Blame Marcos: he had two decades to fix poverty, but decided to loot the country and kill his opponents instead. If he'd focused on it, he'd be remembered like Lee (the model authoritarian IMO) rather than yet another tinpot. He's like Indira Gandhi, another pol who was worshipped by the poor: doing things that actually hurt them in the long run while still getting their votes. On GMA: she's done a good job on the economy at least, even if she had her "Katrina" recently.
Well, Indira at least tried to get votes somewhat honestly; what Marcos did was simply station bought-and-paid-for Constabulary at every polling place to intimidate the voters, and when that didn't work, his cronies simply made up the numbers.
Seriously, though, even with the crapsack economy in the PI, if all the money going to the nuclear program actually went to, say, education, we'd be up there with South Korea. But you know our people - always compensating for something...