Manila, Philippines – Automobile visitors round Metro Manila, the Philippine capital area, was uncharacteristically gentle on Monday however it was not as a result of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr was delivering his State of the Nation Deal with (SONA) to mark his first full 12 months in workplace.
Operators and drivers of jeepneys – minibuses which can be the nation’s commonest mode of public transportation – had threatened a strike to protest gaps within the authorities’s plan to part out their autos, so Marcos cancelled college and work at public places of work for the day.
However neither the destiny of jeepneys nor the nation’s worsening transportation disaster figured in Marcos’s 75-minute speech through which he additionally tiptoed round different urgent controversies resembling territorial disputes with nations across the South China Sea and investigations into the 1000’s of killings throughout his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s drug conflict.
As an alternative, Marcos described a rustic in rebirth and strong restoration from a socioeconomic stoop that he blamed on the conflict in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, however that critics say was additionally a consequence of the tumultuous administration of Duterte, whom Marcos’s household had helped carry to energy and who, in flip, paved the best way for his presidency.
“I do know that the state of the nation is sound and is bettering. The ‘New Philippines’ has arrived,” Marcos capped off his speech, touting his administration’s new slogan, which he launched every week earlier.
It was a excessive last word to a speech that started with him acknowledging that inflation was so far his administration’s “greatest drawback”. Citing the downtrend in inflation that went from a 14-year excessive of 8.7 p.c in January to five.4 p.c in June, Marcos mentioned that “despite all of the difficulties, we’re remodeling the economic system. We’re stabilising the costs of all crucial commodities”.
There’s a rhetorical deftness to Marcos, observers informed Al Jazeera, and it has buoyed his administration’s mediocre efficiency within the public’s notion, not least due to the distinction with Duterte’s disorderly rule and crude, dissonant messaging.
“We now have a president who’s extra statesman-like, who is aware of easy methods to ship a speech in a presidential method,” Joyce Ilas, co-convenor of the advocacy group Democracy Watch Philippines, informed Al Jazeera.
It’s a trait that has afforded Marcos “narrative management,” one other analyst mentioned, and which has enabled him to take care of excessive public belief and approval scores of 82 p.c in opinion polls, regardless of some extreme financial issues Filipinos confronted prior to now 12 months.
Widespread regardless of crises
Inflation, as Marcos mentioned, has been the most important blight of his first 12 months in workplace and opinion polls present additionally it is the highest concern for many Filipinos, adopted by low wages, unemployment and poverty. And but, his reputation exhibits Marcos has efficiently shielded himself from blame.
“Within the first place, inflation shouldn’t have reached 8.7 p.c as a result of that’s actually fairly excessive,” JC Punongbayan, an economist from the College of the Philippines and writer of False Nostalgia: The Marcos “Golden Age” Myths and Tips on how to Debunk Them, informed Al Jazeera.
“Slowing inflation means there’s nonetheless inflation – meals costs are nonetheless rising,” he mentioned. At greater than 40 pesos ($0.73) per kilogramme (2 kilos), rice, the nation’s staple, is double the worth Marcos promised throughout his marketing campaign. Sugar sells for as a lot as 136 pesos ($2.50) per kg.
In December, a kg of onions – a key ingredient in lots of Filipino dishes – offered for as a lot as 800 pesos ($15). Marcos, who had appointed himself agriculture secretary, then ordered ill-timed imports that ended up competing with the native produce.
“There didn’t appear to be a way of urgency [on Marcos’s part] in addressing inflation,” mentioned Punongbayan, who described Marcos’s governance as “lazy”.
In his SONA, Marcos blamed inflation on “smugglers” and “hoarders” who he mentioned have been “manipulating the costs” of agricultural merchandise. “We are going to hunt and prosecute them… Their days are numbered,” he mentioned with out going into element.
Financial cure-all?
Final week, Marcos signed a legislation to create a sovereign wealth fund known as the Maharlika Funding Fund, which might pool “underutilised” funds from the Philippine Central Financial institution and two different state-owned banks meant to help industrial improvement and agriculture, to spice up monetary and financial funding within the nation.
It resembles Malaysia’s state-owned 1MDB funding fund, the supply of a $4.5bn fraud and corruption scandal which prompted worldwide investigations and led to the downfall of former Prime Minister Najib Razak.
“The (Maharlika) fund shall be used to make high-impact and worthwhile investments,” Marcos mentioned in his speech. “The good points from the fund shall be reinvested into the nation’s financial wellbeing.”
Marcos mentioned Maharlika would assist fund urgently wanted infrastructure tasks, resembling airports and railways, anticipated to price 8.3 trillion pesos ($152bn) in complete.
Economists on the College of the Philippines, together with Punongbayan, have criticised the Maharlika measure since Marcos proposed it in November. They mentioned the state-owned banks wouldn’t have “underutilised” funds to spare; taking these funds would impair the banks’ capabilities; the sovereign wealth fund could be managed by Marcos’s appointees – a recipe for corruption.
Regardless of preliminary opposition from many legislators, the Maharlika measure hurdled Congress in report time, arousing suspicions that Marcos, whose household was pushed out of energy in 1986 partly resulting from their ostentatious ill-gotten wealth, and his associates had ulterior motives for expediting its passage.
“They appear to be pinning all their hopes on Maharlika,” Punongbayan mentioned. “They appear to be portray it as a panacea, an financial cure-all, when in reality it isn’t and the dangers are actually fairly considerable.”
