Philippines in 2024: Workers’ Welfare Deteriorates along with Quality of Democracy

Photo Credit: Manila Standard

As President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s administration approaches its midpoint, the conditions for workers and the poor continue to deteriorate, while the quality of democracy remains in decline. One indicator of the deficits in democracy is the utter dominance of political dynasties in the upcoming midterm elections in May 2025. The elections represent a pivotal moment in the ongoing power struggle between the two most influential dynasties in the country: the Marcoses and the Dutertes. The political landscape for 2024 is shaped by the competition between these former political allies. Amid all the noise and fury of elite bickering, masses of Filipinos struggled with rising hunger and poverty, as year-end surveys revealed.

Dynastic Rivalry Shaping Political Events

The alliance between Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Sara Duterte — both scions of former controversial presidents — in the 2022 elections was clearly a strategic partnership orchestrated by astute politician and ex-president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. While many pundits predicted a divorce was only a matter of time, many were surprised at how fast the breakup came. Just before the first year of administration ended, tensions exploded in public. Since then, the public display of enmity between Vice President Sara Duterte and House Speaker Martin Romualdez has only exacerbated. The two are expected to slug it out in the next presidential elections in 2028.

As a result, the country’s key driver of political events has been the rivalry between the Marcoses and Dutertes. A push for charter change through people’s initiative became a point of contention between the lower and upper houses of parliament in early 2024. Senators, along with the opposition congressional representatives, lambasted the plan to revise the Constitution as a plot to abolish the upper house and pave the way for Romualdez’s ascension to power as prime minister without the benefit of a popular election. During a hearing of a Senate probe, the alleged initiator of the charter change move admitted that they coordinated with Romualdez to help garner the required signatures. Civil society groups—including labor groups and sections of the institutional Catholic church—mobilized to resist the people’s initiative as another step towards narrowing the democratic space for popular participation. With practically the whole Senate and organized groups in opposition, the people’s initiative died a natural death as Malacañang gave lackluster support.

Labor unions did gain something amidst the brouhaha over the people’s initiative. Their persistent lobby for 150 Philippine pesos legislated wage hike achieved a breakthrough. The Senate passed a bill for 100 Philippine pesos nationwide increase in minimum wages. Labor organizations were able to take advantage of a conjuncture when the upper house wanted to project an image that they were attuned to the pulse of the ordinary Filipino instead of desiring an unpopular charter change proposal. Nonetheless, there was no movement for the counterpart proposal in the House of Representatives.

The People’s Initiative controversy was just one instance in the political bickering as much of 2024 was spent in maneuvers and countermoves with the Marcoses on the offensive and the Dutertes on the defensive. Long-time Duterte ally Apollo Quiboloy, who heads a Davao-based religious group and owner of its media outlet, was the subject of a manhunt and was finally arrested. Rodrigo Duterte had his own show in Quiboloy’s media outlet, hosting programs that were increasingly critical of the Marcos administration.

But the longest-running political soap opera of the year was the parliamentary investigation on Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody drug war and Sara Duterte’s controversial expenditures as Education Secretary and Vice President. The probe was conducted by four committees in the House of Representatives, the so-called “Quad Comm,” which uncharacteristically called hearings almost daily, sometimes going on to the late evenings. It was common knowledge that this was part of a demolition job by Romualdez against his perceived 2028 rival, Sara Duterte.

An earlier and parallel investigation into the notorious operation of online gambling corporations, called POGOs or Philippine offshore gaming operators, ended with the arrest of an incumbent mayor who was a suspected Chinese spy and allegations of the complicity of Rodrigo Duterte, under whose administration the Chinese-owned companies proliferated all over the country. At his State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July 2024, President Marcos, Jr. announced a ban on all POGOs, and by the end of 2024, all were shuttered.

While the entry to the country of agents of the International Criminal Court to serve an arrest warrant hung like a Damocles sword over Rodrigo Duterte, the prospect of an impeachment similarly threatened her daughter Sara for the better part of 2024. Before the year ended, progressive solons and allied civil society groups filed separate impeachment complaints against the Vice President. Other left parties stood aloof from the impeach Sara initiatives given that it was a gambit orchestrated by Romualdez. On the eve of Congress going on recess for the elections, a majority of members of the House of Representatives voted for impeachment.

While the start of the election campaign may have put the impeachment on hold, the midterm polls transformed into just another arena for a clash of political clans, both at the national and local levels. Likewise, political dynasties were categorized as either thin or fat. These days, dynasties have grown obese. The numbers of dynasts tell the tale: 71 out of 82 provincial governors, 47 of them are running in 2025 while 113 out of 149 city mayors, of whom 80 are seeking re-election.

