As many as 23,000 cops are to be deployed for security during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address on July 22. Maj. Gen. Jose Nartatez Jr., the chief of the National Capital Region Police Office, rejects criticisms of “overkill.” He mentions a number of protesters; it’s uncertain if the number includes those who will attend the rally called by former president Rodrigo Duterte at Liwasang Bonifacio.

The number of cops is 1,000 more than what was initially planned, which may lead the curious to wonder if the increase had anything to do with the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, now formally the US Republican Party’s candidate for Potus, or Vice President Sara Duterte’s announcement of her absence at the Sona and her assignment of herself as the “designated survivor.” 

In the face of backlash generated by that provocative term, Duterte has described her announcement as neither joke (biro) nor threat (banta)—yet another instance of vague repartee, whether her own or formulated by her comms team, that portrays her as flippant and ultimately unhelpful.

Whatever, the President will deliver his third Sona with plenty on his plate, much of it, including lowered trust and approval ratings, worrisome to Malacañang. He has a lot of things to say and is concerned that the speech might be too long, he said in a TV news clip on Friday while visiting parts north to inaugurate agri projects and to distribute “ayuda” of close to P500 million to sectors hit hard by El Niño. 

Whether lengthy or brief, his Sona is eagerly awaited (in a manner that perhaps his predecessor’s profanity-rich annual reports were not). Many of those tuned in will be basing future actions according to what they will hear from him, such as the leading lights of about 50 medical and health care organizations who informed the public in a press conference on Friday of their intent to take their case to the Supreme Court if he ignores their plea—the intense Filipino term “nagsusumamo” was used—to disallow the transfer of PhilHealth’s “excess funds” of P899 billion to the national treasury. They said only he, the President, can override the Department of Finance on the fund transfer that, they emphasized, counters the Universal Health Care Act, and against which certain economists have earlier sounded alarm bells. 

Economics

Is there ground for Mr. Marcos to expect a well-received Sona? The fact is that current economics provides inhospitable terrain for any planned glowing report by him, with, among other things, labor justly insulted by the proposed P35 minimum wage increase in Metro Manila, jeepney drivers and operators still at odds with, or plainly unable to afford the attendant costs of, the government’s jeepney modernization program, and specific health care frontliners in the battle against Covid-19 still awaiting their health emergency allowances after all these years.

In June, Pulse Asia recorded high inflation as the paramount factor troubling most Filipinos. As much as 72% said controlling inflation requires the government’s “immediate” attention, followed by increasing workers’ wages (44%), reducing poverty (32%), creating more jobs (30%), fighting government corruption (22%), and easing involuntary hunger (20%).

“Controlling the spiraling prices of basic commodities” is “the only issue, out of 17, that is considered an urgent national concern by the majority of the country’s adult population,” Pulse Asia said. Indeed, the ever-rising costs of food, fuel and utilities—and everything else down the line—are top of mind because grounded in reality, making, for example, “the nouveau poor” no longer just a cute turn of phrase among a cluster of the middle class slowly losing their toehold on a particular way of life, but a critical mass. 

Where are “the nouveau poor” reflected in the surveys? In June, the Social Weather Stations recorded 58% of Filipino families rating themselves as Poor (mahirap)—up by12 points from 46% in March (the SWS’s Mahar Mangahas wrote in his Saturday column in the Inquirer that “so large a jump is not a sampling blip”). The Not Poor (hindi mahirap) was 30%, and the Borderline was 12%. 

Mangahas discussed the reality of the three categories and the necessity of “repeated quantitative monitoring” to understand the dynamics of poverty. “Over the past four decades, the largest group has generally been the Poor, the middle-sized has been the Borderline, and the smallest has been the Not Poor. With more analysis of the data, how can this order be reversed?” he wrote.

