BBM’s odyssey

Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s presidency has been an odyssey, one that rivals the adventures, misadventures, exploits, conquests and triumphs of any warrior king in the fantasyland called the Philippines, or anywhere else.

As a country, the Philippines is an Olympus in its own right. With 117 million people, it is the 12th largest consumer market on earth. As an economy, it is valued at $512 billion in nominal GDP dollars, and easily $1.7 trillion in purchasing power parity 2024 dollars.

The Philippines is the 30th largest economy on earth, out of more than 200 countries, far bigger (richer) than Colombia, South Africa, Singapore, UAE, Kazakhstan, Switzerland (the original home of unexplained wealth), Romania, Algeria, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Chile, Ukraine (which is about to beat Russia), Austria and 150 other countries.

In land area (300,000 square kilometers), the Philippines is the world’s fifth largest island nation. Its coastline of 36,289 kms is the fifth longest in the world, 50 percent longer than MAGA’s 19,000 kms which is guarded by 11 100,000-ton aircraft carriers, the world’s largest. In typical Ilocano fashion, our coastline is guarded by just one 3,200-ton BRP Miguel Malvar, a missile-guided corvette.

As an archipelago of 7,607 islands, the Philippines is the second largest in Asia (after Indonesia) and seventh, globally, in number of islands. As a landmass, it is bigger than many countries in Europe, bigger than the United Kingdom, South Korea, New Zealand and yes, bigger than Greece (which has only 132,000 sq kms), the home of the Olympus and the Greek gods led by Zeus.

Warrior-king Odysseus Marcos has been wanting to return to the kingdom called the Philippines which his father ruled for 20 years, restore its magic, its wonder and its greatness so that the Middle Kingdom will stop maligning it (“We will not waiver,” Marcos Jr. vowed) and even attempt to conquer it (“We will not yield,” the President declared).

In serving his presidency, BBM has encountered all kinds of enemies and challenges, the political and economic equivalent of mythical monsters, cyclops, cannibals and sirens.

The flood control syndicate embedded in the kingdom called House of Representatives is composed of cyclops of corruption, with a single eye focused on barrels and bags of money, money, money. “From whom are you stealing the money?” the ombudsman asks. Their answer: nobody, nobody, nobody!

There are witches too. Impakta, to use Imee Marcos’s lingua franca. They are dressed in seemingly recycled dresses and sport seemingly recycled bags. Their favorite color is black, to disguise their penchant for blue – the color of the highest denomination peso money. The impaktas also like another color – green, the color of envy.

Of course, we have our very own Circe, the goddess and sorceress from Davao who turns otherwise decent, peace-loving people into animals. Animals with violent tendencies. So they can be hired to kill the President, the First Lady, a certain now notorious former leader of the House.

Our Green Circe likes chichiryas so much she names confidential funds/cash receipts after Mary Grace Piattos, Fernando Tempura, Beverly Claire Pampano, MicoHarina, Patty Ting, Ralph Josh Bacon, Sala Casim, Oishi, Kamote, and Mango (to name some, out of hundreds). Davao’s Circe regularly gave away cash envelops to officials at DepEd and the OVP so that they turn into monkeys – see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil.

Our Circe has a kingdom called Troy of Davao. For 30 years, Circe’s Duterte royal clan ruled Davao, an impenetrable fortress with soldiers who kill anyone suspected to be a drug addict, an unfriendly drug lord and anyone who attempts to disturb the peace and order of the southern kingdom.

In 2022, Odysseus Marcos offered a wonderful gift, a Trojan horse called the vice presidency, the second highest position in the land. As VP, you are a ruler in waiting. And since the king is claimed to be sometimes sick and even high on certain drugs, that wait could be just a jiffy. Unwilling to disobey the rule of hospitality in their kingdom, Empress Green Circe seized on the offer.

Instantly, the north’s Kingdom of Maharlika and the south’s Kingdom of Duterte were united.

In 2022, Odysseus Marcos tallied 31.6 million votes while Empress Green Circe grabbed 32 million – the largest ever electoral mandates won by any president and vice president.

Odysseus Marcos became the first majority elected president since King Marcos I of 1969. Marcos II got 59 percent of the votes cast, with a 30-percentage-point margin over his closest rival. He won in all the 15 largest cities and in all the 15 cities of Metro Manila.

The sheer size of the numbers gave Marcos II a unique national mandate and an absolute majority, reflecting a resonant message of unity across kingdomland.

This was not a traditional uprising, but a democratic mandate delivered quietly and overwhelmingly at the ballot box by the Filipino electorate.

Four years into his six-year rule, Odysseus Marcos has yet to conquer equally challenging monsters – inflation, rising cost of living, energy shortages, rising geopolitical tensions and, of course, the incessant and malicious thunderstorms from the Davao kingdom under Empress Green Circe.

Odysseus M has already sacrificed his favorite cousin, the Polyphemous of Corruption, before the altar of anti-corruption to satisfy Themis and Eunomia – the deities of good governance, lawful order and civic duty.

To discipline Green Circe, he has brought her before the impeachment court of the Senate, populated by supreme gods in their own right, although half of them are probably plunderers while reciting Bible passages and the Constitution.

To his people, Odysseus Marcos now appeals. He said in his SONA:

Let us continue the work that we have started.

To make the Philippines the country that Filipinos deserve.

There is no nobler cause than this. We do this for our children.

We do this for our future.

We cannot but do this, because we love our country and we love our people.

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