Squandered mandate
The Marcos government is not even using its powers under a national energy emergency, which remains in effect.
Sheer neglect, compounded by a leadership preoccupied with political survival as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration enters its final stretch on a downward trajectory, is exacting a toll on the country’s reputation. The Philippines is once again reduced to being Asia’s doormat.
Such notoriety was last associated with the twilight of the Marcos Sr. dictatorship. This time, however, the opportunity squandered is far greater.
Before the younger Marcos assumed power in 2022, the Philippines was still among the contenders for the coveted status of Asia’s next economic tiger, a distinction that Vietnam has since seized.
The promise rested largely on the country’s demographic dividend: a rare window of opportunity in which a substantial share of the population is of working age.
Rather than harnessing this advantage to propel the nation forward, the administration appears to have allowed it to slip away, leaving Filipinos to bear the cost of squandered potential.
As of now, the economic nirvana is in suspended animation. Opportunities remain untapped because those in power are investing in uplifting their profile through “ayuda” and other non-productive pursuits.
The recent 7.8-percent surge in inflation, the highest in three years, was driven by jumps in fuel, electricity, and rent prices, along with rice, which hit poor and low-income families hardest.
Data from the independent think tank Ibon Foundation showed that rising prices have eroded Filipino households’ meager incomes, worsening the cost-of-living crisis.
The Philippines has the highest inflation rate in Southeast Asia, underscoring how the Marcos administration’s ineffective response has fed and worsened the crisis.
The country’s neighbors are faring better, with significantly lower inflation rates: Vietnam at 5.1 percent, Indonesia at 3.2 percent, and Singapore at 2.2 percent.
Rice prices rose 24 percent from a year ago, while fuel prices soared. Electricity rates also rose 13.1 percent year on year.
Compare the price spikes with the national average of regional minimum wages, which grew only 6.9 percent.
Hidden in the government data is that the poorest 30 percent of households experienced a higher 9.5-percent inflation based on the increase in the prices of the most basic commodities.
The P521 national average daily minimum wage is less than 40 percent of the research firm’s estimated P1,327 living wage for a family of five, or a staggering P806 short.
Equivalent to just P11,325 monthly, the average monthly minimum wage also falls far below the official monthly poverty threshold of P14,634, which Ibon said is already a “scandalously low standard” for the barest minimum that families need to survive.
The fact that neighboring countries in the region have relatively lower inflation despite facing the same global shock reflects the failure to protect Filipinos through government measures.
Ibon pointed out that the Marcos government is not even using its powers under a national energy emergency, which remains in effect.
The declaration’s special powers include regulating prices under special provisions in the Oil Deregulation Law and the Price Act, and mobilizing sufficient resources to assist over 20 million poor and vulnerable Filipino households.
Instead, the government has taken only token measures, such as minor excise tax cuts and temporary price freezes, alongside meager social assistance for too few. Worse, it kept pursuing policies that aggravate rather than address the crisis, such as relying on food imports.
Marcos Jr. entered the consciousness of Filipinos with enormous political capital, riding a landslide victory of 31,629,783 votes, or nearly 60 percent of the electorate, one of the strongest mandates ever secured by a newly elected president.
Yet the choices he made in the years that followed defined his presidency. Instead of honoring the trust placed in him, he prioritized his own and his allies’ interests, leaving ordinary Filipinos with crumbs. At the same time, those in power feasted on the country’s resources.