People’s pulse and the reset

In the March 23-29, 2025 Pulse Asia survey of urgent national concerns, the most urgent cited by respondents were: 1) controlling inflation, 69 percent; 2) increasing pay of workers, 36 percent; 3) fighting graft and corruption in government, 28 percent; 4) fighting criminality, 28 percent and 5) reducing the poverty of Filipinos, 27 percent.

President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. got the highest disapproval ratings on these issues: 1) controlling inflation, 69 percent; 2) fighting graft and corruption, 53 percent and 3) fighting criminality, 49 percent, with increasing workers’ pay and reducing poverty, both garnering 48 percent disapproval.

Put simply, the most urgent problems of Filipinos are: 1) high prices; 2) corruption and 3) criminality. And little is being done, so far, to address these issues – at the Cabinet and at the lower levels of government.

Wage earners want higher pay to cope with rising prices and to reduce their poverty. If you control inflation, you effectively increase the purchasing power of people. If you increase their purchasing power, you reduce poverty because poverty is the inability to buy your basic needs, especially food and medical care.

President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. probably did not have these issues in mind when he undertook a reset, a revamp, a repurposing (I did not say recyling) of his Cabinet. The people he removed from the Cabinet are those with no direct bearing on fighting inflation and criminality.

Fighting inflation is the job of his economic team. BBM (Bongbong Marcos) kept his economic team intact, including the secretaries of Finance (Ralph Recto), Economic Planning (Arsi Balisacan), Trade and Industry (Cris Roque) and Investments (Frederick Go).

True, the economy grew by 5.6 percent in 2024 and by 5.4 percent in first quarter 2025 but the economy could have grown faster had the right fundamentals been at work.

Like cheaper cost of energy, today, up to 20 percent of the cost of production; less corruption, today crippling business initiative, and faster rollout of infrastructure, another essential to business growth and efficiency. Today, Philippine infrastructure is the most decrepit among the ASEAN Big Six – Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, despite Manila’s claim of spending up to P1 trillion a year on infra.

Basic to curbing inflationary prices is more production – of prime goods like food, especially rice. The economy grew last year and in the first quarter not because of production but because of household spending (up 5.3 percent in first quarter 2025 from 4.7 percent first quarter 2024) and government spending (up 18.7 percent in first quarter from 2.6 percent in first quarter 2024). We poured plenty of cash into consumption, not production. The Philippines does not produce or manufacture anything substantial – except two million babies a year.

BBM also kept his secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government. DILG has supervision over the 233,000-strong Philippine National Police and the LGUs – 82 provinces, 100 cities and 1,493 towns. PNP has lately failed to curb criminality.

And our LGUs are the most corrupt units of government. If you haven’t encountered red tape, visit an LGU. DILG is responsible for two things: fighting criminality and fighting corruption at the grassroots. On both criminality and corruption, DILG has been remiss.

Paging Avenza Construction

The arbitration process of the Construction Industry Association of the Philippines, an attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), is almost a joke. Deciding cases there takes an eternity. Construction is a business where deadlines are an existential need. Yet when disputes arise and the parties approach the DTI for help, the agency bides its own sweet time.

This is an example of what President Marcos Jr. himself has complained about. Things are moving ever so slowly. Government service sucks.

On Aug. 5, 2024, a prominent Ayala Alabang doctor filed a case with the DTI against Avenza Construction and Development Corp. for failure to finish his five-bedroom residential bungalow in Anvaya Cove, Morong, Bataan at the stipulated time. Agreed project cost was P6.5 million.

Usually, such a house takes from six months to a year to build. The doctor commissioned contractor Avenza in September 2022, with completion committed by May 9, 2023, or within eight months. Avenza did not finish the house, even after the doctor had paid the contractor P5.362 million by May 25, 2023.

CIAC of DTI appointed an arbitrator only on Sept. 11, 2024, one month and six days after the doctor filed his complaint. It takes that long to name an arbitrator? The arbitrator, lawyer Ray Anthony O. Pinoy, decided the case only on Feb. 25, 2025, five months and 14 days after he was assigned the case. Pinoy style talaga.

The arbitrator found Avenza failed to complete the house within the 240-day construction period agreed upon, or two years after the May 25, 2023. “The Tribunal finds respondent to have abandoned the project,” the arbitrator declared. Avenza built only 25 percent of the project despite the doctor having paid 82.49 percent of the P6.5-million project cost.

Avenza was told to pay of reimburse the doctor 75 percent or P3.737 million of the project cost of P6.5 million, the firm having finished only 25 percent of the house. Avenza was also ordered to pay P800,000 in damages – P100,000 in nominal damages, P250,000 in moral damages, P250,000 in exemplary damages and P200,000 in attorney’s fees.

The problem is this: the owner of Avenza cannot be located by the DTI. During the hearings, DTI did not even get the phone and address of the Avenza owner/s.

Maybe, DTI’s CIAC can help locate the owner of Avenza? Otherwise, its decision will just be a piece of paper, meaningless.

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]