Bongbong’s time is up

Dear Editor,

We are told not to panic. That 3.8-percent growth is still growth, that the economy is merely “tight,” not choking, that relief is coming in 2026 or 2027, like a deferred payment plan for hope.

But tell that to the Marines. No, tell that to our dirt-poor countrymen who can’t find work, to the small contractors who suddenly lost their government projects, to families watching prices rise while their incomes crawl. 

Bangko Sentral Governor Eli Remolona Jr. said in DAILY TRIBUNE’s banner story, “Growth seen slowing to 3.8 percent,” that the forecast is weak because of corruption. That’s too kind a statement from Remolona.

Come on! Growth outlook looks very bad because this kleptocracy being presided over by Bongbong Marcos has managed to make corruption feel both routine and brazen, a daily condition rather than a scandal.

Yes, we Filipinos are being numbed by the audacity of the thievery and that flood control mess is not something that Marcos Jr. can blame on anyone else but himself. Have we heard him mouthing, “mea culpa?”

Public infrastructure spending collapsing by 26 percent is not an accident of the weather. It is what happens when projects are frozen because everyone is afraid of being implicated, or worse, when money meant to protect communities from floods ends up protecting private pockets instead. 

When confidence evaporates, even honest officials stop moving. The economy slows not because Filipinos forgot how to work, but because the government has not stopped the plunder of public coffers.

What makes this harder to swallow is the historical irony. Marcos Jr. promised continuity without the excesses, nostalgia without the plunder. Instead, we are getting corruption that feels more careless than calculated, more amateur than the dark efficiency of his father’s rule. 

Marcos Sr. looted with discipline. Marcos Jr.’s watch feels like looting by committee, with leaks everywhere.

The central bank is cutting rates — for the eighth time — trying to resuscitate demand. But monetary policy cannot fix moral rot. 

You can make borrowing cheaper, but you cannot make investors trust a government that cannot explain where flood funds went. You can stimulate consumption, but you cannot force businesses to expand when governance looks shaky and accountability optional.

This slowdown of our economy, alas, is happening while other economies are muddling through the same storms without gutting their public investment programs. What sets us apart is that our growth is being knee-capped by scandals of our own making. No, make that Bongbong’s making.

The most telling line from Remolona was his warning that a bigger rate cut would look “desperate.” That word hangs heavy. 

Desperate is what a government looks like when it keeps insisting that things are fine while quietly begging the central bank to do the heavy lifting. Desperate is when technocrats are left to clean up political messes they did not create.

This administration keeps asking us to wait, but wait for what? Wait for its officials to resign en masse, starting with Marcos himself? That’s never happening. They have become so thick-skinned there in Malacañang. 

Many Filipinos, watching this drift, are waiting for something else entirely — the end of this presidency and the chance to start over without having to explain, yet again, why Marcos failed.

Norberto Martinez

Pusit Alley,

North Caloocan