[Vantage Point] Why Marcos Jr. can survive ouster calls and detrimental rankings

The pathways that after unseated presidents now not carry decisive power. Army adventurism has been institutionally neutralized, and collapsing belief rankings — whereas politically damaging — now not translate into elimination from workplace. If a sitting president had been ever to be unseated, it will not come from the streets or the barracks, however from the Structure itself. Impeachment, with all its rigor and political price, stays the one official mechanism for eradicating President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. — a course of that calls for proof, due course of, and congressional will, not noise, stress, or manufactured outrage. However even this avenue, due to how the current Congress is constituted, can be subsequent to unattainable to succeed.

This column doesn’t argue for or towards that end result, nor does it function a protection of the administration or an assault on Vice President Sara Duterte. It’s an examination of political actuality because it exists, not as factions want it to be. The evaluation rests on observable shifts: a professionalized navy, an voters formed by financial danger, and establishments that now soak up anger with out collapsing. In that context, accountability should function by legislation, not spectacle — and understanding that fact is crucial earlier than the nation errors political theater for constitutional treatment.

That there’s a credible try to destabilize the Marcos administration is an understatement. Some teams out and in of the Duterte circle have been attempting to fire up unrest to cowl up for its personal crimes, utilizing the scandal as its platform. They invoke the language of ethical outrage, whereas fastidiously avoiding the tougher query: who advantages when accountability is short-circuited into regime change?

The nation doesn’t want one other political collapse engineered by actors who thrive beneath impunity. It wants a president compelled to complete what he began: prosecution that climbs, reforms that illuminate the funds’s darkest corners, and convictions that restore consequence to abuse of energy. 

The demand shouldn’t be for Marcos Jr. to step down, however for him to step by — to hold accountability previous speeches, previous surveys, and previous stress from operators who mistake destabilization for salvation. In a system that has discovered to soak up anger with out altering, resignation is the straightforward exit. 

From my vantage level, in a constitutional democracy, navy loyalty is just not private — it’s institutional. It’s owed to the Structure, the chain of command, and the civilian authority established by legislation, and to not any particular person chief. This distinction is important when a senior officer publicly or implicitly withdraws help for the President, who, by design, serves as Commander-in-Chief. A soldier’s responsibility is obedience, however solely inside the bounds of legislation, honor, and constitutional mandate.

When such withdrawal is pushed by private disagreement, political affiliation, or factional sympathy, it marks a harmful breach of civil-military norms. Armed forces don’t select presidents or referee politics; they serve the workplace vested by the individuals. Any sign of conditional loyalty — particularly from senior ranks — dangers unsettling morale, cohesion, and self-discipline. The correct response to irreconcilable battle is just not symbolic dissent, however lawful compliance or principled resignation. The soldier’s highest loyalty is to civilian supremacy and the rule of legislation — the quiet self-discipline that retains a republic intact.

The absence of revolt within the Philippines is usually misinterpret as approval. It’s not. It’s inertia — produced by establishments that dampen disruption and narratives that redirect outrage. This explains why the nation can soak up its largest corruption scandal in a long time — ₱79 billion in suspected flood-control plunder — with out tanks on the streets, whilst dissatisfaction simmers slightly below the floor.

The decisive purpose revolt has fallen out of trend is just not political fatigue or civic apathy. It’s financial actuality. The Philippines is navigating a fragile transition towards upper-middle-income standing, and that transition rests on a basis that can’t stand up to political shock. This 12 months, upheaval is now not a instrument of correction; it’s an act of self-harm.

Stability is all that issues

This begins with a fact Filipinos perceive instinctively: stability feeds the family. After years of inflationary stress, common inflation fell to 1.7% in 2025. On paper, it’s a statistic. On the bottom, it means cheaper rice, predictable transport prices, and respiratory room for households dwelling from paycheck to paycheck. Any political motion that threatens that reduction is instantly suspect.

That progress is strengthened by the nation’s exterior standing. A BBB+ Constructive sovereign credit standing locations the Philippines one notch under the coveted “A” class. Crossing that line would decrease borrowing prices, appeal to longer-term capital, and broaden fiscal house for infrastructure, schooling, and well being. It could sign commencement from volatility to predictability. However this whole trajectory is determined by a single, fragile enter: confidence.

In 2026, world capital doesn’t look forward to readability. It strikes on the first trace of dysfunction. Portfolio buyers rebalance immediately. Multinationals pause expansions. Enterprise-process outsourcing corporations activate contingency plans that shift operations to Vietnam, India, or Indonesia. I see these choices not as ideological, however algorithmic. Political theater registers as danger, and danger is priced instantly.

Because of this trendy revolts fail earlier than they start. The suggestions loop is swift and unforgiving. Foreign money volatility raises import prices. Borrowing charges spike. Fairness markets sag. Hiring freezes ripple throughout providers and manufacturing. What begins as a name for “change” ends as job losses for individuals who had nothing to do with elite energy struggles. For the typical Filipino, stability is now not a philosophical choice; it’s a survival technique. A revolt in the present day wouldn’t ship freedom. It could produce a shuttered economic system.

