CHICKENPIE.The Batasang Pambansa smelled like perfume and promises yesterday. Terndas and barongs, designer Filipiniana, everyone dressed like they believe in something. It’s SONA season. We all cope differently.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said something remarkable. “Hindi ako pangulo ng aking pamilya.” I am not the president of my family. He said this out loud. Into a microphone. In front of Congress. Then announced that cases will be filed against his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, for an anomalous P20 billion flood control project.
P20 billion. The kind of number that doesn’t fit in one sentence. They returned P800 million. That’s roughly the cost of eight hundred good intentions, or four percent of what apparently went missing.
He is not the president of his family. The math, however, is.
Here’s what else happened this week: gas went up again. Fifth straight week. Diesel is P7.32 more expensive per liter. The jeepney drivers are doing their own SONA every morning at the pump — no fashion show, no Filipiniana, just numbers that don’t add up. The administration’s answer is a tariff removal on electric vehicles. Great news if you can afford an electric vehicle.
The People’s SONA happened simultaneously. Thousands marched Commonwealth Avenue carrying effigies. Big ones. The kind that take effort and care to build, because when words don’t work, you make a giant papier-mâché version of your frustration and walk it down a national highway. That’s democracy, Philippine-style. You get one speech inside and another one outside, and the question is always: which one has more truth in it?
Marcos promised “Ligtas Pinoy Centers” — disaster-resilient shelters for when the climate decides to finish what the budget didn’t. He promised anti-corruption. He promised energy reform. He promised to be different from his family.
He has one more SONA. That’s the thing nobody’s saying out loud — this was the fifth one. One left.
Whatever gets built in the next twelve months will be built for the legacy, not for us. The flood money may still be mostly missing. The gas will still cost whatever it costs. The effigies will be bigger — the artists are getting better at this, they’ve had practice.
But the barongs will be excellent. They always are.
