As the Marcos Jr administration’s fourth State of Nation Address (SONA) approaches, research group IBON said that the government’s measures remain tokenistic and too small for the magnitude of the country’s problems, highlighted by the recent one-sided Trump-Marcos tariff deal. The group said that the country needs bigger solutions, not the administration’s usual checklist of so-called accomplishments and overblown promises at this year’s SONA.
Despite government’s assertions of a resilient economy and steady growth, IBON said that jobs informality and poverty are worsening. The gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 5.4% in the first quarter of 2025, slower than 5.9% in the same period in 2024, and lower than the growth rates exceeding 6% before the pandemic. This strongly indicates a generalized slowdown of the economy.
Since the Marcos administration began, the number of self-rated poor Filipinos grew by 3.3 million, reaching 15.5 million, while the number of hungry families has doubled to 5.6 million as of April 2025, according to Social Weather Stations (SWS). This is because of worsening informality and joblessness, by IBON estimates. Almost 38.2 million Filipinos are informal workers, covering the 21.2 million self-employed, private household workers, and in family-operated farms and businesses, along with some 17 million working in informal private establishments.
The research group said that government measures to even just mitigate these problems are insufficient. For instance, the administration allocated Php4.5 million to target 2 million family beneficiaries for six months under its Benteng Bigas Meron Na! (BBM Na!), which promises Php20 per kilo rice. However, the budget will barely cover 1 million families.
The unfavorable tariff deal between Trump and Marcos Jr further shows how the administration refuses to forward bigger solutions, said IBON. The 19% United States (US) tariffs on the Philippines, while there are zero Philippine tariffs on certain US products, displays government’s lack of political assertiveness and its overdependence on US markets and investments.
The group noted the irony of the US raising tariffs to protect its economy as part of its reindustrialization effort, while the Marcos Jr administration is eager to open up the Philippine economy to the detriment of local production and producers. Instead of accepting such bullying terms, the Philippines itself should have Filipino industrialization policies including protecting and supporting national producers. IBON stressed that having more industrial capacity and producing more high-technology goods will improve the prospects of finding alternative trading partners to the US.
IBON said that Filipinos need a SONA that is honest and not another recitation of exaggerated achievements and empty promises. Bigger solutions are required to foster real domestic development and address the weak economy, jobs crisis and worsening poverty. This includes strengthening local agriculture and immediately taking steps towards national industrialization that will take decades. In the short term, this includes rectifying grossly lopsided trade deals only favoring wealthy countries like the US. The group also stressed the need to immediately provide universal social services and protection while expanding public utilities to improve the well-being of millions of poor and vulnerable Filipinos.
