MANILA, Philippines – As President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. marked his first year in Malacañang, an analyst pointed out the absence of robust anti-corruption messaging in his administration compared to his predecessors.

“There is an apparent lack of corruption messaging under the Marcos administration in contrast to the two [previous] administrations,” Stratbase ADR Institute Policy and Regulatory Manager Shanice Espiritu said in a forum assessing the first year of Marcos presidency on Friday, June 30.

Espiritu cited the anti-corruption campaigns bannered by the previous administrations, such as Aquino’s “Daang Matuwid,” and Duterte’s “Change is coming.”

For Marcos to sustain his popularity, Espiritu said that there is a need for him to craft a strong anti-corruption stance.

“It’s really important that  the president will be able to say that he himself is against corruption,” Espiritu said.

“He doesn’t need to do what previous administrations did, like firing [officials]  and all, but he just needs to be able  to constantly express that  anti-corruption is  an anti-corruption mechanism,  and that we value transparency,  integrity, and accountability within this government,” she added.

Espiritu, however, recognized the transparency mechanisms of the Marcos administration such as the pivot to digitization of government.

When asked if the anti-corruption messaging would backfire on Marcos given their family’s history of corruption, Espiritu said, “I don’t think it would hurt to create an anti-corruption message.”

“Despite all these things, I think he should still have anti-corruption messaging just to show that he is really serious about anti-corruption, making sure that things are transparent and accountable throughout this government,” Espiritu said.

Based on 2020 report, the Philippine government recovered P174.2 billion in Marcos ill-gotten wealth.

When Marcos took office last year, Marcos’ first executive was to abolish the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission.

Meanwhile, DLSU political science and development studies professor Francisco Magno said  “there was no advocacy or promotion of putting in more budget for the office of the Ombudsman.”

He said that the Office of Ombudsman, the agency responsible for investigation and prosecution of public official or agency, is “under-resourced.”

During his first State of the Nation Address, Marcos also did not mention any specific anti-corruption program.– Rappler.com