2022 in the Philippines: Transit to Uncertainty
/Political dynasties rule the roost
Former President Rodrigo Duterte and current President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. (Source: rappler)
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. swore in as Philippine president at noon of June 30, succeeding Rodrigo Duterte, who ruled the country with an iron fist for six years. The peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next after generally free and fair elections is often cited as a hallmark of a democratic system of governance. But the change in national leadership in the middle of 2022 merely masks the entrenchment of political dynasties, a durable feature of the country’s political life.
Duterte ruled Davao City as mayor for more than two decades, punctuated only by a three-year term as member of Congress, and another three years as vice-mayor, while his daughter, Sara, occupied the Davao City mayorship. When Duterte became president in 2016, his daughter was again elected mayor of Davao City, his son, vice-mayor, and another son, a member of Congress. Sara Duterte won as vice president in last May’s elections and sits concurrently as Education Secretary in the Marcos Cabinet. A Duterte son now sits as Davao City mayor, while the other son again sits as congressman representing the city’s first district.
Marcos Sr. was elected president in 1965 and re-elected in 1969 in what observers claimed was the ‘dirtiest’ in the country's post-war history. But he declared martial law in September 1972 ostensibly to suppress an insurgency by communist rebels in the countryside. He ruled by decree for 14 more years until he was sent fleeing into exile in Hawaii after the four-day People Power Revolt in February 1986.
Marcos Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps and served as vice governor and later as governor of their home province of Ilocos Norte. In 2010, he was elected senator and served for six years in the upper chamber of Congress before making an unsuccessful bid as vice president in 2016.
This year, however, he trounced his main rival, then-Vice President Leni Robredo, by a margin of 31 million votes, validating poll survey results showing him winning by a landslide for the top elective post.
The president’s elder sister Imee sits as senator, while a son, Ferdinand “Sandro” Marcos III, represents the first legislative district of Ilocos Norte province in Congress. Other Marcos relatives occupy key posts in Ilocos Norte and Leyte.
These are just two of the dynasties, albeit the most powerful ones. There are several others in Congress and in local governments. If by now you’re beginning to think that Philippine politics is dominated by a few powerful families, you're right, even though the 1987 Constitution explicitly provides that: “The State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.” The elite-dominated Congress, of course, has not enacted a law enabling this provision.
The campaign for the May 9 general elections
Leni Robredo at her miting de Advance in Makati (Source: Sun Star)
The year 2022 began with palpable excitement in the air as candidates for the highest elective posts began to make their presence felt in both traditional and social media.
Contesting the presidency were former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.; Leni Robredo of the main opposition coalition; world boxing legend and former Senator Manny Pacquiao; former Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, former Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, and labor leader Leody de Guzman.
Several groups asked the Commission on Elections to disqualify Marcos Jr., alleging that he made material misrepresentations in his certificate of candidacy (COC) in relation to non-payment of income taxes when he was still the governor of Ilocos Norte province in the early 1980s. Despite this, popularity surveys by the two oldest polling firms in the country already had Marcos Jr. garnering the highest ratings among the six candidates, with Robredo a far second. Sara Duterte also topped pre-election surveys among vice-presidential aspirants.
Early on, candidate Bongbong Marcos had opted to shun media interviews and presidential debates, saying that he would be asked the same questions on the family's record repeatedly, preferring instead to engage directly with voters. He ran under an obscure political party called Partido Federal ng Pilipinas and vowed to build what he calls a government of "unity” that would bring Filipinos together behind a program of sustained economic growth and zero-tolerance for corruption.
Meanwhile, opposition candidate Leni Robredo, who edged out Marcos Jr. in the 2016 vice-presidential election, managed to draw mammoth crowds to her campaign rallies in various parts of the country, including Metro Manila. She said she would concentrate on health issues and “cleansing the government” by choosing worthy Cabinet members in her first 100 days. She also obtained the endorsement of many former government officials who said they believed she was the “best candidate” who possessed all the qualities of an ideal chief executive and commander-in-chief of our Armed Forces.
