[Pastilan] Marcos and the erosion of trust

The Marcos Jr. administration registered a 32% satisfaction rating based on the recently released Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted in late March. Twenty-one percent are undecided, while 46% are dissatisfied. Taken together, this means nearly half the public is unhappy, while a significant share remains uncommitted or uncertain on how to register their views.

What makes this 32% more than a statistical dip is its directionality. It marks a plunge from the previous quarter, in late 2025, when the administration still registered a moderate net satisfaction rating of +14, before falling to -13 in March 2026. It is a 27-point swing that pushed it into the “poor” threshold based on the SWS classification. It was, according to SWS, “the lowest in 16 years since the bad -45 in March 2010 under the Arroyo administration.”

Regionally, the pattern is pretty clear. In Luzon sans the country’s capital region, the SWS table shows that 39% are satisfied while 39% are dissatisfied, leaving the administration with a net satisfaction score of zero. It’s a statistical standoff that doesn’t show up anywhere else.

In Metro Manila, 29% say they’re satisfied, while 52% are dissatisfied, giving a net score of -23. In the Visayas, it’s 28% versus 51%, also -23. In Mindanao, the DDS stronghold, it slips further to 25% satisfied and 52% dissatisfied, at -27.

This kind of low approval points to something more basic that has continued to slip. When only about one in three citizens say they’re satisfied, while the rest are either unhappy or not firm enough to express a position, it suggests the connection between people and government is continuing to weaken in a steady drift away from trust.

Weak spots

The SWS survey shows the Marcos Jr. administration’s three weakest governance areas in net satisfaction, with fighting inflation at the very bottom.

The timing matters here. The survey was conducted in late March, about a month after the country and much of the world started feeling the adverse effects of the Middle East crisis. As a consequence, fuel prices jumped quickly, and once that happened, everything else followed: power, transport fares, delivery and service costs, basic goods. It all starts feeding into each other.

That doesn’t mean inflation wasn’t already a problem before that, because as a matter of fact, it was. But what changed was the global pressure. It continued and even got worse. It was almost like inflation was suddenly put on steroids by the added global shock, moving faster and hitting harder than before.

Then there’s oil pricing, at -12, described in careful language as “ensuring oil companies do not take advantage of prices.” But most people don’t experience it that way. Nanding, the all-around handyman in our neighborhood, doesn’t think in policy terms. He feels it when jeepney fares and power rates go up, when delivery fees increase, and when he’s sitting there trying to decide if the trip is still worth it.

When people rate the government poorly on something like this, it’s not just because prices are high but also because the administration doesn’t really feel like it’s doing anything about the situation. More often, it feels like it’s explaining it after the fact, instead of actually being in control of where things are going.

And then there’s corruption, at -10, still neatly parked under the label of “poor,” as if that word hasn’t already been worn down to the point of meaning almost nothing. 

“Eradicating graft and corruption” is one of those lines that never really leaves the political script. It gets repeated every now and then, in so many speeches and press releases — almost always by the very people who practice thievery — that it starts to sound more like background noise rather than a pledge.

There’s always something explosive about political anger when it’s delivered from behind a podium used by a president. In his 2025 State of the Nation Address, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. used the line, “Mahiya naman kayo sa inyong kapwa Pilipino,” in a moment that seemed to carry real moral weight. 

That punchline landed well, and sounded like accountability was being taken seriously — at last. And to be fair, it helped open what turned out to be a Pandora’s box, exposing what now looks like the biggest corruption scandal to hit the government, centered on flood control projects.

But a year later, that box doesn’t really look closed or resolved. It just looks open, like it’s still sitting there in full view, with everyone watching what happens next. 

Only a small number of those allegedly involved have actually ended up in detention. Among them are the Discaya couple, Senator Jinggoy Estrada, and ex-senator Bong Revilla. Others like fugitive ex-congressman Zaldy Co remain scot-free.

Then there’s what happened politically after that, which is its own kind of story. The scandal cost Martin Romualdez the House speakership. But he remains, of course, a presidential cousin, and that alone is enough to keep lingering questions alive about how evenly the system really applies itself when proximity to power is involved.

In many parts of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao — including Davao, the bailiwick of the Duterte political dynasty — it doesn’t even take a super typhoon anymore. A localized thunderstorm is often enough to push already damaged rivers and drainage systems over the edge.

You see it in places like Cagayan de Oro, too. Take two major road sections I know well – one in Barangay Lapasan and another in Barangay Kauswagan. These are areas where drainage projects took years to build and, for all the public funds spent on them, did very little to ease the flooding problem.

In many areas in Metro Manila and the provinces, infrastructure projects don’t really do what they’re supposed to do. Most of the time, they fail right when they’re needed most. In Marcos’ own words, many of them are “faulty,” “collapsing,” and in some cases, “just imaginary.”

Still wading through floodwaters

Meanwhile, while people continue to be left wading through filthy floodwaters and dealing with the losses that follow, many of the politicians and government engineers behind these cash cow projects seem to still be completely untouched by it all, comfortably shielded from the consequences of what went wrong.

For the record, the flood control corruption problem is not the monopoly of the Marcos Jr. administration. It has been around for a long time. The Discayas, for one, said they began dealing with the DPWH in 2016. That was when the moolah started coming in like a sudden downpour, nothing like what they had seen before. And it wouldn’t be surprising if there were others before them, even long before Zaldy Co’s name became synonymous with flood control corruption.

During the Duterte administration, the late congressman and then-House majority leader Rolando Andaya Jr. blew the whistle on budget insertions tied to questionable flood control projects worth billions in 2017 and 2018, and he linked a Duterte cabinet member to it. He said a large portion of these projects showed significant slippage, with funds even set aside for areas that weren’t even prone to flooding.

But what has really been done to hold those from that period to account? Has the mere passage of time and the arrival of a new administration somehow been enough to wipe the slate clean for those involved?

That’s what really stings for many citizens. There’s not enough accountability and visible reckoning especially in many cities and provinces — just the same old thieves moving on as if nothing happened, while attention seems to land only on a few who are mostly in Luzon. There are thieves and robbers in Visayas and Mindanao, too.

Put all of this together, and what you get is an uncomfortable picture. 

It doesn’t look like a sweeping crackdown that treats everyone the same. Rather, it looks strong in some places, careful in others, and noticeably gentler where influence is closer to the center.

And that’s where the gap opens up: not in what is said about accountability, but in how unevenly it actually plays out in practice. Pastilan. – Rappler.com