SAYANG.
Or in English: What a waste.
That is the heavy, collective sigh echoing among political observers and citizens alike after four-and-a-half years of the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Entering Malacañang on June 30, 2022, backed by an unprecedented absolute majority, Marcos was handed a rare historical mandate. With nearly two-thirds of the vote uniting behind his ticket, he possessed the political capital to push transformative economic reforms, institutionalize honest governance, and once and for all, rehabilitate his family’s legacy, sullied by his father’s period of strongman rule.
Yet, as we look back over the course of his term, the promise has largely dissolved into disillusionment. Despite the overwhelming election triumph of the “UniTeam” coalition of Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte, the administration has stumbled through major debacles across the economy, domestic politics and regional security. While external shocks played a part, much of the erosion stems directly from governance failings within the Palace itself.
Food and flood debacles
The administration’s economic troubles began almost immediately upon taking office in mid-2022. Hobbled by elevated inflation from his very first months, the nation suffered from surging global oil, gas and food prices fueled by the war in Ukraine. But the domestic crisis was severely compounded by poor leadership at the Department of Agriculture (DA).
Marcos made the critical mistake of appointing himself head of the DA despite the staggering, round-the-clock demands of the presidency. Under his direct watch, the agricultural sector became a theater of supply crises.
Severe price spikes hit essential staples, most notably rice, onions and sugar. Profiteering and cartel scheming went largely unchecked, as corrupt officials and traders exploited market vulnerabilities while executive oversight remained stretched thin across national affairs.
With food comprising the largest share of the consumer price index, overall inflation surged. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas had to lift benchmark interest rates, dampening consumer confidence, restricting credit and weighing heavily on business investment.
Even after Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. assumed leadership of the department in late 2023, the food sector continued to face intense price pressures. In a desperate bid to lower prices in 2024, Marcos slashed rice import tariffs. However, market realities quickly exposed enforcement weaknesses: many cartels and traders simply pocketed the tariff savings while keeping retail prices high. The episode highlighted an administration consistently lacking firm executive action to police markets and enforce policies.
The second major economic vulnerability lies in the administration’s infrastructure program. A close review of major capital works completed during Marcos’ tenure reveals that nearly all flagship projects were actually initiated, funded or broken ground under prior administrations.
Worse still, the specific program Marcos prominently highlighted during his 2025 State of the Nation Address — the nation’s massive flood control initiative — turned out to be the center of one of the largest corruption scandals in modern Philippine history.
In 2025, budget allocations were shifted toward infrastructure and ayuda (aid) dole outs — widely criticized as electioneering funds intended for the May 2025 midterms — at the direct expense of essential health, basic education and social protection services for the poor.
As public outrage exploded, officials at the Department of Public Works and Highways, terrified of facing criminal investigation and Ombudsman charges over project anomalies, stalled implementation.
This bureaucratic slowdown in public works hit the economy right when the construction sector was already suffering from the 2024 ban on Philippine offshore gaming operations, which had previously absorbed vast commercial and residential real estate space.
EDCA’s economic and political fallout
Beyond domestic policy mismanagement, a further economic drag was triggered by Marcos’ abrupt geopolitical pivot. Abandoning the long-standing policy of diplomatic balance and strategic neutrality, Marcos aligned the country with Washington in February 2023. During the visit of then-United States defense secretary Lloyd Austin, Marcos fully activated and expanded the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which had been held back by his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte.
Allowing expanded US military deployment across nine Armed Forces of the Philippines sites did far more than just strain relations with Beijing.
Chinese funding and development financing for major rail projects extending north and south of Manila collapsed. While Japanese funding and engineering eventually stepped in, it came only after years of costly delays.
Chinese tourist arrivals remained less than a fifth of pre-Covid-19 pandemic figures, while neighboring Southeast Asian economies recover and exceed 2019 visitor levels.
The geopolitical shift also undermined UniTeam. Seeing Vice President Duterte as a threat to EDCA bases — her father called them US “platforms for war” — political and media factions backing America’s military deployment here moved to block her 2028 presidential bid.
Starting in mid-2023, continuous attacks were launched against the vice president while attempting to elevate Martin Romualdez, the president’s cousin and then-speaker of the House of Representatives, as a presidential contender.
When Romualdez’s public approval ratings failed to gain traction against Duterte’s top-notch marks, the administration pursued the controversial 2024 people’s initiative for Charter change (Cha-cha). The goal was to transition to a parliamentary system where lawmakers could directly install Romualdez or Marcos as prime minister.
But Cha-cha failed, so the political war led to impeachment drives against Sara Duterte across 2025 and 2026. Reportedly, infrastructure and dole out allocations — totaling upward of P150 million per vote — went to lawmakers allegedly for 2025 midterm polls spending. And this year, there were “for later release” allocations.
Odd man out in Asean
On the foreign policy front, relations with Beijing degraded into hazardous maritime standoffs between Chinese and Philippine vessels, accompanied by toxic rhetorical exchanges between diplomats and national security figures. Although Marcos called for a bilateral “reset” during a July meeting with China’s envoy, security officials on both sides continued to escalate rough rhetoric.
Today, the Philippines lags behind its fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) members in economic resilience and stands increasingly isolated in its China stance. National leadership and news cycles remain consumed by the Marcos-Duterte rift, even as the country grapples with severe El Niño heat and drought.
How things have unraveled since July 1, 2022, when Marcos and Sara attended morning Mass and received Holy Communion with blessings from Cardinals Jose Advincula and Orlando Quevedo.
Sayang.
