Science and statistics at work. Criteria used:
1. macroeconomic stability
2. political maturity
3. openness of trade and investment policies
4. quality of education
While I highly doubt #2, the others are good indicators. Even if the actual real-world results prove to be false, one must not forget that this is just a product of "plugging in the numbers" to a statistical formula to arrive at a result. Since most of the time, statistics DOES work, I'm inclined to say that, barring any major economic failure, or natural disaster, inclusion of the Philippines (based on those criteria) into the list is valid.
-RODION