By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Series 5: Forever peace or forever wars?

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has returned from Canada, dealt with untold humiliation by overseas Filipino groups and protesters in Vancouver who came in considerable numbers condemning his administration over alleged government corruption, unaddressed flood control issues, and what they described as subservience to foreign interests.

The trip, which aimed to secure bilateral trade and investment commitments, also encountered controversy when Philippine Palace officials, foremost of which involved Press Officer Claire Castro was stalked and intimidated by protesters, and the President himself swarmed by demonstrators shouting “magnanakaw” or plunderer.

As if that was not bad enough sight, Marcos was also shown in a video, holding an umbrella sheltering Prime Minister Mark Carney while the two walked on a side street of the city.  In Filipino optics, the person holding the umbrella inherently takes a subservient or servant-like posture. This highlights an imbalance of power, deliberately elevating the sheltered figure as the higher  authority.

Worse, Marcos offered a handshake to a bystander, but the greeter shook the hand of Carney instead.

The bothersome sights and viral altercations were nothing compared to critics dismissing the tour as primarily performative while noting the delegation’s failure not only to resolve restrictive changes to Canada’s migration laws for Filipino professionals but also to secure a loan for Marcos crumbling economic numbers.

As we have explained in a previous article, Marcos returns to home at a time when the Philippine government itself just lowered its Gross Domestic Product target for this year to 3.5% to 4.5%. Looking further back, before the Middle East conflict, Manila originally hoped to reach 5% to 6% this year. Dropping from 5%-6% to 3% isn’t just a “downgrade,” it’s a “halving.”

What does 3% mean? This figure is below the year of the pandemic and the lowest since 2009.

• Slower Job Creation: With a lower economic expansion rate, fewer jobs are generated. This can lead to higher underemployment, especially as the young and growing workforce enters the labor market.
• Missed Poverty Reduction Targets: Developing economies like the Philippines generally require higher growth (typically 5–6%+) to continuously reduce poverty and elevate living standards across the archipelago.
• Impact of External & Local Headwinds: Economists attribute this downgrade to external pressures like global oil shocks and geopolitical conflicts, alongside domestic issues like supply chain disruptions, severe weather events (typhoons), and sluggish government spending.
• Constrained Purchasing Power: For the average Filipino, 3% growth against the backdrop of elevated inflation often translates to a higher cost of living without a proportional increase in real wages.

In short, an economy on the brink of collapse.

Sans Remorse

Do we even see an ounce of guilt from our President?

Instead of admitting even an ounce of accountability for the unprecedented anomaly involving flood-control projects, Marcos insisted that had he not exposed the issue, this will not be part of history:

“If I didn’t say anything in the State of the National Address, we wouldn’t be talking about this. I’m the one who exposed all of this. And I’m the only one who has started to do anything about this.

“Did the previous presidents help you? Did you see them doing anything? Did they freeze any accounts? Did they conduct investigations?”

          Bongbong Marcos’ memory is short, delusional  and evasive.

1. As president, he signs the General Appropriations Act into law, and his Department of Budget Management releases all government funding. In short, no money gets in and no money gets out without his signature.
2. It was during his three-year term from 2023 to 2025, when the flood-control appropriation went haywire.

•  It was not he who blew the whistle on the budget insertions. Vice President Sara Duterte exposed and criticized irregular insertions in the Department of Education (DepEd) budget during her time as agency secretary. She accused House leadership—specifically mentioning Speaker Martin Romualdez and Appropriations Chair Zaldy Co—of manipulating the DepEd budget for school buildings.

To refresh the memory of President, Ms. Duterte alleged that the House inflated the DepEd’s classroom construction budget beyond the agency’s actual requests. She stated that lawmakers then manipulated and  divided these extra funds among favored congressmen, effectively treating it like a “pork barrel”.  The Vice President distanced herself entirely from these insertions, arguing that she was powerless to stop them as the ultimate power over the budget rested with a select few in Congress.

In fact, she cited these budget meddling practices as the primary reason for her resignation as DepEd Secretary. She stated that she stepped down to avoid being held accountable for financial maneuvering that she neither initiated nor condoned.

• The budget issue severely strained VP Duterte’s relationship with the Marcos administration because instead of supporting her clean up the mess, Bongbong took the side of Romualdez and Co, and started vilifying and isolating her.

