A success story

In 2023, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr. will have one of the most successful first year presidencies of a newly elected Philippine president.

Consider the following:

Under BBM, our economy has been unusually strong, with a 2023 growth rate of close to 6 percent (probably 5.8 percent), the highest in the ASEAN region. The Philippines will again show the highest growth in ASEAN during 2024. Congrats, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, the head of BBM’s economic team.

The opposition has been decimated to near oblivion. Leni Robredo, the opposition presidential candidate BBM convincingly trounced in May 2022, has not been heard from, seemingly enjoying the pride of academic decorations and the pleasures of tourism sorties.

Potential oppositionists, like the feisty former senator Leila de Lima, have been accommodated. Lawyer De Lima will soon be a free woman, thanks to the Philippines’ unique criminal justice system and the air of benevolence and attitude of benign neglect under the BBM administration towards such controversial political figures.

Insurgencies of all kinds are about to end (except for terrorism). Under four presidential proclamations, BBM on Nov. 22, 2023 granted amnesty to those who “committed crimes in pursuit of political beliefs,” whether it’s punishable under special penal laws or the Revised Penal Code. That steals the thunder from guerillas of the New People’s Army and the Muslim separatists.

Besides, rice might just be retailed for only P20 per kilo. Rebellion is mainly about land, food and needs.

Future rivals for power, like the Duterte family, are systematically being neutralized, rendered irrelevant, if not obliterated entirely eventually. Vice President Sara Duterte has been portrayed as someone hungry for hundreds of millions of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF), thus grossly diminishing her political standing and her popularity.

The Duterte family’s favorite propaganda boombox, SMNI of Pastor Quiboloy, is being threatened with a franchise revocation, ala ABS-CBN.

Adding to Sara’s travails, the Philippines again scored among the lowest ratings in math, science and reading in the world, making Filipino 15-year-olds