In flood-hit Philippines, ‘out of touch’ Marcos slammed for private birthday serenade

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s birthday serenade for his wife might have been a private gesture, but as floodwaters overwhelmed much of Luzon – the country’s largest and most populous island and home to the capital Manila – a viral clip of him singing became a public-relations crisis. Observers told This Week in Asia that Marcos’ celebration of his wife, Marie Louise “Liza” Araneta-Marcos, on her 67th birthday struck the wrong chord with a public already angered by deadly floods, the government’s handling of disaster relief and long-running allegations of corruption in flood-control projects. By August 26, when Marcos quietly staged his wife’s party with a live band attended by family, close friends and political allies, Manila was almost at a standstill after days of heavy rain. Online responses sarcastically thanked the president and government for the scandal-hit flood-control projects under his watch. Two days later, a video of Marcos crooning “You” and “I Love Her” to his wife, taken by one of the party guests, Vigan City Mayor Bonito Singson, surfaced on social media. The clip soon went viral and several comments beneath one widely shared repost framed the video as proof of Marcos’ detachment. “No empathy,” one user wrote, while another called the president “out of touch” and a third said: “He really knows his priorities.” The national weather bureau Pagasa had earlier predicted strong monsoon rains for most of the week, enhanced by the near convergence of at least four cyclones, typhoons, tropical depressions and low-pressure areas. Rain had been falling almost nonstop since the middle of August, prompting Pagasa to issue multiple flood warnings, including the most severe Red alerts, late into the night. At least 33 people have died in various parts of the country because of the floods, according to the Office of Civil Defence, including a man who fell into an open street manhole concealed by raging waters in the central Luzon province of Pampanga. The backlash over the singing clip came despite Marcos staging photo events where he handed out ayuda (government flood aid) in the form of cash and goods and inspected flood-control pumping stations and dykes. A statement issued over the weekend by presidential communications undersecretary Claire Castro did little to stem the criticism. “The President is the President wherever he is,” Castro said in Filipino. “His devoting a few hours for his family does not mean his responsibility towards the nation stops and government operations stop. In the midst of severe rains, his monitoring and orders to agencies to ensure the safety and swift aid to our countrymen have continued.” For Dr Pamela Cajilig, a disaster anthropologist at the University of the Philippines, the criticisms against Marcos “show that citizens do not compartmentalise their expectations of a public servant of the highest order from that of a family man”. She said repeated disasters had taught Filipinos to expect that politicians and bureaucrats demonstrate kapwa (concern for others) that went beyond just handing out ayuda. “This means seeing oneself in their constituents – feeling the latter’s pain as they struggle – and sincerely demonstrating that,” Cajilig, who is also an architect and urban designer, told This Week in Asia. “This expectation of pakikipagkapwa [brotherly concern] is heightened by the deep distrust generated by the perceived lack of accountability and transparency in the flood-control programme.” Marcos’ staging of festivities amid a national tragedy, therefore, offended “a related collective value that is at stake: malasakit [compassion]”, Cajilig said. “Malasakit requires acting out of an ethics of care for your kapwa who is suffering, often at the cost of personal sacrifice.” Public anger over the floods was also sharpened by a wider loss of trust in Marcos’ handling of flood-control projects at the centre of corruption allegations. Recent surveys showed broad dissatisfaction regarding corruption, accountability and the president’s own role in the controversy. Momentum Research founding CEO Cleve Arguelles told This Week in Asia that Marcos’ singing video invited such scathing attacks because “political images are interpreted through the public mood in which they circulate”. “On its own, a president singing for his wife is ordinary and even potentially endearing. But President Marcos is currently operating in a very unfavourable political environment,” said Arguelles, who also teaches political science at the University of the Philippines. He pointed to Momentum’s latest survey in August, which found only 36.4 per cent satisfied with Marcos’ performance and 57.4 per cent dissatisfied, as well as its July poll showing “overwhelming dissatisfaction” with the administration’s handling of corruption in flood-control projects. “So the video encounters a public already predisposed to read presidential behaviour critically,” Arguelles said. The floods had acquired political meaning because they were now closely associated in the public imagination with “allegations of corruption, failed or nonexistent flood-control projects, and questions about government competence”, he added. “So the timing of the video’s circulation makes the contrast especially powerful: images of people struggling through floodwaters alongside images of the president singing at a private celebration.” While the events did not happen simultaneously, “social media collapses that chronology into a single political image”, Arguelles said. “The larger problem is therefore not really that Marcos sang for his wife. It is that, amid widespread frustration and suffering over floods and corruption, the video provided an unusually vivid image onto which that frustration could be projected.” Vic Rodriguez, a political ally of Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio, criticised the administration for “[worsening] the sufferings of the lives of ordinary people” by failing to ensure “full accountability” over flood-control funds. He said critics were justified in demanding “transparency on how the average annual budget of 227 billion pesos for flood control was utilised”, as well as accountability for those who had allegedly misused public funds. Rodriguez also noted that Marcos had spent 1.333 trillion pesos for flood-control projects from 2023 to 2025 but that “has not in any way mitigated any of the supposed flooding that it was meant to address […] making the misery on the lives of the hundreds of thousands [of] affected citizens unbearable”. For University of the Philippines political scientist Dr Jean Franco, “the optics of the president having a good time at a time when the country is reeling from floods is not good” given Marcos’ position. “He is accountable to the public in need of answers and assistance,” Franco said, noting that if the party could not be postponed, Marcos’ staff should have barred people from taking pictures and videos. Franco said the criticisms were directed at Marcos’ “perceived insensitivity” in light of the corruption scandal. “They were made not because they want to deprive the president from being a devoted husband but because the public is seeking accountability and empathy from the country’s highest official.”

In flood-hit Philippines, ‘out of touch’ Marcos slammed for private birthday serenade

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Observers say the public backlash was directed at Marcos’ ‘perceived insensitivity’ in light of the floods and related corruption scandal

Observers say the public backlash was directed at Marcos’ ‘perceived insensitivity’ in light of the floods and related corruption scandal