President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr will deliver his third State of the Nation Address (Sona) for the Philippines, but the true picture of his term at nearly the halfway mark can be gleaned in the carpeted and newly marbled halls of Congress and its surrounding streets rather than in his glowing report card. Anticipating huge street protests, authorities have tightened security outside the Congress complex, where Marcos Jnr is due to speak on Monday, with the number of policemen deployed set to quadruple to 22,000 from 5,000 last year. The arrangement was confirmed before Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s announcement on July 11 of her intention to snub the Sona.
“No, I will not attend. I am appointing myself as the designated survivor.” Her remark caused authorities to further tighten security since it was a reference to the Netflix political thriller Designated Survivor starring Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland.
In the hit series, Sutherland plays the role of US cabinet official Thomas Kirkman, who is the designated survivor for the State of the Union address by the US president. Kirkman assumes the highest political office after an explosion kills the president and all other officials ahead of Kirkman in the line of succession. It also underscores the increasingly strained ties between two of the country’s most powerful political clans.
Duterte-Carpio’s resignation as education secretary on June 19 has sparked speculation since the daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte said in January that she planned to run in next year’s mid-term elections. She did not explain her comment then since her term as vice-president – and that of the president – will only expire in 2028. Duterte-Carpio then floated the idea that her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, and two brothers plan to run in the mid-term elections next year.
To complicate matters further for security organisers, the Duterte camp announced on Friday that it would hold a protest rally during Monday’s Sona in a plaza near Manila’s city hall, 5km (3.1 miles) from the presidential palace. As the Marcos-Duterte alliance dissolves, the president’s poll ratings have continued to slide even as his vice-president gains more voter support.
Marcos Jnr saw his approval rating fall from 55 per cent in March to 53 per cent in June while his trust ratings slid from 57 per cent to 52 per cent, according to a survey of 2,400 respondents by private pollster Pulse Asia conducted from June 17 to 24. In contrast, Duterte-Carpio’s approval rating rose from 67 per cent to 69 per cent over the period while her trust rating remained at 71 per cent. The main grouse of Filipinos was Marcos Jnr’s failure to tame inflation, as indicated by 72 per cent of the respondents, followed by the need to raise wages at 44 per cent, according to the survey’s list of 17 “most urgent national concerns”.
The same survey asked respondents which of Marcos Jnr’s eight campaign promises his administration had fulfilled. His promise to bring down the price of rice to 20 pesos per kilo ranked last. Jonathan Ravelas, managing director of eManagement for Business and Marketing Services, told This Week in Asia, “I tend to agree with the Pulse survey.
People see less of the gains as food inflation bites,” despite it being lower than in 2022 when Marcos Jnr assumed the presidency. “His weakness is the economy,” political risk analyst Ronald Llamas told This Week in Asia. “If you look at all the surveys, his scores are low in this and it pulls down his approval ratings.
It’s about food inflation, wages, employment, corruption, it’s about gut-level issues,” said Llamas, a former presidential adviser to the late Benigno Aquino III. Against the backdrop of the country’s economic woes, the 20 million pesos (US$342,000) renovation bill to spruce up parts of the House of Representatives building for Marcos Jnr’ Sona speech has infuriated Filipinos, including former Far Eastern University law dean Mel Sta. Maria.
The motto of the Marcos Jnr administration’s “Ang Bagong Pilipinas” (The New Philippines) was “meaningless” given the high inflation, the lawyer said in an online post. Several videos of the renovation works posted online have set tongues wagging, showing the vast outer hall of the House leading to the session hall completely retiled with marble flooring and the laying of a luxurious crimson carpet. Marcos Jnr is expected to address various economic issues in his speech, including inflation, amid mounting criticisms of his failure to fulfil his 2022 election campaign goal to reduce food prices.
Fermin Adriano, a former policy expert for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, told This Week in Asia that elevated food prices contributed to more than half of the country’s inflation, which eased to 3.7 per cent in June from 3.9 per cent in May.
The government’s inability to bring down food prices could be due to factors such as low farm yields, higher cost of imported fertilisers and the rise in the population, said the undersecretary for policy, planning and research during the Duterte administration. In 2023, while Marcos Jnr held the cabinet portfolio of secretary of the Department of Agriculture, the Philippines for the first time became the world’s top rice importer and is expected by the US Department of Agriculture’s global grains market data to retain the top spot up to the following year. 15:04 Why is the Philippines aligning itself with the US after years of close China ties under Duterte More than half of Filipinos saw themselves as poor due to inflation, with the proportion of such perceptions rising to 58 per cent – or 16 million families – in June from 46 per cent – or 12.
9 million families – in March, according to a survey by pollster Social Weather Stations (SWS) released on Friday . It was the highest recorded level of self-rated poverty by Filipino families since a reading of 66 per cent in 2002, according to SWS. Llamas said the president’s best accomplishment so far was his foreign policy, where he pivoted away from China and back towards the United States and other like-minded countries, which helped the Philippines “become an important player in geopolitics”.
But this has not translated into better ratings for Marcos Jnr since “defending the integrity of Philippine territory against foreigners” only ranked as a No 15 item of urgent national concern, according to the same Pulse Asia survey. Marcos Jnr had not handled well his row with the Dutertes, Llamas said. “They’re now in open warfare.
In all my years in politics I have not seen a former president [Rodrigo Duterte] publicly threaten a [sitting] president with an uprising, mutilation, coup, secession, even assassination,” he said. Llamas predicted relations to worsen should Marcos Jnr decide to hand Duterte to the International Criminal Court, which was investigating his deadly drug war. The Marcos Jnr government has also had to tackle negative narratives, with the Armed Forces of the Philippines denouncing reports of officers walking out during the July 4 command conference with the president as “fake news”.
Llamas said such reports probably came from the Duterte camp and his supporters. “But the military won’t support Duterte. Most of them are anti-China and the Dutertes are identified with China.
” A financial risk analyst, who asked not be identified, said the current period reminded him of the turmoil years that led to the ouster of then president Joseph Estrada in 2001. Estrada’s vice-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had also resigned from his cabinet. “He is vulnerable.
It’s history repeating itself. He needs to fast-track measures to speed up growth,” the analyst said of Marcos Jnr..
