Do you feel his pain?

It must have been the steadily sliding ratings. For his penultimate State of the Nation Address, President Marcos decided to come out swinging from the get-go – at his once favorite cousin.

And he ended the SONA swinging at another entity unpopular in this country, saying Filipinos are not “greedy, racists or liars” – leaving no doubt about the target of his broadside. The cameras didn’t pan to the ambassador of the targeted state; maybe he skipped the SONA, like his country’s defenders in the Senate minority.

If some of the public officials in the audience looked uncertain about how to react to the blow against the presidential cousin, their enthusiasm was unrestrained in applauding that last part.

In between those two points, BBM latched on to another raging issue, ordering a legislative amendment to cut system loss charges (plus the VAT) to bring down power bills. Lawmakers, suffering from “electric shock” and needing to cut down the number of their home air conditioners from 12 to 10, lustily applauded that part of the SONA.

As for the rest of the SONA, it was pretty much ho-hum, like the typical annual report to the nation.

Almost the entire speech was in Filipino. I’m not sure if that was because of the upcoming Buwan ng Wika, or an effort of BBM to connect with the masses who, gosh, seem unaware of what the government has been doing for them.

The UK-educated Bongbong Marcos, however, struggled with his Filipino lines, which weren’t colloquial Pinoy. He’s no pang-masang Digong Duterte. Still, BBM gets an A for effort.

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Although left unnamed, there was no doubt in the mind of even the person himself about the identity of the “former speaker” mentioned by BBM, who would soon be facing piles of court indictments.

It pained him that it was happening, BBM said – and his anguish is probably true. After all, his ugly breakup with his UniTeam partner Sara Duterte began when he apparently thought his cousin Martin Romualdez should replace him in 2028 instead of the VP.

Cousin Martin must have believed the anguish, since he dropped his warning that he wouldn’t go down alone as a scapegoat or fall guy. Instead he reiterated his claim of innocence, and echoed BBM’s statement that pursuing the case was “the right thing to do.”

Will people feel BBM’s pain? Only if the words translate into solid action, and “soon” (as per BBM), or better yet, “very soon” (as per his justice chief-turned-Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla).

By solid action, Romualdez surely knows it refers to his arrest and detention without bail, and later being brought to court in handcuffs, like Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta.

Such moves would blunt the not entirely baseless accusations of the DDS that the anti-corruption campaign is selective. A clincher would be the return to the country of Ako Bicol party-list “cong-tractor” Zaldy Co, who is suspected to be enjoying a prolonged European vacation courtesy of the Marcos administration itself.

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Notably unmentioned at the SONA were the impeachment of VP Sara, the country’s new upper-middle income status, the P85 wage hike that took effect over the weekend and further Cabinet changes.

To be fair, the country is facing serious problems both old and new. Healthcare and public education are in crisis. The next generations of Filipinos are growing up physically and mentally stunted by undernourishment, unable to think clearly due to hunger pangs, and vulnerable to bullying, scams, disinformation and fake news.

Youths no longer want to farm or fish, seeing agriculture as a dead end, and are hoping instead to land a job overseas, even in the scam hubs of Myanmar and Cambodia.

The inadequacy of our public infrastructure has been aggravated by the looting of public funds, institutionalized by politicians in the national budget process.

There are many other problems across all sectors. It takes a touch of masochism for an honest and competent person to want to be president of this country.

The best that BBM can do is to make a perceptible dent in those problems, or at least lay the foundations for enduring reforms.

Yesterday, in his SONA technical report, he called for specific transparency measures. These include easing bank secrecy laws, giving more teeth to the Anti-Money Laundering Council, and passage of the Right to Information Act and the Citizen Access and Disclosure of Expenditures for National Accountability Act.

In the last two years of his presidency, BBM needs a dramatic accomplishment that he can definitely claim as his legacy.

This is not only to attain his objective of redemption for the Marcos name, but also to ensure that whoever replaces him will be anyone but his family’s nightmare from hell, the “bratinela” VP, or any member of that camp.

Victims of the martial law regime will find it ironic that the only son of kleptocrats will make the battle against corruption his legacy.

But if it succeeds, the public wouldn’t mind giving Ferdinand Marcos Jr. due recognition.

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CONSUMER PROTECTION: In pursuit of reforms, the government can also tighten consumer protection.

Someone I know bought a bed from furniture giant IKEA on July 5, for delivery on July 11. The delivery was canceled because, IKEA said, “we have experienced a significant increase in order volume, which has affected some of our processing and delivery timelines.” Delivery was moved to July 21, but it arrived on July 22, without the person who would assemble it, for which the buyer paid a fee of P4,225.

On July 24, the buyer reached out through WhatsApp, IKEA’s preferred after-service portal, requesting to talk to a human, not a bot.

The reply: “Thank you for contacting IKEA. We are experiencing a high volume of messages. You are on hold & we will assign an agent to assist you shortly. Have a great day!”

An assembler is scheduled today, after the buyer finally got to talk to a human. It remains to be seen whether the buyer will have a great day today.