Drug conflict, dispute with China
What has even Marcos’s critics praising him is his decidedly defiant stance on China’s occupation of what the Philippines claims as its territory within the South China Sea, which Filipinos name the West Philippine Sea. A 2016 verdict by a tribunal of the Hague-based Everlasting Court docket of Arbitration debunked Beijing’s sweeping declare over the strategic and resource-rich waterway and affirmed Manila’s entitlement to a 200-nautical-mile unique financial zone.
Duterte had shelved the award, which Beijing rejected, and used appeasing rhetoric in return for Chinese language financial pledges that stay largely unfulfilled. In his early speeches after assuming the presidency in July 2022, Marcos used robust, patriotic language, promising by no means to yield “even one sq. inch” of territory within the disputed sea.
It signalled a departure from Duterte’s “defeatist” method to the dispute, analysts mentioned, and prompted the navy and coast guard to extra transparently report encounters between Chinese language and Filipino vessels in Philippine-claimed waters. It additionally allowed journalists to affix them on maritime patrols, placing the problem on high of the native information cycle.
“Marcos spoke concerning the rules-based worldwide order and being pals with like-minded states,” mentioned Ilas at Democracy Watch Philippines. “That has emboldened authorities businesses to lastly arise and defend our sovereign claims.”
However this shift in international coverage, which included a deal granting america, a treaty ally, elevated entry to Philippine navy installations as a deterrent to international invasion, went unmentioned in Marcos’s SONA.
Among the many dwell viewers was Huang Xilian, the ambassador from China, which Marcos thanked for a donation of fertilisers. China had earlier criticised Marcos’s rapprochement with the US and constantly bristled at US involvement in Asia-Pacific geopolitics.
Marcos additionally skipped addressing the Worldwide Legal Court docket’s latest determination to proceed with investigating alleged crimes towards humanity in Duterte’s drug conflict – which killed some 6,000 untried drug suspects in keeping with police, or as much as 30,000 folks in keeping with rights teams.
Though he earlier mentioned he would reject any intervention by the ICC to “defend the nation’s sovereignty”, Marcos distanced himself from the killings and omitted the phrase “conflict”.
“The marketing campaign towards unlawful medicine continues however it has taken on a brand new face,” Marcos mentioned in his SONA. “It’s now geared in direction of community-based therapy, rehabilitation, training and reintegration to curb drug dependence amongst our affected citizenry.”
Ok?
Marcos additionally tackled points in training, healthcare, labour, local weather change, connectivity and vitality – he ordered a efficiency assessment of the privatised Nationwide Grid Company, which is 40 p.c owned by China’s State Grid Company.
After the speech, a number of advocacy teams criticised Marcos for neglecting essential points. The Piston group of transport activists gave him a “failing mark” for ignoring the plight of jeepney drivers. The Kilusang Mayo Uno (Could First Motion) labour group questioned his declare to “defend the labour sector” in gentle of a latest, token 40-peso ($0.73) enhance within the every day minimal wage, which labour activists have for years complained to be too low. And the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan political alliance slammed the absence of a program for human rights in Marcos’s “New Philippines” marketing campaign.
Whereas Marcos may do extra to deal with perennial issues, analysts say he has, as a rule, mentioned the appropriate factor in his public addresses and this has helped restore the general public’s respect and belief within the authorities. In contrast to Duterte, Marcos has proven as much as his engagements on time, been in a position to conduct himself correctly at worldwide occasions, and delivered speeches with aplomb and with out deviating from the script.
“Rhetoric is essential as a result of it units the tone – you’re saying the place you need your authorities to go,” Ilas mentioned, noting Marcos’s statements advocating the digitalisation of presidency transactions to make sure transparency and curb corruption.
“The president’s first 12 months is a type of adjustment interval. Let’s give him that leeway. Now we’re completed with that and we’ll wish to see motion,” Ilas mentioned.
Narrative management
The penchant for good optics and well-curated messaging is a trademark of the Marcos political household. Ferdinand Marcos Sr, the president’s father, maintained his two-decade authoritarian regime, from 1965 to 1986, via a martial rule that included stringent media censorship.
His mom, Imelda, was filmed saying: “Notion is actual; the reality shouldn’t be.” The couple have been recognized for regaling crowds with elegant gown, impassioned speeches and, sometimes, melodious duets.
The youthful Marcos was elected president in Could 2022, following a deluge of on-line disinformation that created “false nostalgia” amongst Filipinos for the supposed “golden age” of his father’s rule, Punongbayan wrote in his ebook.
Now, Marcos makes use of phrases related along with his father’s rule. “Maharlika”, which means “royal,” was what his father proposed to rename the Philippines – “New Society” was the slogan – in ways in which gloss over his household’s grim legacy: as much as $10bn in ill-gotten wealth, 70,000 folks imprisoned, 34,000 tortured and three,300 folks killed through the first Marcos rule.
Because the administrator of his father’s property, Marcos allegedly owes the federal government some 203 billion pesos ($3.72bn) in taxes, which stay unpaid.
However setting his background apart, Marcos has up to now delivered a slightly convincing efficiency as president – he goes via just about the identical motions as his extra revered predecessors. The issue with this, as some observers famous whereas watching the SONA, is that it may “normalise” the Marcos household’s return to energy and make Filipinos neglect that it’s an anomaly.
“There’s a aware effort on the a part of Marcos to rehabilitate his household’s picture for the general public,” Punongbayan mentioned.
“They’ve narrative management.”