The election outcome
The May 9 polls showed the resounding victory of Bongbong Marcos with 31 million votes as against 14 million for his nearest rival Leni Robredo and not even 3 million for the third placer, world boxing icon and former Senator Manny Pacquiao.
But Marcos Jr.’s harshest critics attributed his electoral triumph to a potent combination of troll disinformation and misinformation in social media against his closest rival, Leni Robredo, massive vote-buying, hakot or bused-in crowds during campaign rallies, and even vote counts that some statisticians dismissed as apparently rigged as these showed a uniform 70-30 ratio in his favor in almost all the regions after the polls had closed on May 9.
The first six months
Marcos, Jr. sworn in as president (Source: Bloomberg)
At noon of June 30, Marcos Jr. was sworn in as Chief Executive in front of the old Congress building in Manila, now occupied by the National Museum of Fine Arts.
The old Congress building was the scene of a big protest rally on January 26, 1970 urging Marcos Sr. to ensure a non-partisan Constitutional Convention to revise the 1935 Constitution. This rally was the opening salvo of the series of protest actions against Marcos Sr. that later became known as the First Quarter Storm of 1970 that, in hindsight, prefigured the People Power Revolt that ousted Marcos Sr. in February 1986.
Marcos Jr.’s inaugural speech outlined his administration’s economic targets for the next six years. He said his goal was a 6.5 to 8 percent real gross domestic product (GDP) growth annually between 2023 to 2028, and to reduce the country’s poverty rate to 9 percent by 2028.
He also said tax administration reforms would be put in place to increase revenue collection and vowed to continue and even expand the previous administration’s ambitious infrastructure program.
Even before his inauguration, Marcos had announced that he would appoint prominent economists to head the key departments of Finance and Trade and Industry, as well as the state economic planning agency, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas or Central Bank. His choices for his economic team earned praise from the business sector as capable of helping the new administration craft the correct policies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and bring back the Philippine economy on growth track in the next six years.
Marcos Jr. said would assume the Agriculture portfolio so he could focus on the critical issue of food security and look after welfare of farmers and fishermen by giving them loans and financial assistance for cheaper farm inputs. He also vowed to modernize agriculture through science and technology.
The newly installed Chief Executive also ended lockdowns despite continuing COVID-19 infections. He also promised to establish the Philippines’ own Center for Disease Control and Prevention while stressing the need to set up more health centers and hospitals and improve health care delivery across the country.
Marcos also backed the return to full face-to-face classes starting in September. He said the Department of Education, headed by Vice President Sara Duterte, would review the K-to-12 basic education system to determine what components needed to be enhanced or strengthened.
On foreign policy, Marcos said he would “not preside over any process that will abandon even a square inch of the territory of the Republic of the Philippines to any foreign power…With respect to our place in the community of nations, the Philippines shall continue to be a friend to all. And an enemy to none.”
Later that month, on July 25, Marcos delivered his first State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA), outlining his platform of governance for the next six years. He reiterated his economic priorities and urged the new Department of Migrant Workers to be accessible to overseas Filipino workers or OFWs. He also discussed the need to improve public transportation, particularly railways. He said oil supply is expected to stabilize over the medium term with prices of crude oil barrels expected to settle down towards the end of 2022. In the meantime, the government would extend cash assistance or “ayuda” and fuel subsidies to the public transport sector.
The SONA also drew praise from the business sector for addressing economic growth and high prices. The Makati Business Club said the proposals such as ease of paying taxes and boosting of Internet connectivity would “energize” the business sector, especially the micro, small and medium enterprises.
But the political opposition, among them the Akbayan Party-List, said the SONA suffered from a “crisis of clarity, direction and vision” and did not address the country's multiple crises. “Beyond Marcos Jr.'s new-found technocratic rhetoric and amusing attempt at playing economic guru, he offers nothing new, bold or extraordinary to address the country's manifold, and unparalleled crises…It severely fell short of what the country so desperately needed.”
