[In This Economy] The Marcos mixtape, 54 years after martial law

On Monday, September 21, we marked 54 years since the declaration of martial law under Ferdinand E. Marcos. His son, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., has now been president for more than four years. But what, exactly, has the “Marcos restoration” produced? I explored this question in a new book chapter I wrote, “Marcos mixtape: emerging parallels between the programs and policies of Marcos Sr. and Marcos Jr.” It’s part of a new volume titled Marcos, Martial Law, and the Complexities of Memory in the Philippines, edited by historians John Lee Candelaria, Kerby Alvarez, and Jamie Pring. (We had a book event at Palma Hall in the University of the Philippines Diliman on Tuesday, September 22.) The chapter focuses on Marcos Jr.’s first two years in office. But the pattern I documented has continued well beyond that period. It includes public programs that revive associations with the dictatorship and help rehabilitate the Marcos name, even when their contribution to long-term development is far less clear. ‘Greatest hits’ Recall that Marcos Jr. won in 2022 with nearly 60% of the vote, helped along by nostalgia for his father’s supposed “golden age.” (Read my book about it, titled False Nostalgia.) Back then, Marcos Jr. promised to revive programs like Masagana 99 and Kadiwa, as well as the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. Many of these programs have since reappeared in one form or another. For instance, Masagana 99 became Masagana 150 and the Masagana Rice Industry Development Program, approved in May 2023. Kadiwa outlets (rolling stores) were promoted anew, although versions of the program had already been revived by administrations before Marcos Jr. Even the font on the side of the trucks are exactly the same as they were during martial law! Nutribun also figures prominently in Marcos nostalgia. But the original bread came from a US food assistance program, not the Marcoses. Its newer version, Enhanced Nutribun, was developed by the Department of Science and Technology’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute during the pandemic, even before Marcos Jr. became president. In September 2023, Marcos Jr. imposed nationwide rice price ceilings, echoing his father’s price controls in the 1970s. The recent price ceiling lasted only a month, because it led to a number of unintended consequences—just like what you’d expect from basic economics. Then in November 2022, Marcos Jr. famously visited the International Rice Research Institute and recreated a 1966 photograph of his father with US President Lyndon Johnson in a rice field. When Marcos Jr. signed the New Agrarian Emancipation Act in July 2023, a photograph of his father signing Presidential Decree 27 stood on an easel beside him. Apparently, even a law-signing ceremony needed a reminder of the father. Then there are the construction and restoration projects concerning old Marcosian projects: “Bagong BLISS” housing in Batasan Hills, the Philippine International Convention Center, and the Coconut Palace. New regional specialty hospitals also recall the hospitals built under Marcos Sr. The administration also spent substantial funds for the Pasig River Esplanade, and the heritage mansions (Laperal, Teus, and Goldenberg) found in Malacañang grounds, under the auspices of First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos. A fleet of iconic Love Buses is back on the road, too, albeit now electric. Branding is key. President Marcos Jr.’s “Bagong Pilipinas” (New Philippines) echoes “Bagong Lipunan” (New Society), the dictatorship’s slogan. President Marcos Jr. is also commonly called “BBM” these days, after consulting with Cambridge Analytica before the 2022 polls. Now, at least 40 programs and policies have the acronym BBM or PBBM. These include: Build Better More, Benteng Bigas Meron Na (the P20 rice program), BroadBand ng Masa (free internet access), and Bayad na Bill Mo (the zero-billing program in government hospitals). This year, there’s also Bawat Barangay Makikinabang, under which each barangay is allocated P200,000. My personal favorite: HAPAG KAY BBM, a sustainable agriculture program which stands for “HAlina’t magtanim ng Prutas At Gulay sa Barangay Project, Kadiwa Ay Yaman, Plants for Bountiful Barangays Movement.” What this all tells us is that public services paid for by taxpayers are somehow being packaged as personal favors from the President. And the repeated association with his father gives the family another opportunity to promote their version of history. Whose development? In my chapter, I classified the programs according to two criteria: their potential contribution to long-term development, and their potential to rehabilitate the Marcos name. Many, in my assessment, do much more for the second than the first. For example, Kadiwa