Why are the Marcos-Duterte approval ratings going down?

In less than two years in office, after the hype of a new administration that would bring the price of rice to only ?20, the popularity of the president and the vice president is fast deteriorating because of high inflation, rising price of prime commodities, increasing incidence of crimes and drugs, and the worsening poverty of the people. The myth of Marcos-led better times of unity and prosperity is crumbling like a deck of cards.

The administration cannot feed the hungry Filipinos with glowing statistics. The people cannot eat figures and reports for breakfast and dinner. Every time the president travels, and he does it with unprecedented frequency and at very high costs, with large entourage of sycophants and underlings, influence-peddlers and hobnobbing taipans, he always makes a hyped arrival speeches whereby he promises billions in foreign investments supposedly assured by investors, but which never come. Or if at all, it comes in trickles in amounts as small as the teardrops of kittens. The Philippines receives one of the smallest direct foreign investments among the 10 ASEAN member nations.

Joblessness is on the rise. This cannot be solved by signing a law called Trabaho Para Sa Bayan if there are no businesses being opened due to poor trust levels among businessmen in government agencies, no jobs will be created. The government saddles the small, medium, and micro enterprises with too many taxes, too much red tape, too much graft, and too many inspections. The local government units do inspections, the DTI, the DENR, the DOLE, and many of the inspectors are not angels nor saints. The DOLE keeps on pressuring small private businesses to regularize, casuals, project employees and contractuals, while maintaining too many job-order workers with no employer-employee relationship, no health and social welfare protection.

Crimes are becoming more and more rampant. The drug problems have worsened since the exit of the Duterte government. Policemen are involved in the trafficking and trading of drugs. Even criminals inside the national penitentiary are operating drug syndicates. There is still corruption in the Bureau of Customs and the BIR. Airport security personnel are caught on camera eating dollars. And yet, high public officials are asking for more than ?5 trillion national budgets, much of which are allocated as confidential and intelligence funds. The people are often hit by supertyphoons and their homes and livelihoods are devastated. The president attends car racing in Singapore every year when state of calamity has been declared in many of his home regions. The vice president likes to ask for confidential and intelligence funds even if there is nothing confidential in education and in the office of the VP.

No wonder then that the Pulse Asia survey shows deteriorating approval ratings of both the president and the vice president. Only 16% of the respondents surveyed approved of the government's performance in battling inflation. This is a substantial erosion of the 31% last year in the same period. The disapproval rating went sharply up to 56% from last year's 37%. The government also failed in poverty reduction and rated only 29% now compared to 43% last year. The government rating on workers' wages was reduced to 41% from 53%. On job creation, it is rated a low 43% down from last year's 53%. The disapproval rating on corruption is higher at 23% now compared to 17% last year.

The bottom line of all this is that the people are unhappy with this administration. The Marcos-Duterte leadership had been judged and found wanting in too many ways at too early a stage of the game. To arrest the increasing unpopularity of the government, the president has been going around as far as Caraga distributing sacks of confiscated smuggled rice, but this dole-out scheme is not sustainable. It perpetuates mendicancy. Even as the president insists on remaining as acting Agriculture secretary, the farmers remain miserable. The middlemen continue to smuggle and hoard rice.

The Ombudsman himself said that corruption has worsened. The people are seeing bad signs of worse times to come. By the latest Pulse Asia survey, the government is being warned by the people that they are unhappy with the state of things today. There are no signs that a turnaround can be achieved in the next six months. I do not wish to sound like a prophet of doom and gloom but I am afraid that we shall be having a bleak Christmas and a gloomy new year. Sad.