Marcos Jr sets tone for epic clash with the Dutertes

MANILA – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr kickstarted his third, and arguably most consequential, State of the Nation Address (SONA) this week with a clear sense of urgency.

Although still enjoying majority support in authoritative surveys, the Filipino leader has suffered declining approval ratings due to perceived weakness in handling economic issues, even as the Philippines posted the fastest growth rate in the region last year.

According to Pulse Asia’s third quarter survey, the Marcos Jr administration had a net negative 71% approval rating in handling inflation, which has consistently topped the “most urgent” list of voter concerns.

Only 5% of respondents approved of his handling of inflation, which has been hounding the Philippines over the past two years. Though overall rates are in single digits and well below troubled emerging markets such as Argentina and Turkey, even minimal increases in the prices of basic goods tend to hit hard the large majority of Filipinos who live near the poverty line.

In particular, prices of staple goods like rice have picked up in recent years. This has been particularly damaging for Marcos Jr, who as a presidential candidate had promised to halve the prices of basic staple foods and bring about a new era of economic prosperity.

The average market price of a single kilogram of rice is almost three times higher than his promised rate back in 2022. If anything, the Marcos Jr administration has also performed poorly on other top voter concerns, including poverty alleviation (net -34%); wage increases (net -15%) and hunger alleviation (net -9%), although he scored a barely positive (net +2 percent) on job creation amid rapid gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates in recent