SUBSTANCE abuse may come to mind after hearing what kind of successor President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wants.
Addressing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), or Asean Editors and Economic Opinion Leaders Forum on Feb. 24, Marcos declared: “If we [Filipinos] do not elect a like-minded president in 2028, all of these [reforms] will just go by the wayside.”
So, believe it or not, the president wants his successor’s thinking to be like his. Really.
Does that like-mindedness include running the Department of Agriculture for 14 months on top of immense presidential duties, leading to food inflation and shortages?
Or boosting and boasting of flood control infrastructure, which spawned the country’s worst corruption, with hundreds of billions of pesos in substandard and “ghost” projects?
Further on the kind of leader Filipinos should elect, Marcos said: “Well, number one, somebody who understands economics... how to create jobs, how to keep the inflation rate down, how to make food supply a given.”
In his first two years in office, most of it as concurrent as agriculture secretary, President Marcos saw food inflation spike to 6.1 percent in 2022 and 8 percent in 2023 with domestic shortages of key commodities, including rice and onions.
The chief executive also told Asean editors and economic writers, summing up the leadership our nation needed, “the people who actually are thinking about not politics but how to make the country better.”
Marcos should have told that to his cousin Martin Romualdez before the then-House of Representatives speaker took on Vice President Sara Duterte starting mid-2023, spurred by factions favoring the United States and seeking to block her presidential ambitions and maintain beyond 2028 US access to nine military bases given by Marcos.
When Romualdez’s popularity remained dismal next to the VP’s, he then pushed Charter change in 2024 for a parliamentary system and her impeachment in the House last year. But the scheme to remove Sara and permanently ban her from public office faltered after voters elected her supporters to the Senate.
All those machinations cost many billions of pesos, probably driving the unprecedented graft enraging the nation. Indeed, 216 congressmen voting to impeach reportedly got P150 million each in infrastructure and dole out allocations, including flood control projects, before elections last May — slashing health, education and other programs for the poor, plus defense outlays.
The Palace race is on
With Vice President Sara announcing her intent to run for president, then Marcos talking succession and paying an animated visit to his 2022 election rival Leni Robredo with her campaign color pink on his feet, the race for Malacañang has clearly begun.
With Sara’s still formidable odds to reach Malacañan Palace, many congressmen will think hard about impeaching her again, especially with no budgetary outlays promised. Plus, the enlarged Duterte faction in the Senate makes the 16 votes needed to convict her highly iffy.
As for Marcos, now with negative net approval ratings over the graft mess, perpetuating his policies requires allying with winnable leaders untainted by sleaze. Hence, the pink-socked visit to Robredo.
Also touted as a possible Marcos ally in 2028 is Sen. Bam Aquino, the late presidents Noynoy’s cousin and Cory’s nephew. Bam graced the Feb. 22 rally at the EDSA People Power Monument celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 1986 uprising that toppled strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the current president’s father, and installed Cory.
In fact, in the months before the midterm elections last May, there were efforts to bring the Marcos and Aquino-Robredo camps together against the Dutertes. And what may well unite them is the most powerful backer of the once-rival political factions: America.
The US backed Robredo in the 2022 polls, with the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy and International Republican Institute reportedly providing funds. When Marcos won, America pressured him to jettison his neutrality and open our country to US forces gearing up for war with China over Taiwan.
Then in March 2023, the month after Washington got access to our bases, then-US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who helped fuel protests that installed a pro-Western Ukraine president in 2014, visited Manila. Moves against Sara followed, breaking up a Marcos-Duterte alliance that could have stayed in power till the 2030s.
Now, Washington and its Filipino backers want Marcos to stay in office and keep Sara out of Malacañang, then get another pro-American leader elected in 2028. Already, public and media anger over corruption has eased; there was not much outrage after Marcos’ Independent Commission for Infrastructure probing public works graft virtually closed last month after two of its three commissioners quit.
Faulty impeachment complaints against Marcos were filed and dismissed, blocking such ouster moves for a year. Several billion dollars in foreign loans, including $2.5 billion from Japan, will help lift the economy despite falling public and private construction. And building political support among local government leaders — crucial election players — is the P57.8-billion Local Government Support Fund, the largest such outlay ever.
Meanwhile, the US military is set to boost its firepower here with the recently announced deployment of missile launchers in secret locations nationwide targeting the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China’s armed forces. Naval News reports “US Army to accelerate fielding” 1,000-km range anti-ship Precision Strike Missiles, which can be quickly deployed in the First Island Chain in Japan and the Philippines.
“With its envisioned 1,000-kilometer range and maritime strike capability, American Himars [missile systems] within or near maritime areas — such as the Luzon and Miyako straits — can perform anti-ship missions against Chinese forces attempting to transit these choke points,” Naval News reports.
Thus, by 2028, whoever succeeds Marcos, US forces would be widely deployed across our land, and even our military would not be able to force them out, just as Cuba can never expel the US base in Guantanamo.
Now, by 2027, the PLA’s 100th anniversary, President Xi Jinping wants the Chinese military ready for war over Taiwan. And Marcos has put us right on the frontlines.
