Photo Courtesy: Bongbong Marcos facebook page
If deception were an art form, the present Marcos administration would be its most accomplished practitioner.
This government has mastered the politics of diversion—turning scandals into spectacles, crimes into background noise, and public outrage into exhaustion. While Filipinos are drowned in a half-baked impeachment drama, the real scandals—the ones rooted in power, money, and political bloodlines—are carefully kept beyond reach, safely insulated from accountability.
The new year did not open with hope.
It opened with silence—and disappointment.
There is no clear economic direction. No decisive plan to address unemployment. No assurance to a labor force desperate for stability. Instead, the first quarter of 2026 is already poisoned by excessive politics—manufactured conflicts and recycled corruption dramas meant not to solve anything, but to distract everyone.
And nowhere is this deception more cruel than in how this government treats its workers.
Public school teachers—the backbone of this nation’s future—have long cried for a meaningful salary increase. They educate overcrowded classrooms, buy supplies from their own pockets, and carry the moral burden of shaping the next generation. Yet their pleas are met with delay, excuses, and empty praise.
Meanwhile, uniformed personnel in the military receive sudden increases in basic pay—jumping from ₱100 to ₱300—swiftly approved, swiftly implemented.
This is not coincidence. This is favoritism dressed as policy.
To many teachers, this so-called adjustment reeks not of reform, but of quiet bribery—a strategic move to secure loyalty and unquestioning support from the armed sector, while civilian public servants are left to fend for themselves. Teachers are pushed into the arms of loan sharks, cash advances, and 5-6 pautang, sinking deeper into debt just to survive.
This administration can find money when obedience is at stake, but suddenly becomes “fiscally cautious” when justice and fairness are demanded.
And the people continue to pay—religiously, relentlessly. Business permit renewals. Taxes. Fees. Yet in return, they receive weekly fuel price hikes wrapped in recycled excuses, a hopeless labor market, and corruption scandals turned into endless circuses—loud enough to entertain, vague enough to protect the powerful.
Truth is no longer merely hidden; it is deliberately distorted. Lies are no longer denied; they are normalized through repetition. This government does not simply fail to lead—it thrives on deception.
The most dangerous governance is not loud tyranny, but quiet manipulation. When people are confused, they stop demanding. When they are exhausted, they stop resisting. And when deception becomes routine, injustice becomes policy.
So the question remains—without illusion, without fear:
What will 2026 become? Another year of selective generosity and widening inequality?Another chapter where soldiers are rewarded, while teachers are indebted?pAnother season of politics over people, power over principle, deception over dignity?
A government that survives through diversion is terrified of truth. And a nation that tolerates favoritism disguised as reform risks waking up to a future already sold—at the expense of those who taught us how to dream.
“If accountability ends where family and allies begin, then what we are witnessing is not democracy — it is power shielding itself from scrutiny,” – Cong. Pulong Duterte.