An election watchdog has observed that half of party-list groups contesting the elections do not represent the marginalized, and half of these are linked to political dynasties. This sustains the perversion of the party-list system, which was instituted as an instrument of electoral reform to facilitate representation for the marginalized. In the current Congress, two-thirds of party-lists have nominees who are dynasts.

The recent events in the Philippines have demonstrated that measures intended for broadening political participation and accountability, such as the People’s Initiative, impeachment of public officials, and the party-list system, have instead been forged into weapons for intra-elite rivalry. Democratic innovations have been turned on their heads and transformed into authoritarian innovations. Such is the resilience of reactionary politics and the weakness of liberal democracy in the Philippines.

Government Corruption Directing Economic Policies

Two out of the seven articles of impeachment against Sara Duterte cites malversation and graft of government funds in the Department of Education and Office of the Vice President (OVP). The evidence behind the allegations appears strong, and there is a popular clamor for accountability given such scandalous exposure as acknowledgment receipts bearing obviously fake names like “Mary Grace Piattos.” Nonetheless, as a public scholar has noted, the House of Representatives has no moral authority to assail Sara Duterte for it is complicit in her crimes or guilty of even worse corruption — having authorized the confidential funds of the OVP and allotted billions – not millions – in pork barrel funds in the 2025 national budget. These contradictions neatly reveal the politicking behind the push for impeachment.

The 2025 national budget has been derided for being unconstitutional (education was not provided highest allocation), to illegal (Philhealth subsidy was removed), to unethical (unprogrammed appropriations for electioneering were inserted). Outrage erupted when the bicameral conference committee came out with a proposed budget that gave zero subsidies for PhilHealth while allocating billions for the pork barrel of incumbent politicians. Labor unions and civil society allies launched rallies in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu to lambast the decision and appeal to President Marcos to return the Philhealth subsidy — but to no avail. The Commission on Elections came out with a scandalous decision to allow the disbursement of ayuda or government assistance during the elections, breaking with previous rulings meant to prevent the use of public funds for vote buying.

The resistance to the zero Philhealth subsidy was quickly organized since a campaign had already been launched against an earlier transfer of public health insurer’s funds to the national government. In 2024, 60 billion Philippine pesos were taken from Philhealth and conveyed to the treasury. A final tranche of 29.9 billion Philippine pesos was stopped by the Supreme Court upon petition by civil society and labor groups.

Administration officials have rationalized the reallocation of excess Philhealth funds as a legitimate move to fund other government priority programs. In truth, what it amounts to is a weakening of institutional social protection to bolster politicians’ capacity to disburse patronage. In other words, poor Filipinos who need health services will be forced to curry favor from elected officials instead of receiving services as a matter of right. It also means depriving sections of the population outside patronage networks from accessing public health services. This way, plunder and pillage of government coffers directly leads to decreased welfare for the people.

In no way was the Philhealth funds issue an isolated incident. The flooding of many areas of the country because of a series of powerful typhoons during the rainy season exposed President Marcos, Jr.’s boast in the 2024 SONA about 5,500 completed flood control projects as fake news. Either the projects were non-existent, or a significant amount of the budget was stolen, rendering the structures useless. The plunder of the budget for climate mitigation and adaptation is downright criminal in a climate emergency. In 2024, six typhoons hit the country in a month’s time, overwhelming the state’s capacity to respond and stretching the so-called resilience of ordinary Filipinos.

The government continued to be unresponsive to key workers’ demands for higher pay and better job security. Minimum wages were raised in all regions of the country. Yet, minimum wages fell below the monthly poverty threshold, except for Metro Manila but just barely. The persistence of poverty wages motivated labor unions to push the demand for a legislated salary increase. Just before Congress temporarily closed for a recess, the House of Representatives finally passed a 200 Philippine pesos wage hike bill. After the House Labor Committee did not act on the proposal for the whole year of 2024, organized labor managed to get a concession amidst the falling trust ratings of Romualdez and other incumbent officials due to their preoccupation with political bickering and inaction on the cost-of-living crisis.

While the labor movement was able to take advantage of political opportunities provided by the elite intramurals to win partial victories, including the campaign for a legislated wage hike and the opposition to the transfer of Philhealth funds, it was unable to bring these campaigns to full fruition due to union decline. Labor groups should organize unorganized workers by leveraging discontent over high prices and dynastic rivalry. For workers and the poor who are caught between the Scylla of economic hardship and Charybdis of elite intramurals, a reinvigorated labor movement and the resurgent political left can serve as an inspiration for a progressive pole of opposition to both the Marcoses and Dutertes in the last three years of the current administration.