Restricted tolerance dysfunction

The Philippines’ march towards upper-middle-income standing has narrowed tolerance for disruption. At lower-income ranges, instability is usually accepted as the value of change. At this stage, instability turns into prohibitively costly. Progress now is determined by continuity — regular funding, predictable coverage, and credible establishments. After pandemics, provide shocks, and inflation surges, voters have discovered how rapidly good points evaporate. The result’s a quiet consensus: grievances are actual, however they have to be resolved with out detonating the economic system.

Nothing illustrates this higher than the ₱6.793-trillion 2026 Basic Appropriations Act (GAA) — one of many largest and most socially focused budgets in Philippine historical past. Training receives report funding. Agriculture secures its strongest allocation in over a decade. Well being, infrastructure, and social providers are calibrated to shut long-standing gaps. Positively, this funds is just not an abstraction. We are able to view it as school rooms, irrigation, clinics, scholarships, and native jobs.

When destabilization escalates into political disaster, it doesn’t merely weaken a presidency; it assaults the GAA fund. Each week spent firefighting manufactured turmoil is every week stolen from implementation. Each delayed challenge compounds inefficiency. On this context, calls to upend the federal government with out constitutional trigger are usually not acts of braveness. They’re acts of fiscal vandalism.

Political theater carries hidden prices. Disaster administration consumes government bandwidth. Coverage planning stalls. Regulators retreat into danger aversion. The cumulative impact is paralysis — an invisible tax on progress that hits hardest on the margins. Farmers ready for help acquire nothing from televised outrage. Traders deciding whether or not to construct factories don’t distinguish between righteous anger and reckless instability. They see solely danger.

Stability because the New Revolution

Likewise, navy intervention is now not viable. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is extra professionalized, higher compensated, and extra deeply embedded in institutional incentives than at any level since 1986. Pensions, procurement, promotions, and post-service careers are tied to stability, not adventurism. Coups as soon as thrived on ambiguity. At the moment, they fail on predictability and price.

Folks Energy has additionally structurally decayed — not as a result of Filipinos are apathetic, however as a result of mobilization has been atomized. Anger disperses into timelines; it doesn’t converge moderately in public squares. Disinformation fractures consensus sooner than outrage can consolidate it. Protest is just not suppressed; it’s diluted. Financial precarity completes the lure. When family margins skinny, revolt turns into a luxurious. Survival dominates. Dole-out applications anesthetize unrest simply sufficient to forestall ignition — creating not stability, however managed stagnation.

That is the place polling enters the story — not as a rebuttal, however as corroboration. Surveys don’t arbitrate fact; they measure narrative penetration. In a political tradition formed by personalism and tribal loyalty, respondents can rank corruption as a prime concern, whereas trusting figures persistently linked to graft and corruption. This isn’t a polling error. It’s cognitive dissonance embedded within the system.

The sturdiness of Sara Duterte in surveys displays the lingering energy of strongman mythology, which reframes accusations as persecution and opacity as energy. Polls report this faithfully with out interrogating it. Against this, Marcos Jr. suffers from fatigue with no counter-myth: a technocratic presidency in a tradition that prizes symbolism over techniques. Indifference, in surveys, is deadlier than anger.

Taken collectively, the absence of revolt and the paradox of polling reveal the identical structural failure: accountability has been decoupled from each mass motion and public opinion. Revolts now not erupt as a result of incentives suppress escalation. Surveys now not right conduct as a result of notion has been severed from proof. Between them lies a void the place corruption metastasizes with out consequence.

Marcos Jr. doesn’t face tanks or crowds. He faces normalization. On this atmosphere, legitimacy is now not earned by reputation or survival, however by enforcement. Convictions — not speeches, committees, or surveys — are actually the one credible sign of reform. 

For the rabblerousers, invoking the Structure to justify its violation is a pitch that now not persuades. Filipinos have grown clear-eyed about who actually bears the price of upheaval: not the loudest agitators, usually insulated by wealth and offshore choices, however unusual residents whose livelihoods depend upon continuity and peace. Chaos is a luxurious for the few; stability is a necessity for the various.

In 2026, the nation’s most radical act is just not rise up however resolve — the insistence that disputes be settled inside the establishments we constructed, by courts that resolve, legislatures that deliberate, and ballots that right. The age of freeway revolutions has given method to the tougher work of nation-building, the place credibility with buyers and constancy to the rule of legislation — not spectacle — outline progress and energy.

The Philippines of in the present day neither topples leaders within the streets nor corrects them in surveys — and that’s exactly the hazard. When anger dissipates and myths endure, energy faces no pure constraint. In that vacuum, corruption doesn’t provoke collapse; it festers. When corruption festers, it causes vital financial injury, erodes public religion in governing our bodies, exacerbates inequality and poverty, and might in the end result in an increase in political instability and social unrest. It creates pervasive, systemic points that negatively affect each aspect of society. 

What has change into the brand new revolution is stability — not as an finish in itself, however as the one platform from which justice can nonetheless be pursued with out burning the home down. – Rappler.com

Click on right here for different Vantage Level articles.