Every July, the President of the Republic ascends the red carpet into the halls of Congress armed with a teleprompter, grand visions, and a fresh coat of optimism. This year was no different. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s 2025 State of the Nation Address (SONA) served up the usual spectacle—part performance art, part technical report, part campaign prelude. But here’s the thing: we’ve seen this show before.
Let’s give credit where it’s due. Marcos Jr. is nothing if not consistent. His speeches are masterclasses in verbal choreography—masterfully scripted, carefully staged, and strategically evasive. And while his 2025 address boasted of the so-called Marcos administration’s “achievements,” a careful comparison with his 2024 SONA reveals something more sobering: a government either stuck on repeat or practicing the fine art of statistical illusion.
Impressions:
When President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivered his 2025 State of the Nation Address, he presented a speech brimming with promises, peppered with applause lines, and polished with rhetoric meant to inspire confidence. But beyond the flourish of figures and carefully staged populist posturing, the SONA revealed more about what this administration wants us to believe than what it is truly prepared to fix.
At a glance, the President painted a utopia in the making: electrification of 2.5 million homes, the rollout of ₱20 rice, free dialysis and transplants, zero-balance hospital billing, a fully operational eGov app, and the return of the “Love Bus,” this time, for free. The Marcos administration appears to be doing everything, everywhere, all at once.
But dig a little deeper and a more sobering truth emerges: much of the SONA was a reaction to rising public distrust—a pre-emptive defense dressed up as a victory lap.
Let’s dissect a bit….
₱20 Rice: From Punchline to PR Stunt:
In 2024, the promise of ₱20 rice was dismissed by many as a populist fantasy. Now in 2025, the President triumphantly declared its “launch” in select areas, thanks to the KADIWA program and ₱113 billion in subsidies. However, he forgot to mention a crucial detail: it’s not necessarily nationwide, but rather available only in select/pilot areas. Most importantly, KADIWA is heavily subsidized, not permanent, and definitely not sustainable unless the Department of Agriculture has secretly developed magic seeds that defy inflation, climate change, and cartel manipulation.
Furthermore, President Marcos Jr. made no mention of how this program could possibly scale sustainably in a country still dependent on rice imports, whose agricultural budget pales in comparison to debt servicing and defense.
If we’re to believe the narrative, then perhaps next year we can expect gold bars dispensed at sari-sari stores, pilot-tested in Ilocos, of course.
Electrification: Lighting Up the Stats:
In 2024, we were told 5 million homes lacked electricity. In 2025, the government claims 2.5 million have been electrified, with the remaining half due before 2028. Promising? Yes. But also conveniently ambiguous. The speech overlooks the importance of quality, reliability, and minimizing outages, particularly in disaster-prone, off-grid areas. Siquijor’s brownouts were turned into a national cautionary tale. But one must ask: was that a warning for negligent electric cooperatives—or for the energy department asleep at the switch?
Healthcare: From Band-Aid to Branding Exercise:
Zero balance billing is now the new crown jewel of Marcos’ healthcare claims. Free dialysis. Free post-transplant meds. Covered cataract surgery. Even free eyeglasses and nutrition support for malnourished children. If PhilHealth can sustain all this without collapsing under fraud, mismanagement, and reimbursement delays, it would be a miracle worthy of canonization.
But here’s the catch: while benefits expanded, there was no mention of PhilHealth’s ballooning obligations or whether its premium base (aka the taxpayers and OFWs) are supposed to pray for divine financial intervention.
Education: Building Classrooms, Not Capacity:
In 2024, we heard of infrastructure upgrades and the rollout of the MATATAG curriculum. In 2025, the President doubled down: 22,000 classrooms were built, and 40,000 more were promised. Great. But quantity does not equal quality.
There’s no honest reckoning with the country’s low PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) rankings, nor with teacher workload or the actual effectiveness of reforms. “Laptops for all teachers” was touted, as if tech could fix a decades-old learning crisis. It’s as if the administration believes you can solve illiteracy with Wi-Fi and cheerleading.
