IN early 2023, the governments of Indonesia and Thailand submitted their application for their countries' membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of 38 mostly high-income countries that account for about 50 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP). Those applications were accepted, and news in the past couple of weeks indicates that the accession process is advancing quickly. While this is great news for Indonesia and Thailand, the development also has significant implications for the Philippines and the rest of the region.