Someone promised I can buy a kilo of rice for 20 pesos. What happened?
It’s easy to characterize the 31 million who voted for Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr last May 2022 as “stupid.” There are a lot of names to be thrown – ‘uneducated,’ ‘idiot,’ ‘mangmang’. It has become such a knee-jerk reaction for many among us to blame them for the rise of the Marcoses.
We think what we need now more than ever is a sense of solidarity. What we require as a nation dealing with the gaffes of this administration is ‘Unity.’ We need unity, not as the meaningless motto of the Marcos campaign, but as a real feeling of empathy. Supporter or critic, everyone has been lied to.
On January 22, the BEACON Publications worked with the El Consejo Atenista in order to gauge the average Ateneans’ political viewpoints. A year and a half into the Marcos administration, we developed a pilot survey to better hear the voice of the people we represent.
Based on the data we have collected as of January 28, more than three-quarters (87.5%) of our respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of President Marcos in the past year. A similar number (87.5%) reported that are generally apprehensive of the administration’s future performance.
When asked to rank the most important issue the government should focus on, we utilized a weighted ranked-choice system. Through this, we gauged that the top three issues are ‘Human Rights’, ‘Education’, and ‘Public Health.’ Conversely, the respondents consider the issues of ‘National Defense’ and ‘Public Infrastructure’ the least important.
Beyond just the data, though, dissatisfaction with Marcos’ handling of our nation’s issues lingers in the air like expired milk. From broken campaign promises, to his unfelt presence in most of our lives, it seems we are led by a President who presides over nothing.
This survey echoes a general fatigue most of us have with the politicians and their old, rotten politics. Everyone is tired of the administrations that rise and fall with little actual impact on our lives. Our needs remain unaddressed, our interests left unheard. Many have hoped Marcos would be different.
When Marcos won an overwhelming majority in the last Philippine election, he won not only vindication for his family’s sins. He also won massive political power, capable of reshaping any area of the government he wished. More than half of the country believed he would rebuild a Bagong Pilipinas.
And yet, when the Filipino needed him most, he disappeared to fly around the globe like a new Magellan. We hear less from him and more from the political opportunists that surround him. In the power vacuum left by an absentee President, members of Congress play games with talk of constitutional reform. Even vile-mouthed Duterte has grown bored enough to call him a drug-addict.
While Marcos is off watching a Coldplay concert, and while the political elite jockey around to secure their interests, the quality of education in our schools have dropped in quality. In the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Philippines came in last in Reading and second to last in Science and Mathematics.
While Marcos fails to battle rising food prices, it becomes harder for families everywhere to feed their families, pay their rent, and send their children to school. While he travels first-class using the public treasury as his personal credit card, the public healthcare system remains hard to access for those that need it the most.
The President promised the Filipinos a vision of a new Philippines. However, one year and a half gone, that golden age seems made of Tallano Gold – illusory, mythical, a fantasy.
Written by: Nur-Qhadir Tahamid and Ainee Asmad
