“The (WEF) is hosting a Country Strategy Dialogue for us where we are given the opportunity to promote the Philippines as leader and driver of growth and a gateway to the Asia-Pacific region. One that is open for business – ever ready to complement regional and global expansion plans for both foreign and Philippine-based enterprises anchored on the competent and well-educated Filipino workers, the managers and professionals.
Does Marcos Jr. think the Davos and Japan trips require more of his time and attention than the myriad domestic problems needing urgent actions that his administration faces in the new year?
The overwhelming price increase continues to cripple millions of Filipino families, with inflation climbing to 7.7% in October 2022, the highest rate since the last decade.
We would like to remind Malacañang that anything that involves public funds and resources requires transparency. We saw none of that last weekend.”
Partido Federal ng Pilipinas footed 40% of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s campaign bill through party treasurer Antonio Ernesto “Anton” Floirendo Lagdameo Jr., grandson of his father’s close business associate. The remaining cost was covered by today’s opulent names in real estate, retail, construction, and shipping industries.
A total of 67 donors contributed P624.7 million to help Ferdinand Marcos Jr. win the presidency, based on his own declarations to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
PCIJ researched each of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s donors to track relevant family, political and business ties. We found that relatives of his father’s known supporters, tycoons and donors who own companies that are barred from making political contributions bankrolled his presidential bid in the May 2022 elections.
Is this alternate history? No. It is melodrama. It’s the Marcoses using cinema to re-create themselves as family wronged by history. The problem with that is how the audience will take this, given that we have been fed with that soap-opera theme for decades of rich families being wronged.
Effigies of newly-elected Presidents always come as a challenge. The effigy should reflect the country’s political condition.
Marcos Jr.’s priority is to ensure that the neoliberal policies that his predecessor President Rodrigo Duterte passed are maximized to create the most favorable environment for big businesses, including foreign capital. To become an investment destination, the administration will provide massive tax breaks to corporations through the CREATE Law and provide foreign companies more profit-making opportunities with the amended laws on public services and foreign investments.
“We vow to continue the claim for reparation and recognition of thousand more victims by pushing for a better reparations law. We vow to continue to claim our hard-won non-monetary benefits, as mandated in RA 10368 or Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013. We will continue to resist the historical distortion peddled by the Marcoses and their apologists, and the return of the $6 billion more that the Marcoses stole from the Filipino people.”