In his second State of the Nation Address, like all else in every SONA, Marcos' every numerical and statistical highs and lows presented, like predicted, are all good.
The sick man of Asia moniker may not be among all the things Marcos Jr. could be inheriting from his dictator father and namesake; however, he will have to deal with the diplomatic and economic downgrade of the previous administration and the bloody history that accompanies the Marcos family name.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has set the Philippines in an economic recession with most of the budgetary focus in curbing its health and economic impact. While there have been significant economic growth in Duterte’s presidential heyday, thanks to his predecessor former President Benigno Aquino III, the Duterte administration grappled in its investment and infrastructure projects, especially in his Build, Build, Build initiative due to the pandemic and his notorious international image.
Many economists forecasted that 2023 will see a global recession as a result of the global impact of the pandemic. Despite this, the ASEAN region is set in a new light with economic forecasters predicting growth post pandemic and the Philippine economy bouncing at 7.6 percent growth rate in 2022.
This came as good news for Marcos Jr., but he will have to still test the waters in trade markets and investments because one way or another, growth projections are neither economic shields nor is it a safety net.
The economic aspect may have been very different between the regimes of the father and the son, but what remains the same is the gruelling state of human rights in the Philippines. Like in his father’s martial law regime, there is still much repression on human rights defenders and journalists critical to the government.
As a vocal supporter of his predecessor’s drug war, the crackdown still persists even 13 months after Duterte. Dahas, a research project backed by the University of the Philippines, recorded 300 narcotics-related deaths.
Under his watch, multiple strikes from labor unions calling for increased wages are still being staged. As a sitting agriculture secretary, peasant unions call for Marcos to step down and appoint a dedicated agriculture secretary. They call for an increased urgency in establishing sustainable food security, better implementation of the land reform programs, and government bailout on environmentally-damaging projects.
Despite the calls, they remain unheard, bodies are still piling up, and many are going missing. Rights groups reported multiple disappearances and abductions of peasants, labor rights activists, and environmental activists. A seemingly eerie message of what another Marcos presidency will be.
The Marcos family has seeded the information ecosystem with alternative truths to polish their family image. The Bagong Pilipinas slogan is now rolled out to allegedly guide the government programs but what has been new since his term? His words are empty and nothing has been explicitly pronounced. His likely obsession with sloganeering as a tool for revision and image-building, as is with his father’s administration, is a testament of what he is really here for— full time devout Marcos, part time president.
Marcos didn't fall far from the tree, he stayed in it rotting and spreading the rot insidiously.
Marcos should start his work from within his family unit: admit the wrongs, return what isn’t their's; and uphold justice and maintain democracy. Otherwise he is nothing but a crony of his father's failed attempt to immortality; his mother's stand-in to maintain power, and his family's ticket to re-brand their name from oppressors to saviours.
All this energy in the political circus should be directed to answering the people’s call— serve the people!
This SONA is nothing but a classroom presentation read straight out of slides.
The real state of the nation is out on the streets; at the slums; at exploited indigenous peoples and their lands; in abused women and children; victims of injustice; the political prisoners; at contested and undistributed farmlands; at unsafe places; in people going hungry; in the LGBTQ+ community oppressed and devoid of protection; in the marginalized; and on a nation still grieving from dying democratic institutions.
Ultimately, the masses will judge Marcos. If we have no more to lose, we will pump the hearts of cities and occupy its arteries. When we beat, we beat loudly.