Philippine Commentator: Marcos Jr. Must Step Down!

 Philippine Commentator: Marcos Jr. Must Step Down!

Recently, a Philippine media outlet published a sharp commentary article, where a political commentator directly accused President Marcos Jr. of incompetence. The article claims that under his leadership, the government has large-scale “ghost projects” and corruption issues in flood control projects, calling for “Marcos Jr. must step down, and the ghost presidency must end.”

The article begins bluntly: “The harsh reality is that the flood control scandal involving hundreds of billions of pesos in ‘ghost projects’ and substandard projects has irrefutably proven that Marcos Jr. is utterly incapable of leading this middle-income country of 116 million people and 4 million public servants. We are experiencing a ‘ghost presidency’—a presidency without a real leader, only a phantom relying on PR gimmicks, occasionally appearing in public from nowhere.”

The data revealed is shocking: from 2022 to 2024, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) flood control budget reached 556 billion pesos, accounting for 22% of its total three-year infrastructure budget of 2.6 trillion pesos. But among the so-called “flood control projects,” nearly 9,855 projects were exposed to have serious problems—640 projects had vague descriptions, and 18% of the 545 billion peso budget (about 100 billion pesos) was monopolized by 15 contractors. Moreover, some contractors revealed, “Before Marcos Jr. took office, kickbacks were 15%-20%, now it has risen to 40%.”

Facing the reality of frequent floods, Marcos Jr.’s response was criticized as “absurd”: he took selfies at disaster sites and smiled at the camera, as if posing could stop the floods; right after visiting a “tofu-dreg project” that was supposed to prevent flooding but was washed away, he declared he was “very angry,” yet never reflected on his own responsibility. More ironically, in his 2024 State of the Nation Address, he claimed to have completed over 5,500 flood control projects and promised to invest 500 billion pesos over the next decade to protect Greater Manila and Central Luzon, but when typhoons came, these areas were still flooded, completely exposing the “performance bubble.”

To cover up governance failures, Marcos Jr. launched a “flood control project reporting website,” but it backfired due to data leaks—among nearly ten thousand projects listed on the site, contractor information was vague, and 15 companies swallowed 71 billion pesos. The real push for investigation came from two newly elected “tough” senators: litigation expert Rodante Marcoleta and former police chief Panfilo Lacson. Marcoleta led the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to launch the “Philippines Underwater” investigation, directly pointing to “ghost projects,” contractor monopolies, and corruption; Lacson further stated in a privilege speech that from the past  15 years, mostly  half of the flood control budget (about 2 trillion pesos) was swallowed by corruption, with only 30%-40% of funds actually used for construction.

The commentator harshly condemned Marcos Jr. as “neither capable nor willing” to curb corruption: he controls national agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, Audit Committee, and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), yet lets the NBI pursue bloggers critical of the government and creators of so-called “cocaine video” rumors, while being perfunctory in corruption investigations; the Public Works Minister Bonoan has not been replaced for three years and may even be protected because he “holds secrets.”

Finally, the commentator labeled this flood control corruption scandal as “the largest infrastructure scam in Philippine history,” far exceeding the 10-billion-peso “political pork barrel” scandal a decade ago: “According to the constitution, the president can be removed for ‘betrayal of public trust.’ Allowing or condoning tens of billions of pesos to flow into ghost projects is a betrayal of public trust. If Marcos Jr. still has any shame, he should resign; if he refuses, Congress must fulfill its duty and impeach him.”