Beyond the numbers, how can impoverishment be reversed, with huge amounts of public funds lost to graft-ridden government projects and official theft, and drought and monsoon rains alternately devastating agricultural lands north and south and plunging farmers deeper in debt? “Ayuda”—the state distribution of which is constantly aired, with the receivers invariably shown in postures of gratitude as though accepting largesse from private donors—can only go so far. 

Actual benefits 

Yet a glowing Sona—one that conveys sensible action plans and actual benefits for sectors in dire need, making it truly deserving of the rounds of applause commonly interrupting it, and not one filled with, say, “misleading claims and falsehoods,” as Trump’s nomination-acceptance speech was described on CNN—is within the realm of the possible. 

Think of what P125 million in confidential funds, the sort awarded to agencies not even in need of them and spent with impunity within days, could have done for the training and increased salaries of public school teachers who carry the formidable responsibility of educating generations of Filipinos. Imagine, in another time, what the P12 billion paid by the government to Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. for shoddy and overpriced Covid-19 supplies, could have done to construct and staff public hospitals in the remote regions; or conceive of the intensive training of Filipino athletes that could have been subsidized by the P50-million “Olympic cauldron” produced in 2019 under the aegis of the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee led by then Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano.

Filipinos were doubtless reminded of the cauldron touted as a priceless work of art, and other things besides, when Cayetano, now senator and chair of the Senate committee on accounts, launched a hearing early in July on the purported P23-billion cost of the new Senate building. He had the crust to tell the latecomer Sen. Nancy Binay, his predecessor in the committee, that they were in the Senate and not a wet market. It came across more vividly in Filipino—Senado ito, hindi palengke, he said, suggesting that the chamber deserved better, classier, behavior than what she was displaying. 

But he appeared like a palengkero himself: raising his voice and dispensing accusations of rumor-mongering and of supplying reporters with planted questions. He actually called Binay crazy when she, apparently feeling that she had made her point, walked out. (In the startling exchange captured on cam and aired in TV news loops, Sen. Robinhood Padilla—whose spouse once thought nothing of using the Senate building in the conduct of her beauty protocols, even posting one such activity online—was seen stolidly watching his colleagues and chewing on his lunch.)

Binay has since filed an ethics complaint against Cayetano; he has since issued a general apology for his behavior. Former senator Panfilo Lacson, who chaired the committee on accounts during his term, lamented that the heated exchange had wrongly suggested to the public another case of abuse of public funds. That may be so. It also called to mind that in other times, separately, Binay’s family members and Cayetano himself were embroiled in issues concerning the questionable use of taxpayer money. (Another point of recall was Cayetano reneging on an agreement over a shared speakership in the House. But his striking performance alongside Mr. Marcos in a 2016 vice presidential debate that touched on government corruption and the Marcos hidden wealth likewise momentarily surfaced. Memory bites.)

P6-trillion budget 

The President is expected to defend the P6.352-trillion budget for 2025 and his administration’s spending priorities, including food security, health care, digital connectivity, etc. The record-high figure is said to reflect the planned bigger budget allocation for local government units and the additional funding requirements for the midterm elections. The expenses for a modernized military including, crucially, the Navy and Coast Guard front-lining the country’s defense of its sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone comprise information not to be missed.

Also of critical attention is the issue of the Philippines’ external debt, which stood at a frightening high of US$128.7 billion in March, and the corresponding debt service.

The sale to low-income families of stock rice at P29/kilo in Kadiwa stores in the metro has been constantly in the news, with authorities announcing plans for its extension, and still lower prices of the staple, in other areas nationwide. The gut issue of rice is a cinch for Mr. Marcos’ Sona, highlighting as it does a seeming path toward fulfilling his campaign promise of rice at P20/kilo, while burnishing the Kadiwa brand, a pillar of his father’s authoritarian regime. A reduction in the rice tariff has allowed the influx of imported rice, suggesting abundance amid difficulty and want. Barely known to the general public is that farmer groups are opposed to the tariff cut that, they argue, will hurt both local producers and consumers and deprive the government of revenues. They have sought the Supreme Court’s intervention. 

