The study aims to explain the uneven trajectory of the Philippine economic development from a political point of view. The focus is on the characteristics of the Philippine state and its impact on the national economic development. The Philippine case suggests that a certain developmental strategy per se is not a sufficient condition for national economic development. The determining factor for economic development is rather the state autonomy and capacity to mobilize internal resources effectively and to create amicable foreign relations, which are the characters of developmental state. In the post‐independence Philippines, a kind of developmental state have emerged, and they achieved a certain degree of economic development. The developmental momenta, however, were interrupted by the changes of the political leadership. It seemed that the short‐lived developmental states of the Philippines succeeded to pick up the national economy temporarily, but failed to institutionalize the mechanism for long‐term development. The ups and downs of the trajectory of the Philippine economic development could be explained by the highly personalized Philippine politics.