PRRD reforms

Marcos’ prevarication indicting of former presidents, further demolished whatever remains of his credibility.

Contradicting his allegations, President Rodrigo Duterte’s specific anti-corruption strategies included:

• Mass Firings and Reshuffle: He frequently used his televised addresses to publicly announce the firing or relief of regional directors and district engineers allegedly involved in corruption and kickback schemes. He also ordered a nationwide reshuffle of district engineers to prevent them from developing entrenched corrupt ties in their localities. He warned corrupt officials that tendering their resignations would not protect them from criminal prosecution.
• Tech and Task Force: He expanded the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice-led mega task force—originally formed for PhilHealth—to conduct sweeping investigations and lifestyle checks across the entire DPWH under Secretary Mark Villar, who launched “Infratrack” application, alongside drone surveillance and geotagging, to virtually monitor civil works and verify contractors’ actual accomplishments.
• Ghost Project Audits: After discovering a perk in anomalies in the budget year 2018 where construction projects were funded but never built, Duterte mandated strict physical audits of DPWH projects to eliminate “ghost projects”. PRRD collaborated with the House Committee on Appropriations in investigating “budget insertions”.

It wasthrough the hearings conducted by the late Congressman Rolando Andaya Jr. that a staggering P75 billion was added to public works budget supposedly “parked” in various legislative districts without the knowledge of President Rodrigo Duterte or DPWH Secretary Mark Villar.

• DBM Involvement and Bribery Allegations: Andaya pointed to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and its then-Secretary Benjamin Diokno as the authority behind the fund placements. Close coordination with public works officials was effected by his undersecretary Amenah Pangandaman. At the height of the probe, Andaya accused Diokno of offering House of Representatives PHP40 billion in savings from the 2018 budget in exchange for halting the investigation into the insertions.
• Contractor Accusations: Andaya also alleged irregularities in the awarding of 39 infrastructure contracts to a favored Bulacan-based firm, CT Leoncio Construction and Trading, which had ties to Aremar Construction Corp owned by Diokno’s in-laws.

Read: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1082550/dbm-exec-tagged-in-p75b-insertions-in-dpwh-budget

• Reenacted Budget. The budget stand-off was so intense that resulted in the government operating under a reenacted 2018 budget during the first quarter of 2019. Both the Senate and House subsequently realigned the contested funds before the 2019 General Appropriations Act was passed.

As a result of the investigations, President Duterte relieved Diokno and Pangandaman from the budget department, and floated them in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas while further probe was going on, but the Covid pandemic saved their skin.

It was BBM, on his first day of office, who re-appointed Diokno as secretary of finance and Pangandaman, budget secretary to be part of a Mafiosi style of governance to loot the national treasury in broad daylight and  violate the human rights of any and all that will stand in his way.

The Malaysian lesson

If Marcos, and any of the public officials and private contractors involved in this flood-control monumental scam, think they get away with the consequences of this crime of the century, they had better be reminded of the obnoxious Razak legacy.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been sentenced to prison on four 15-year sentences on abuse of power charges, as well as five years each on 21 money laundering charges.

(The jail terms, however, do not add up but run concurrently under Malaysian law.)

Najib, 72, was accused of misappropriating nearly 2.3 billion Malaysian ringgit ($569m; £422m) from the nation’s sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and a judge found him guilty in four charges of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering a larger sum of money, received by his personal bank account in 2013. Najib said he had believed the money was a donation from the late Saudi King Abdullah – a claim rejected by the judge.

The verdict, delivered in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya, is the second blow in the same week to the embattled former leader, who has been imprisoned since 2022. The former PM is already in jail after he was convicted two years ago in another case related to 1MDB.

Najib’s lawyers claim that he had been misled by his advisers – in particular the financier Jho Low, whohas maintained his innocence but remains at large. But the argument has not convinced Malaysia’s courts, which previously found Najib guilty of embezzlement in 2020.

That year, Najib was convicted of abuse of power, money laundering and breach of trust over 42 million ringgits ($10m; £7.7m) transferred from SRC International – a former unit of 1MDB – into his private accounts, for which he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. But his jail term was reduced to half last year.

The 1MDB scandal made headlines across the world when it came to light a decade ago, embroiling prominent figures from Malaysia to Goldman Sachs and Hollywood.