In August, the new administration became embroiled in the sugar importation fiasco. The controversy involved the issuance by the Sugar Quota Administration (SRA) of Sugar Order No. 4 authorizing the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar. Malacañang disowned the order, saying that the President rejected the proposed importation. The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee conducted hearings on the issue and recommended that administrative and criminal charges be filed with the Office of the Ombudsman against an undersecretary in the Agriculture department, the head of the SRA and two of its board members.
By this time, the new administration had to contend with continued high gas prices as a result of external shocks, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This led to a transportation crisis as some public transport operators and drivers decided not to ply the streets because they did not earn enough to sustain the daily needs of their families.
Jeepney strike (Source: Manny Palmero/Manila Standard)
The peso also declined in value vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar to between P56-$1 to nearly P60-$1 in the succeeding months.
In September, the House of Representatives received the P5.268-trillion proposed budget of the Marcos administration for 2023. In his budget message, the president said: “The overall goal is to reinvigorate job creation and reduce poverty by steering the economy back to its high growth path in the near term and sustaining the high yet inclusive and resilient growth of 6.5 to 8 percent up to 2028.”
But the proposed budget was slammed by critics who pointed out that a big chunk of it would be eaten up by debt servicing as the government will repay a record P1.6 trillion in debts next year — the highest yearly debt servicing on record — or 29.8 percent of the total.
Under the proposed budget, the allocation for the Department of Education (DepEd) was pegged at P852.8 billion in part due to the resumption of in-person classes. But the ACT Teachers party-list described as “measly” the budget set aside for DepEd, noting that at least P1.3 trillion should be allocated to the department.
The agriculture sector will get P184.1 billion, P30.5 billion of which will be set aside for the national rice program to “help maintain the price of rice at affordable levels and for the production of other vital agricultural commodities.”
But the proposed budget allocation that raised eyebrows was that for the Office of the Vice President (OVP), which wanted a total of P2,305,396,000 funding for next year, or more than thrice the budget allocated for the office in 2022. Critics noted that the OVP budget featured too many discretionary (“confidential”) funds not subject to audit by the Commission on Audit (COA).
Making diplomacy work
President Marcos Jr. went on state visits to Indonesia and Singapore in early September. He described his trips to the two Southeast Asian neighbors as “fruitful and engaging.”
“We renewed our commitment to stronger bilateral cooperation as fellow ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) members and as two of the largest maritime nations in the world,” he said.
The Philippines and Singapore signed agreements on counterterrorism, personal data protection, digital cooperation, water resource management, and investment.
Marcos also embarked on a working visit to the United States. While there, he underscored the importance of the Philippines’ relationship with the United States, saying he could not see a future for the Philippines without the US as its partner.
The highlight of his US visit, however, was his brief meeting with US President Joe Biden, who reaffirmed the United States’ “ironclad commitment to the defense of the Philippines.” Marcos assured Biden that Manila would remain Washington’s ally in “maintaining the peace in Asia.”
Marcos, Jr. and U.S. President Joe Biden (Source: Leah Mills/Reuters)
On September 20, Marcos Jr. delivered a speech at the UN General Assembly where he emphasized that disputes should only be resolved through peaceful means, citing the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: “By reinforcing the predictability and stability of international law, particularly the 1982 UNCLOS, we provided an example of how states should resolve their differences: through reason and through right.”.
The President also called on all nations to take part in the common effort to fight the effects of climate change. He described climate change as the “greatest threat” affecting all countries and people and cited the need for investments in food security for a “future that is resilient and inclusive” where people can be “healthy, happy, and secure.”
Setback for human rights
As September drew to a close, what human rights advocates feared the most—that the human rights abuses during the martial law regime of his father could also take place with his son Bongbong in the driver’s seat nearly 40 years after the family was chased out of Malacañang Palace in the 1986 People Power Revolt—had raised concern among critics.
Marcos appointed to the independent constitutional body, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) two lawyers with no background or known expertise in human rights work. Former CHR chairperson Etta Rosales described the appointment of the new CHR head as “a setback not only for the agency itself, but the victims of human rights violations in the country."