and Nutribun can help their beneficiaries, but they cannot substitute for sustained improvements in agricultural productivity and household incomes. Regional specialty hospitals can provide needed care, but they do not by themselves address inadequate basic health services nationwide. Of course, a project isn’t automatically bad just because it’s associated with the Marcoses. The question is whether the benefits justify the costs, and whether scarce public funds could do more elsewhere. Nor is continuing an inherited project inherently wrong. In the 2024 infrastructure list I examined, 74 of the 198 Build Better More projects were carried over from the Duterte administration. But rebranding those projects hardly establishes a distinctly Marcos Jr. development program. Meanwhile, some of his own initiatives raised serious questions about the use of public money. The Maharlika Investment Fund drew capital from Landbank and the Development Bank of the Philippines, alongside dividends from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. As of today, it has made only a few investments with questionable or at least unclear benefits to economic growth. The government also ordered PhilHealth to remit nearly P90 billion to the treasury in 2024 to help finance unprogrammed appropriations, or spending that can be released when specified funding conditions are met. In December 2025, the Supreme Court ordered the return of the P60 billion already transferred and permanently blocked the remaining P29.9 billion. Then came the flood control scandal in 2025, involving allegations of ghost projects and huge kickbacks. Among those implicated was the President’s cousin and former House speaker, Martin Romualdez, who has denied wrongdoing. Needless to say, money diverted from health insurance or lost to corrupt infrastructure projects leaves less for the public services Filipinos actually need. Marcos-proof? The rehabilitation project extends beyond economic policy. The EDSA People Power anniversary was excluded from the list of holidays for 2024. In 2023, the Department of Education also confirmed the removal of “Marcos” from “Diktadurang Marcos” (Marcos dictatorship) in its revised Grade 6 curriculum. Meanwhile, buildings associated with the dictatorship remain visible, and myths about them circulate online. Can we measure how these narratives spread? In my chapter, I used Google Trends to examine search interest in the father, the son, and programs associated with them. Searches for the two Marcoses moved together during 2021–2024, while interest in Nutribun spiked during election week in 2022. This relates to what economist Robert Shiller calls “narrative economics,” or the study of how popular stories spread and influence economic behavior. But my results are descriptive: search interest doesn’t necessarily mean approval, and the data cannot establish whether reviving these programs improved the Marcoses’ trust ratings or electoral prospects. Those are questions for further research. The more immediate question is whether our institutions can hold the family accountable regardless of who wins the next election. The 2025 PhilHealth ruling shows that institutional safeguards can still work somehow. But accountability cannot depend largely on who’s sitting in office; it must outlast administrations. The recent acquittal of Imelda Marcos (wherein the Supreme Court overturned its previous conviction ruling) is the latest blow in this regard. Ruben Carranza, former PCGG commissioner, said some justices behind this decision ruined (to be exact, “binaboy”) the Supreme Court with this one. The sad thing is that, 54 years after Martial Law, we still have not made ourselves Marcos-proof. Even more unsettlingly, there’s a danger of a new authoritarian nostalgia building around the time of yet another dictator, Rodrigo Duterte. “Memory politics” is powerful in the Philippines, but here’s hoping that won’t dictate our fate in the coming 2028 elections. – Rappler.com Jan Carlo “JC” Punongbayan, PhD is an associate professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE). His professional experience includes the Securities and Exchange Commission, the World Bank Office in Manila, the Far Eastern University Public Policy Center, and the National Economic and Development Authority. JC writes a weekly economics column for Rappler.com. He is also co-founder of UsapangEcon.com and co-host of Usapang Econ Podcast. His first book, False Nostalgia: The Marcos “Golden Age” Myths and How to Debunk Them, was published by Ateneo de Manila University Press in February 2023. His second book, Twin Plagues: How Duterte and Covid-19 Wrecked the Philippine Economy, was published by Penguin Random House SEA in June 2026. Follow him on Instagram (@jcpunongbayan). Below are In This Economy pieces you may have missed: Click here for other In This Economy articles.