[ANALYSIS] Marcos’ shrinking affect within the legislative

The 2 males seated behind him in the course of the 2025 SONA will not make a comeback on that stage this yr. It is a testomony to the political upheaval that has reshaped each chambers of Congress over the previous yr.

When President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivers his fourth State of the Nation Handle (SONA) in end-July, he’ll face a legislative department that has gone via turmoil up to now yr, and he’ll proceed to grapple together with his waning — and generally underutilized — affect.

On the floor, Congress’ turnaround charge on Marcos’ pet payments this yr doesn’t paint a flattering image. Excluding his inaugural SONA in 2022, this would be the first time he takes the rostrum with just one precedence measure enacted that he can level to as an accomplishment.

That signifies that out of 52 payments recognized as a precedence by the Legislative-Govt Improvement Advisory Council, just one — the resetting of the Bangsamoro elections — was signed into regulation.

That’s not like in earlier years, when anyplace from six to 21 pet payments hurdled the legislative department by the point of his deal with to the Filipino public. The SONA, in spite of everything, is the largest stage to tout the achievements of his administration.

To be truthful to Marcos, the legislative grind sometimes slows after the midterm elections, as a newly constituted Congress regroups and reassesses which precedence payments are price pushing to the end line earlier than the subsequent elections usher within the President’s successor.

For the a part of the Home, whose majority chief is a minimum of his son Sandro Marcos, 20 out of 51 pending pet payments hurdled the chamber up to now yr, however all of them obtained caught on the Senate.

The low productiveness charge on the higher chamber, nevertheless, stems from an unprecedented episode of chaos that Marcos was gradual to comprise.

Senate

The holdup of payments on the higher chamber befell beneath the short-lived however harmful Senate presidency of Alan Peter Cayetano.

Nearly no legislative work was achieved — no anti-dynasty invoice, no freedom of data measure, not even the proposed abolition of the journey tax, a comparatively simple win that would have earned Marcos goodwill amongst middle-class voters.

Throughout Cayetano’s weeks-long rule, triggered by a shock coup, a gun combat broke out inside Senate premises, fugitive Bato dela Rosa escaped from Senate custody, the minority walked out from the session corridor in protest, and Cayetano’s majority boycotted the session.

It’s unusual in Philippine politics for the Senate president to be a rival of the President, however that’s what Cayetano has been for Marcos.

The President’s latest challenges in preserving the Senate on his facet have hardly been a shock. His slate’s underperformance in the course of the midterms — seen as a referendum on his presidency — resulted in additional Duterte-allied politicians successful Senate seats as an alternative of survey-favored administration candidates.

The consequence is an aggressive Senate bloc able to platform former bodyguards who claimed that prime officers, together with Marcos, acquired billions of pesos in kickbacks from public works initiatives.

The Senate minority now has 11 members, a stark distinction from the two-member minority in the course of the first half of the Marcos administration.

Home

Malacañang’s logic has been simple: Marcos was the one who uncovered flood management anomalies throughout his SONA final yr, so he wouldn’t be dumb sufficient to try this if his palms weren’t clear.

Throughout that deal with, he uttered one of many punchiest soundbites of his presidency — “Mahiya naman kayo!” — an emotional warning towards individuals who manipulate the funds for his or her private acquire.

Play Video

The 2 males seated behind him on the time suffered the implications of the scandal: then-Senate president Chiz Escudero for the marketing campaign donation he acquired from a prime contractor in his province, and then-Home speaker Martin Romualdez for his position within the passage of what critics described as “mangled” 2025 nationwide funds.

Cousin Romualdez, till his resignation final yr, was an efficient and environment friendly ally of the President. Congressmen had little to no complaints, funding poured in for his or her districts, most of Malacañang’s pet payments cleared the decrease chamber, and one in all them — the Maharlika Funding Fund — even handed in file time in the course of the early years of the Marcos administration. Romualdez had the ears of the President, he was a companion to Marcos’ overseas journeys, and he rallied the troops to question Vice President Sara Duterte for the primary time in 2025, even when Marcos publicly insisted he had nothing to do with it.

Romualdez’s successor Bojie Dy got here from northern Luzon, a bailiwick of the Marcoses. Whereas he is a celebration mate of the President, the power of his ties to the President can’t match what the cousins had.

Months into his publish, Dy needed to take care of rising dissatisfaction from the Home’s second-largest bloc, the Nationwide Unity Social gathering, which blamed the manager for bottlenecks within the launch of district funds, and Dy for failing to successfully press Malacañang to deal with their considerations.

Privately, some lawmakers, whereas insisting they’d carried out nothing unsuitable, additionally bristled at Marcos’ SONA callout, saying it positioned their actions beneath intense public scrutiny.

The Home, nevertheless, continues to be unlikely to show its again on the President. Earlier this yr, it swiftly dismissed an impeachment criticism towards Marcos over his alleged involvement within the funds kickback scheme.

Even so, his administration will proceed to take care of outspoken lawmakers wanting to seize on any perceived misstep — from figures reminiscent of Leandro Leviste and Edgar Erice to the Duterte bloc and the same old voices from the normal opposition.

Marcos is coming into the lame-duck section of his presidency, and the subsequent two years will check no matter political capital he has left: first, whether or not he can marshal sufficient help to safe the conviction of a vp out for blood, regardless of his obvious reluctance to acknowledge that her everlasting disqualification would bolster his household’s political future; and second, whether or not he can persuade Congress to go key payments that may finally outline his legacy. – Rappler.com