Human Rights Watch (HRW) deputy director for Asia Phil Robertson called the appointments a “slap in the face of victims of human rights abuses” and described the new appointee as a “loyalist lawyer with no discernible experience in human rights work.”
Former Senator Leila de Lima remains in jail even after a key witness against her recanted his testimony; Percy Lapid, a popular radio commentator critical of Duterte and Marcos, was assassinated on October 3, 2022. (Source: AFP)
Percy Lapid (Source: Twitter)
Meanwhile, on September 30, in yet another sign that the administration seems bent on keeping former Senator Leila de Lima in jail, the Department of Justice moved to prevent a government witness, who had earlier recanted his earlier statements linking de Lima to drug trafficking, from affirming his recantation on the witness stand. It now appears that de Lima faces a prolonged legal battle based on trumped-up charges against her during the Duterte administration. She incurred the wrath of Duterte after she called for a probe of his alleged involvement in drug war killings in Davao City when he was still the mayor. Later, she also called for a stop to the bloody war on drugs that Duterte launched on a nationwide scale starting in 2016.
Also in September, newspapers bannered the brazen assassination of hard-hitting broadcaster Percy Lapid, apparently because of his anti-Duterte and anti-Marcos tirades. This was the second killing of a journalist under the new administration. The police managed to nab the alleged hitman, but two other accomplices have not been found to this day. Investigations later revealed that it was the Director General of the Bureau of Corrections, retired Police General Gerald Bantag, who allegedly ordered the killing of Mabasa.
As 2022 drew to a close, administration allies in the House of Representatives proposed a measure they called Maharlika Investment Fund. The original version of House Bill 6398, filed by Speaker Martin Romualdez and five other lawmakers, wanted to set up a P275-billion sovereign wealth fund that can be tapped for investments here and abroad to support economic development projects. Romualdez said the investment fund would help achieve the objectives of the Marcos administration’s “Agenda for Prosperity” and its eight-point socio-economic roadmap. He cited Singapore and Indonesia as countries that successfully used their sovereign wealth funds. Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, one of the authors of the measure, indicated that President Marcos Jr. has committed full support, describing the bill as “utos ng Pangulo” (an order of the President).
But the Maharlika investment fund critics raised serious questions. Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said the proposed fund should undergo thorough scrutiny as it suffered from serious flaws, including “fiscal propriety, economic timeliness, legal constraints, protection of pensioners’ and depositors’ benefits, excessive emoluments and allowances of officials, precipitate investments, tax exemptions, and magnet for corruption.”
The country’s biggest business organization, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), while initially expressing approval of the measure, later retracted its stand, saying that drawing funds from government financial institutions such as the Government Service Insurance System and the Social Security System might negatively impact the sustainability of the country’s welfare system and affect the country’s financial standing among international creditors.
Later, the bill’s authors decided to drop the GSIS and the SSS as mandatory contributors to the fund in the wake of mounting opposition from economists, business groups, and civil society.
The CPP-NPA armed rebellion
Jose Ma. Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, passed away in Utrecht, the Netherlands on December 16, 2022. (Source: Philippine Star)
On December 16, Jose Ma. Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), passed away at age 83 after a two-week confinement in a hospital in Utrecht, Netherlands. He had spent nearly four decades in exile in the Netherlands after his release from ten years in prison in 1986 after the People Power Revolt that ousted Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. from power.
In a statement announcing the demise of the CPP founder, chief information officer Marco Valbuena said: "The Filipino proletariat and laboring people mourn the passing of their teacher and guiding light. The entire Communist Party of the Philippines gives the highest possible tribute to its founding chairman, great Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thinker, patriot, internationalist, and revolutionary leader… Even as we mourn, we vow to continue to give all our strength and determination to carry the revolution forward guided by the memory and teachings of the people's beloved Ka Joma."
