the daughter of the late US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, said. 

The MCC is a US foreign assistance agency that helps fight global poverty. The MCC grants are designed to complement with other US and international development programs. There are three types of grants: compacts, threshold programs which are smaller-scale grants that focus on policy and institutional reforms, and the concurrent compacts for regional investment grant.

The MCC last granted a compacts grant to the Philippines in 2010. Compacts are 5-year agreements between MCC and an eligible country and are usually bigger in value than threshold grants. 

The Philippines received P26 billion worth of projects due to the compacts grant, which was used to build a typhoon-resilient road in Samar as well as several community-based projects such as schools. 

The Philippines completed the compacts program in 2016. The MCC, however, did not give any grants to the Philippines during the Duterte administration. 

Albright said the Philippines is currently eligible for a threshold grant. The MCC has yet to specify an amount or project for the grant. 

"There’s some diagnostic work that has to be done very much in partnership with the [Philippine] government, very much together to identify some of the challenges might be and how the threshold can be used,” said Albright, who recently had talks with top Philippine officials including Finance Secretary Ralph Recto and NEDA Secretary Arsenio Balisacan. 

Albright said the MCC reviews many countries from scratch every year, based on third party scorecards, as well as recommendations to the board. There are many factors examined in the scorecards including a country’s human rights record and anti-corruption measures.

"The country’s overall per capita income level, and the second aspect is we have a scorecard that measures three different types of areas. The first one is measure the economy, the second one is investing in people, which is to a large extent health and education, and the third one is aspect of democratic rule," she said.