Investigators estimated that $4.5bn was siphoned from the state-owned wealth fund into private pockets, including Najib’s.

(What about Liza Araneta Marcos?) Separately Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor was sentenced to ten years in jail in 2022 for bribery, but she is free on bail pending an appeal against her conviction.

The scandal has had profound repercussions on Malaysian politics.

In 2018 it led to a historic election loss for Najib’s Barisan Nasional coalition, which had governed the country since its independence in 1957, and the rise of Anwar Ibrahim’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat and its broader coalition, the Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) coalition, which has formed the present federal unity government, with Anwar as prime minister.

Mene, Tekel, Uphasin

The country is sinking while incompetence and corruption rules.

The handwriting is on the wall.

A disembodied hand miraculously appeared during a sacrilegious feast, writing cryptic words on the wall of the Babylonian King Belshazzar’s palace The prophet Daniel interpreted the writing to mean the king’s reign had been weighed by God and found lacking , resulting in his overthrow .

The Philippine Constitution makes it difficult to remove a president even when incapacitated. The President seems pre-occupied saving his own skin and covering up for his conspirators rather than leading the government. Desperate, it is almost feeding a tiger with meat using your bare hands.

This should serve as a heads up to the members of the president’s official family, the Cabinet, who seem to be either frozen in atrophy or scattered in disarray. But you are not order takers. You were hired by the people because he found some expertise in your in your respective discipline. Do not be disposed to preserving your pay check rather than serving the people. The Constitution allows you to initiate moves for a temporary replacement, writing the Senate about his condition of being no longer able to coherently perform his daily functions.

Congress can also play a role, but almost all of them has conspired with Marcos’ corruption. It is improbable to assemble the numbers.

The military is mandated by Constitution to protect the people and the State, but the major service commanders seem to have also been co-opted by the President and his cousin, the former Speaker.

Wasn’t it Franklin Delano Roosevelt who said, “the only thing to fear is fear itself!”

Ang takot ay nasa isip lamang.

Romualdez with the presidential son Sandro Marcos, congressman in Ilocos Norte,  reassuring the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) represented by 17 AFP generals and senior flag officers, an additional ₱350 daily subsistence allowance for soldiers.

This is a call for you to withdraw support from a fallen traitor to the country, a plunderer who knows no limits.

Please do not wait for the people to take the job into their own hands, street justice will mean blood and if not tamed, the obliteration of the State.

We came close to this political and economic disaster once.

Conclusion

On February 25, 1986, news reached us who were encamped at EDSA, that Ferdinand Edralin Marcos and his family were preparing to leave Malacanang Palace. The thermostat hit the ceiling, and masses started marching towards Aurora/Sta Mesa boulevard enroute to Jose P. Laurel/Calle Aviles.

My wife wanted to come, so I drove my white Toyota Tamaraw instead taking some friends from Ligaya ng Panginoon too.

When we got to the corner of Legarda and Mendiola, we saw throngs tearing the barricades apart, many already had pliers and cutters to take home a piece of the barb wire for souvenir. The police gave way.

But arriving at the Gate 4, I saw Marcos Loyalists guarding the fences .In a flash, the mob forced themselves through their ranks, battering them with whatever. Blood spewed all around me as protesters around me took to the fences scaling the fences to inside the yard.

Lynch mobs scaling Palace fences before they were able to break Gate 4 open, as Philippine Marines abandon the yard.

In another minute, a loud command echoed throughout the lawn telling the Marines to regroup. The gates opened and soldiers started marching out to leave the premises in a single file. The crowd wouldn’t wait and ignored them as thousands squeezed against each other, running to the Palace buildings.

I have never seen an angry mob destroy everything with any name and any picture of the Marcos they could lay their hands on.

I was relieved to hear that Malacanang was vacated only a few minutes ahead as there was doubt in my mind  that if Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, his family and even his staff chose to stay, the lynch mob would have killed or maimed them.

Utterly defeated today, his son Bongbong insists on clinging to his position like a monitor lizard (tuko).

There is no doubt in my mind that if the people can get to them now, history will repeat itself but the turnout could be very much different.

   

Email: contact@asiancenturyph.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/asiancenturyph/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AsianCenturyPH

Substack:

Also read: