Duterte vs Marcos (Part 2: How BBM’s playbook evades history and facts)

If the Duterte playbook is all about attacking with bad stuff, the Marcoses is all about evading, surviving, and projecting feel-good vibes.

This was how they won the 2022 elections, to the shock of Martial Law survivors, the opposition, and political observers, who never thought another Marcos could become president given their tainted legacy.

But the playbook made sure Bongbong Marcos could get away and get around. The tactic was to skip televised debates and media interviews, that made him evade the big questions such as his father’s legacy of dictatorship and corruption, their plundered wealth, rumors of his drug use and his lack of a college degree, and WHAT IS HIS PLATFORM.

The playbook was about projecting a one-word slogan: Unity, plastered with a smile plastered in posters and social media cards, in tandem with Sara Duterte to project continuity of the popular yet divisive Duterte dynasty.  The operation was clearly crafted and controlled with a social media army that pushed their message straight to the cellphones carried by voters and the public.   

But behind that façade was the real play that is part of their Marcos legacy. Linking up again with local political families to assure votes, distributing stashes of food and allegedly money to people who attended their sorties and negative campaigning such as the Len-Len series , and employing social media influencers who mocked the nearest strong contender.

Their campaign saw them warp history by conjuring the ‘Golden Age’ of his father’s rule, playing up the boom of infrastructure projects, Nutribun, a government that checked corruption of officials and elites. It erased their sins of cronyism, corruption, curtailment of freedoms, and censorship.

That BBM won the presidency over Vice President Leni Robredo can be summed up in one Facebook post made in the post-elections: The saddest part of 2022 was when people believed the lies thrown on a woman but denied the truths about a man.

With the elections over and having wrested Malacañang, BBM now comes front and center, with the reality of a nation barely surviving COVID and the past six years of a Duterte administration marked by divisiveness and diminished democratic space.

His administration was rocked right away with the basic issue: soaring prices. In late 2022, prices of onions were sold as high as 100 pesos a kilo. In mid-2023, rice soared as high as 60 pesos per kilo. The public began to mock BBM’s claim during the elections that he would bring down the price of rice to 20 pesos. The Golden Age now seems more of golden prices of food and fuel that the poor could not afford.

Economists have pointed out the lack of sound agriculture policies that would help farmers sustain their livelihood and to stop price manipulation at the farmgate. 

But what the Marcos Jr. administration did is again smoke and mirrors. During his 2024 SONA, Marcos Jr. blamed the soaring prices to external problems, like wars and El Niño. He embellished data that agricultural production has risen, that they have cut down tariffs on imported rice, and that Kadiwa stores are selling rice at lower prices. But, the facts are farmers are getting poorer, while people could hardly see Kadiwa stores going around in the regions.

The playbook now is typical picking of data here and there to cover up the lack of growth in the country’s economy and the income of the Filipinos.

IBON foundation points out how BBM projects data that the Philippines is among the fast-rising economies in Southeast Asia, but fails to address the more important data, that more Filipinos rate themselves poor, from 12.6 million families in June 2022 to 16 million as of June 2024.

Marcos Jr. paints an economic landscape of potentials in the SONA; jobs are now slowly being created and prices are being controlled. But the issues such as low wages, poverty alleviation, developing industry and agriculture remain blank. Analysts ask in behalf of the people: where is the blueprint of his Bagong Pilipinas program?

Some may say that at least, BBM’s SONA sounds better, with no more cussing and muttering of opinions that Duterte peppered in his SONA. But this misses the point. BBM’s SONA and his leadership, may sound the opposite of Duterte, but it remains as directionless with the lack of regard for the people, the economy, and even the environment.

After SONA comes a challenging time for the Marcoses. The façade of the Uniteam is broken with VP Sara Duterte leaving his cabinet and perhaps establishing herself as the challenger for 2028. The fact is both the Dutertes and the Marcoses don’t have strong political parties, and it remains to be seen who can gather more allies for their senatorial line-ups for 2025.

The challenge also goes to the public, who may no longer feel high from the Uniteam and Golden Age euphoria as the economy is at a low. It’s time to figure out what is reality of politics beyond the playbooks of the dynasts. (davaotoday.com)

READ: Duterte vs Marcos (Part 1: The Duterte playbook seems broken)