Sison established the CPP on December 26, 1968 as a revolutionary party founded on a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology. On March 29, 1969, he led the founding of the New People’s Army (NPA) that vowed to wage ‘people’s war’ against “American imperialism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.” At its height in the late 1970s to the 1980s, the NPA is said to have reached a peak of 25,000 regular fighters, according to estimates by the Philippine military. These days, however, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claims that the NPA ranks have dwindled to no more than 2,100 guerrillas, prompting the AFP leadership to claim “strategic victory” over the rebel group that had waged the longest-running Maoist insurgency in the world.
What will be the future of the CPP and its armed wing, the NPA, after Sison’s passing? As the CPP’s leading theoretician, Sison laid down its guiding principles and basic tasks from 1968 onwards. While other CPP-NPA leaders emerged during his long incarceration and after his release, it is doubtful if anyone in the underground movement has reached or even surpassed his theoretical capability. But obviously the CPP has failed to adapt to changing conditions in both the domestic and global arenas’ and advance beyond what it described as the “advanced substage of the strategic defensive” of the Philippine revolution in the late ‘80s.
The NPA never achieved near-parity with the Armed Forces of the Philippines in number of troops and firepower nor became capable of engaging the AFP in conventional warfare. As things now stand, the NPA remains a ragged guerrilla force that can only launch limited “tactical offensives” at squad, platoon or even company level. But it cannot lay siege or overrun big military camps of well-trained government troops with sophisticated firepower, including artillery and other crew-served weapons.
Besides its failure to build a large standing army after more than half-a-century of fighting, the CPP may have lost its moral ascendancy with its inability to adapt its political strategy and tactics to changing social, economic, and political conditions. To this day, it seems that the CPP still educates new recruits on the basis of class analysis laid down by Mao Zedong in the 1930s, and the concept of “encircling the cities from the countryside,” despite great strides in science, technology, and modern warfare that have made “hit-and-run” guerrilla tactics in the countryside far too outmoded for seizing political power through the barrel of a gun within the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
In its first six months in office, the Marcos Jr. administration correctly focused on economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the Philippine economy to its knees. High oil prices at this time led to high inflation levels that keep many poor Filipinos hardly able to survive difficult economic circumstances. It faces the awesome challenge of accelerating job and livelihood generation and infrastructure programs at a faster pace in the coming year and beyond to move the economy forward.
In the political sphere, Marcos Jr. needs to intensify efforts to stop graft and corruption in its tracks by bringing criminal charges against those alleged to have stolen from the national treasury. If, as the World Bank has reported, roughly one-fourth of the annual national budget is lost to corruption, then the new administration should take draconian measures against the incorrigibly corrupt and rotten to the core.
Concern has been raised over billions of pesos in confidential or intelligence funds in the proposed budgets of the Office of the President and the Office of the Vice-President that are not subject to scrutiny by the Commission on Audit. Where will the money go? With no auditing of such funds, these could well end up in the pockets of a lucky few.
Marcos Jr. has vowed to continue the war on drugs, but with focus on the big-time drug lords, not street dealers, and on rehabilitation and treatment of drug dependents. Law enforcement and rehabilitation and treatment are two sides of the same coin that should address both the supply and the demand aspect of the problem of illegal drugs.
The resumption of face-to-face classes with the much-improved COVID-19 situation is another positive development in the past year.
But much remains to be done to ensure that vital social services such as education and health are given priority by the government at both the national and local levels.
The new administration is taking the correct step in emphasizing an independent foreign policy. But will the Marcos Jr. administration take a strong stand against Chinese incursions in our Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea? That remains to be seen.
The challenge for the new administration is to achieve political stability, sustained economic growth, and social harmony within the next six years. That will require high statesmanship and a clear vision for the future that succeeding administrations can build upon. Can Bongbong Marcos hack it? We have five-and-a-half years more to find out.
As things now stand, political dynasties rule the country from north to south, and from top to bottom. That is not likely to change soon. It’s a truly worrisome and disturbing development that keeps political power in the hands of a few families and could bring Philippine democracy as we know it to a bleak and uncertain future.
Ernesto M. Hilario studied Political Science at the University of the Philippines and has worked for various government agencies, NGOs and mainstream media since 1978. He writes a regular column for the Manila Standard broadsheet and also works as a freelance writer-editor.
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