Then there are the Pogos, or Philippine offshore gaming operators, lately exposed as startling emblems of power and influence. The President has all this time been mum on whether he considers them boon (for the money they bring) or bane (for the accompanying high crimes and sleaze and the general danger, to speak nothing of the disrepute, they pose to the republic). The call that they be banished from Philippine shores grows ever louder, but it’s uncertain if, in the din of the coming election year, he can hear.

Read more: Sara Duterte’s breakaway

Firm stance on sea row, total ban on POGOs sought

By Isa Jane Acabal

Civil society groups are calling on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to respond strongly to the West Philippine Sea (WPS) conflict and totally ban Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) in his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, July 22.

“At present, [Chinese} aggression still continues and is even intensifying, and this affects the lives and safety of our fishermen,” Chloe Ong, Liberal Party Youth representative, said in Filipino.

Ong spoke with other co-convenors of Tindig Pilipinas during the coalition’s press conference on July 18. She urged Marcos Jr. to take a firm stance in asserting the Philippines’ rights over the WPS within its 370-kilometer (200-nautical-mille) exclusive economic zone.

Khylla Meneses, secretary general of Akbayan Youth, challenged the President and namesake of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos to declare the total ban on POGOs in the country.

“Let Duterte, Harry Roque and Mayor Alice Guo be held liable for the abduction and trafficking of women like us),” Meneses said in Filipino.

Duterte allowed the proliferation of online gambling operations during his term, while Roque was believed to have acted as counsel to some POGO operators. Guo is under Senate investigation into the raid of a POGO complex in her hometown, as well as reports of abduction and human trafficking there.

Business groups

Earlier, the Makati Business Club (MBC) issued a joint statement with other groups saying that POGOs had contributed little to the economy compared to their social costs. They also cited their involvement in human trafficking, kidnapping, and money laundering.

“The crimes related to POGO investments can hinder growth, affect investor perception, and potentially affect our bilateral and multilateral relations,” the statement said.

Other signatories were the Alyansa Agrikultura, Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, Foundation for Economic Freedom, Institute of Corporate Directors, Justice Reform Initiative, Management Association of the Philippines, and the University of the Philippines’ School of Economics Alumni Association.

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) supported the closing of POGOs but cautioned that abrupt closure could lead to job losses and disrupt related businesses.

“We call on Pagcor (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.) and other government agencies involved in regulating POGO operations … to carefully review the mandates from licenses, work licenses and tax obligations of the POGO operators,” said PCCI President Consul Enunina V. Mangio.

Education reforms

Mathew Silverio of Youth Resist, another Tindig Pilipinas convenor, appealed to Marcos Jr. and Department of Education Secretary Sonny Angara not to disappoint Filipino students and act to stem the education crisis.

“More classrooms and [educational] infrastructures. And utilities in Gida (geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas), adequate salaries for teachers, and upholding of rights of students,” he said in Filipino. 

Silverio reiterated his group’s call to reform the K-12 curriculum in order to “respond to our own needs, not of other countries.”

Former presidential adviser Teresita “Ging” Deles, another Tindig convenor, said Marcos Jr. should look into Duterte’s involvement in reported human rights violations during the drug war as cited in a complaint before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

For Solidar/Talisayen convenor Teddy Lopez, the ICC investigation is an opportunity for the Filipinos to witness an “unbiased process that reveals the truth behind abuses that occurred, particularly during the last administration.”

A one-act play “Tango Inferno: Sayaw ng Dalawang Uhaw,” written and directed by Jessie G. Villabrille, was performed before the start of the press conference. 

The play showcased with humor the conversation between Vhong (portrayed by Alvin Astudillo) and Shara (portrayed by Cha Dumayag), characters representing Marcos Jr. and Vice president Sara Duterte respectively, before the SONA.

Isa Jane Acabal, a journalism student of the University of the Philippines’ College of Mass Communication, is an intern of CoverStory.ph.