🇵🇭 SONA 2024: POGOs out and a new confidence in the South China Sea is in

Hello friends!

Only Manila can put on a show like that. Sure, a red carpet and gowns rivalling a Hollywood awards show can seem a bit naff for a State of the Nation Address, a little Hunger Games even. But I’m a sucker for Heart Evangelista! Thankfully, President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr’s speech was full of meaningful and insightful comments for us to crack into.

The hard-working journalists and analysts of the Philippines will surely be spending today getting their post-SONA write-ups and commentary pieces together. I’m really looking forward to wading through those and seeing what the eagle-eyed and -eared have noted that the immediate response missed.

See you Thursday for a jump over to Vietnam as preparations for a state funeral and power transition continue.

Erin Cook

POGOs are gone

Or at least, Marcos wants them gone. All Philippine offshore gaming operators, better known by the acronym, will be booted from the country after years of controversy. This controversy hit an all-time high in recent months with the connection between disgraced (and missing) Tarlac mayor Alice Guo putting a renewed lens on the industry with deep links to Chinese criminal syndicates. 

“Disguising as legitimate entities, their operations have ventured into illicit areas furthest from gaming, such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, even murder. The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop,” Marcos said during the speech to cheers and applause from lawmakers in attendance. 

While POGOs have been declared illegal as of yesterday, state regulator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp will work to have them all purged from the country by the end of the year, Inquirer reports. The Department of Labour and Employment has previously flagged around 25,000 Filipinos working in the industry. Marcos vowed to work with the department to retrain those left jobless to find employment elsewhere. 

This announcement was widely welcomed by watchers, but many have raised concerns already that this will be easier said than done. POGOs have operated in the country since the early 2000s before former president Rodrigo Duterte regulated the industry in the early days of his presidency. There are fears that criminal elements that control POGOs are connected to political elites and will surely attempt to fight back. I think, given the Alice Guo story and the alleged lengths she and her business partners and family have gone to maintain their interests in POGOs, that fear is well-founded. Also! These things just plain old suck. That’s a good enough to reason, in my view. 

But, it is very early days in this policy and Marcos Jr sure needs a boost in approval — this might be the way to do it. 

Standing ground in the West Philippine Sea

“The Philippines cannot yield. The Philippines cannot waver,” Marcos Jr said of his position in the South China Sea. 

“The West Philippine Sea is not a figment of our imagination. It is ours. And it will remain ours as long as the spirit of our beloved Philippines continues to burn bright,” he said, using the Philippines’ term for the waters (legally) under their control.

Rappler reports Marcos’ thundering support for the Philippines in the waters — and his gracious tribute to the Armed Forces, the Coast Guard and the fisherfolk on the frontline — netted him two long standing ovations from lawmakers. 

Interestingly, Rappler compares the comments with Marcos’ two previous SONAs. At his first in 2022, he said he would “not preside over any process that will abandon even one square inch of territory of the Republic of the Philippines to any foreign power.” Last year, he vowed to “protect our sovereign rights and preserve our territorial integrity, in defense of a rules-based international order.” 

I hope I’m not reading too much into it, but he does appear to be far more confident in his position now. That the speech comes just days after a fresh breakthrough in communications with China following months of on-water antagonisms and pledges of support from the US and Japan surely has helped shore up (hehe!) his footing. 

It’s the economy, bobo

Inflation is starting to chill out — except for rice which is hovering around 20%! — and growth is back on track. But who cares about such things when you’re a worker struggling to make your bills! Dare I say it, I’m impressed Marcos has made that distinction. It does feel a bit uneasy to hear it from the man whose family name is synonymous with ostentatious pilfering of country funds, but this is a comment many world leaders seem to dodge making.

“The hard lesson of this last year has made it very clear that whatever current data proudly bannering our country as among the best-performing in Asia means nothing to a Filipino, who is confronted by the price of rice at 45 to 65 pesos per kilo,” Marcos said, as reported by Bloomberg. Yes! It’s true! 

Getting rice prices down has been a priority for a while now, but Marcos is adding a review into energy prices and new infrastructure projects that will both bring new jobs and improve connectivity. Agriculture is a particular priority for the year ahead, he said. 

Sara Duterte, the ‘designated survivor’

Vice President Sara Duterte told media yesterday that not only was she not planning on attending, she would not watch it at all. “The Vice President will not watch the SONA on TV or gadgets,” her office said yesterday, as per ABS-CBN. 

Instead, she spent the day in Bohol province, where Vice Governor Dionisio Victor A. Balite died last week. 

“I am bringing a message of hope to Boholanos that we can help each other for the sake of our town,” Duterte said. 

‘Bloodless’ war on drugs to continue

Marcos has benefited greatly from the residual shock of predecessor Rodrigo Duterte’s horrific war on drugs and his own policy rarely gets international attention. Marcos’ ‘bloodless’ war continues, and he made quick reference to it last night. The campaign will continue along the “eight Es of an effective anti-illegal drugs strategy,” none of which are “extermination,” he said.

By the President’s Communications Office’s reckoning, the campaign has netted 97,000 arrests. This figure includes ‘more than 6000 high-value targets that included 440 government employees, 42 of which were from the uniformed personnel and 77 were elected officials.’ 

No, Carlos Conde, senior researcher of the Human Rights Watch said in a statement as per the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism: “President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. not only failed to declare an end to the ‘war on drugs’ or outline a human-rights based approach to illegal drugs — he made the spurious and baseless claim that the continuing anti-drug campaign has been bloodless.” 

‘From June 30, 2023 to July 1 this year, 360 deaths in anti-illegal drug operations were recorded.  A third or 34.3 percent of these had been blamed on agents of the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), or Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP),’ PCIJ reported.