Corruption: The Return of the Righteous Avenger:
Then came the chest-thumping rebuke of corrupt infrastructure projects, especially in flood control. This is a major twist in the 2025 SONA, where Marcos Jr.’s sudden rage against corruption, particularly in flood control projects, was highlighted. He lamented ghost projects, kickbacks, and substandard construction with righteous fury, as if he weren’t the President for the past three years.
He promised audits, prosecutions, and transparency. But after three years in power, should this not already have been done? Why wait until floods destroyed homes and lives before discovering that billions were spent on “guni-guni” (hallucination or figment of imagination)?
Now, he demands an audit, a public list, and even threatens to veto the 2026 budget if it isn’t aligned with his vision. One might call it courageous, or perhaps a well-timed performance now that midterms are over and attention is turning to legacy-building.
Where was this spine in 2022? Or 2023? Or during the passage of those very budgets now under scrutiny?
Equally conspicuous was the absence of any mention of the controversial U.S.-Philippines Reciprocal Trade Agreement under the ART Framework, which is set to open Philippine markets to a tsunami of zero-tariff U.S. goods starting August 1, 2025. The President’s silence on this highly debated deal was deafening, especially for farmers, small businesses, and workers who stand to lose the most.
Foreign Policy: Friends to All, Accountability to None:
In 2024, the President repeated the now-rote mantra: “The Philippines is a friend to all, enemy to none.” In 2025, he repeated it again. But absent from both speeches was any serious grappling with the elephant or aircraft carrier in the room: the growing U.S. military presence, the ART framework with Washington, and the Philippines’ flirtation with strategic entrapment in the Taiwan Strait.
Not a word about U.S. ammunition plants in Subic, nor the rising military tensions near Taiwan, where the Philippines has quietly allowed joint patrols with American and Japanese forces. This, while ASEAN neighbors tread cautiously.
Apparently, being “a friend to all” means never having to explain your foreign policy. Or your trade concessions.
Digitalization: Progress with a Loading Screen:
From 4,000 Wi-Fi sites in 2022 to nearly 19,000 in 2025. From a non-existent eGov app to 40+ services now online. The digitalization agenda has made real headway, and the President rightly highlighted this. But as usual, context is missing. Twelve thousand public schools still lacked internet access at the start of this year. And if government procurement and red tape don’t speed up, expect the “smart nation” dream to remain stuck in buffering mode.
To be Fair:
Some initiatives deserve acknowledgment: digital integration of government services, expanded healthcare subsidies, and the increased budget for education are steps in the right direction. But without systemic reform, they remain at best short-term fixes, and at worst, vote-buying with a broadband signal.
Preliminary Verdict: Same Book, Slightly Updated Edition:
Three years in, Marcos Jr. is no longer the “transition president.” He is the status quo. His 2025 SONA was a performance for history books yet to be written, likely by those with selective memory. But history, like people’s suffering, cannot be edited.
The applause in the Session Hall was loud. But across the nation, there is an even louder silence: of farmers who still beg for subsidies, of youth still squeezed into overcrowded classrooms, of flood victims still waiting for justice, and of a republic still tethered to foreign boots, military bases, and foreign goods.
That silence, Mr. President, is the real State of the Nation.
Indeed, the 2025 SONA may have offered more specifics and stronger rhetoric, but at its core, it remains a remix of last year’s themes—with added flair, some public shaming, and a healthy dose of “I will investigate this mess I inherited… from myself.”
In many ways, the SONA is less a statement of the nation’s condition and more a performance of its political theater—an illusion of action, progress, and leadership. And in that regard, this administration has perfected the art.
So yes, Mr. President, we heard the applause. But we’re also watching the gap between promise and performance, between metrics and misery, and between governance and grandstanding.
Because, unlike your speechwriters, reality doesn’t edit for applause.
Folks, to be continued….
