Earth to Marcos
A sounding rocket test in Cagayan sounds futuristic, but back on Earth, the Philippines is facing a staggering backlog of over 165,000 classrooms.
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A sounding rocket test in Cagayan sounds futuristic, but back on Earth, the Philippines is facing a staggering backlog of over 165,000 classrooms.
If you listened to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s fifth State of the Nation Address (SoNA), you might have felt a fleeting moment of awe. Between calling out corrupted flood control projects and demanding lower electricity bills, the President delivered a line straight out of a sci-fi blockbuster: the Philippines is building a spaceport in Cagayan and launching a rocket into space.
It sounds cool on paper. But for millions of everyday Filipinos struggling to afford basic groceries or pay for electricity and fuel, it begs a sharp question: Why are we shooting for the stars when our basic services are still stuck in the mud?
High-profile flex vs. low-level corruption
To be fair, the administration’s anti-corruption flex had some serious bite this year. Freezing and recovering ₱P25 billion in stolen and defective flood control project assets — and acknowledging the Ombudsman’s impending charges against former Speaker Martin Romualdez — took genuine political nerve. Returning ₱P800 million to the Treasury is a welcome win.
The President also won loud cheers by calling for EPIRA amendments to ban power companies from passing “system loss” gouging and extra VAT onto consumers. It’s about time someone said it out loud: why are working families paying for electricity that power companies lose in transit?
Rockets won’t fix broken classrooms
Yet, the moment the speech pivoted to building a spaceport, the disconnect became glaring. A sounding rocket test in Cagayan sounds futuristic, but back on Earth, the Philippines is facing a staggering backlog of over 165,000 classrooms.
Recent Edcom 2 reports reveal public schools where up to 80 kids are crammed into classrooms built for 40, ditching desks for monobloc chairs just to fit. The administration offered band-aids — Smart TVs, tablets and lapel mics — while ignoring the basic concrete and mortar needed to build a decent learning environment.
Then there is the silence on wages. Marcos praised temporary relief like TUPAD cash-for-work, discounted jeepney fares, and subsidized rice. But temporary cash assistance is not a substitute for a living wage.
While domestic workers abroad saw minimum wage floors rise, workers at home were left drowning under inflation without a single mention of a legislated wage hike.
Even in healthcare, promising a future Virology Institute sounds great, but it doesn’t solve the immediate day-to-day reality of understaffed regional public hospitals where patients must line up before dawn to secure basic consultation numbers.
Grounding our priorities
National pride and international partnerships are valuable, but prestige projects should never eclipse foundational public services. A country can’t successfully pivot into a regional tech and space hub while its public schools operate in shifts, and its working class relies on emergency handouts to survive the month.
With only two years left in office, the Chief Executive delivered an ambitious vision. But Filipinos can’t eat space rockets and we can’t pay our medical bills with executive promises.
If the promises of SoNA 2026 are to mean anything beyond political theater, the government needs to bring its head back down from the clouds and fix the basic infrastructure holding the country back on Earth.
