Amid Vice President Sara Duterte’s declaration that she will run as president in the 2028 elections, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. gave the electorate this advice: choose candidates who understand economics.

“Well, number one, (choose) somebody who understands economics — that’s the first thing — someone who understands how to create jobs, how to keep the inflation rate down, and who understands how to make food supply a given. And someone who thinks about productivity, because growth is about productivity,” the President said during a fireside chat at the ASEAN Editors and Economic Opinion Leaders Forum at the Fairmont Hotel in Makati City on Tuesday.

‘Half-baked Matatag Curriculum’

To recall, Palace spokesperson, Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro, in an earlier statement said the Vice President should apologize to the Filipino people for accepting the job as Education Secretary, and pushing a half-baked “Matatag Curriculum” which most teachers called “chaotic.”

Further, the President said the next President should also know how to support the labor force, making the working population more productive.

Not politics, but how to make the country better

Other issues discussed were education, health, and food security, among others. Said the President, “How do you fix the education system so that Filipinos are better trained? How do you make sure that they are healthier? How do you make sure that they don’t have to worry about food? Those are the kind of people that we need, people who are actually thinking not about politics but how to make the country better,” the President said.

Marcos Jr. stressed that the country needs nation builders, “people who want to make the Philippines better, people who actually love the Philippines and love Filipinos and want to make things better.”

‘Love goes a long way, but it’s not enough’

“It all boils down to this...it might sound a little sentimental or emotional, but that’s what you need, and of course, there has to be that element of competency, you know, love goes a long way, but it’s not enough. You also have to know how to make things work. You have to have some training, or at the very least, you have to listen to people who have that training,” emphasized the President.

Even if Undersecretary Castro already made it clear that the President has not yet chosen a standard bearer in the 2028 polls, the President admitted that he has people in mind whom he is “convincing” to succeed him as president but will not, at the moment, identify who these are.