In His Fourth Sona, the President Introduces the Nation to the New Kontrabidas

By Joey Salgado

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. spoke to the nation last Monday not as a victorious political leader but a humbled one.

On his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA), the President acknowledged the results of the midterm elections as a protest vote, a verdict on the disappointing performance of his administration.

"Malinaw sa akin ang mensahe ng naging resulta ng halalan. Bigo at dismayado ang mga tao sa pamahalaan, lalo na ang mga nasa pangunahing serbisyo," he said. "Kailangan pa natin mas lalong galingan. Kailangan pa natin mas lalong bilisan.”

With the statement of contrition out of the way, he then proceeded to enumerate what his administration has done for the last three years, promising to do better in the last three years if the people would only give him a chance (Sofronio Vasquez III, who sang the National Anthem, should have been made to sing that Ric Segreto classic).

With record-low satisfaction ratings and a nation more politically-divided after the midterms, the President sought to strike a bargain with the people but not from a position of strength. Still, he had to try.

Business-like SONA

The speech itself was business-like in tone, terse, delivered almost entirely in Filipino, and with well-placed stingers designed to trigger cheers and applause from the political and economic elite gathered at the plenary hall of the House.

The President’s SONA gave him the platform to enumerate his accomplishments, the ones that the public had failed to appreciate. But the disconnect with everyday realities are inescapable.

The President bragged about zero billing for patients admitted at public hospitals, but poor Filipinos needing urgent medical care are still denied admittance and turned away because of congestion or the absence of treatment facilities. While he talked about laptops and technology, the latest EDCOM2 report says the Philippines ranked the lowest in reading and second lowest in math and science in the 2019 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The problem is not technology, but poor comprehension.

He expounded on his administration’s gains in agriculture and food security while self-rated hunger remains high. And after an initial flurry of feel good events in the transportation sector, daily life remains a living hell for commuters, even if some boomers grew teary-eyed at the mention of the 70s-era Love Bus making a comeback.

While the compare-and-contrast approach works when comparing the present with the past, it falters when ordinary Filipinos stuck in a cycle of poverty, hunger, and poor governance hear their president speak to them about the state of the nation as seen from the tinted glasses of cold statistics and self-imposed key performance indicators.

Meet the new ‘bad guys’

In times of difficulties, when an administration is faced with growing discontent, the public is presented with a more sinister threat that makes the incumbent and his people look like angels and saviors. Every story of challenge and redemption needs a bad guy, a kontrabida.

Last year, the villain was the Duterte administration. But the former president, now detained at the Hague, or his combative daughter the Vice President, were not mentioned by name to avoid sparking another propaganda offensive from the Duterte camp. The President’s anger was reserved for a new rogues gallery: He pledged the full force of the law against the masterminds behind the disappearance of online sabungeros. For the water concessionaire PrimeWater, owned by the Villar family, he warned that government will exact accountability (brother and sister, the other Donnie and Marie of the Senate, were present at the SONA).

But the President gave his strongest rebuke to those who profited from sub-standard or non-existent flood control projects and those who would mangle his 2026 budget, even warning that he “will return any proposed General Appropriations Bill that is not fully aligned with the National Expenditure Program.”

And if the message wasn’t clear enough, he expressed his readiness to work under a reenacted budget.

Here, the President intended to redirect the public’s anger. While he may have accepted the blame for the midterm loss, he is not the real enemy. The enemy is corruption as exemplified by the scandalous budget insertions in the 2025 budget and sub-standard or non-existent infrastructure projects, some of them funded by these insertions. He made these bold declarations with the two leaders of the chambers behind him and with senators and congressmen neck-deep in the budget insertion controversy seated in the plenary, the same political allies who will be instrumental in passing his priority legislations.

Yet, it seemed like the President was shaming the shameless. After he skewered pork profiteers, the legislators cheered and applauded. That, my friends, is not only irony, but hypocrisy.

The morning of his SONA, dark clouds and heavy rains threatened to spoil the President’s moment, but the clouds parted just enough to give way to sunshine as he was delivering his speech, allowing him to depart the venue basking in light. How he could have wished that the public - and history - would be kinder than the weather.

This article also appears in Rappler