Senator Imee Marcos is one of those political personalities raising issues against the Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita (AKAP) program which targets low income earners by providing financial aid to cushion the effects of inflation.
Senator Marcos alleges that the AKAP program could be used by legislators in the midterm elections, a charge that is sure to alienate her from her fellow senators seeking reelection who have been tapping social amelioration funds to, uhmm, show their genuine concern for the poor who, by some demographic quirk, happen to be voters. And Senator Marcos, while ranting and raving about using such funds in aid of reelection, also happens to be one of them.
The AKAP program’s beneficiaries are low income earners, including minimum wage workers. The social welfare secretary has given the assurance that barangay officials, local officials, and members of Congress — who decide how much a national government agency like the Department of Social Welfare and Development will receive every year — may only recommend applicants, but the final decision is made by the DSWD.
That hasn’t stopped the senator from assailing the program, and her colleagues for agreeing to AKAP during the bicameral conference committee without offering token resistance. And it seems that Senator Marcos has an issue not only with AKAP but with other programs intended to help the poor, even if she has been tapping them since becoming senator.
According to news reports, the senator diverted in 2023 some P13 billion from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the DSWD to another social amelioration program, the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS) program.
A House leader had claimed that her decision deprived 4.3 million poor Filipinos of much-needed ayuda from the national government. And the senator’s motives were political.
According to House Assistant Majority Leader Jil Bongalon of the Ako Bicol party-list group, the fund diversion allowed the senator and a few political personalities close to her to distribute financial assistance to their chosen beneficiaries through AICS. (Try this: Type “Imee Marcos AICS” and you will see news reports of AICS payouts funded by the presidential sister.)
One of the favored few, Bongalon claimed, was Vice President Sara Duterte.
Bottom dweller
Since day one of her brother’s administration, Senator Marcos has been a staunch ally and defender of Vice President Duterte, even, or rather especially after, the Vice President resigned from the Cabinet to assume the role of opposition leader.
She has stood by the Vice President despite the latter’s controversial remarks about ordering the exhumation of their father, former president Ferdinand Marcos, from the Libingan ng mga Bayani and tossing his remains into the West Philippine Sea. She kept quiet when Vice President Duterte admitted to plotting the assassination of her brother, the President, her sister-in-law, and her cousin and bête noire, House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
In contrast, Senator Marcos’ stance towards her brother and his administration has been generally uncharitable and obstructionist, questioning policy decisions, second-guessing presidential motives, and putting up roadblocks to key legislative measures emanating from Malacañang.
But none of her obstructionist moves have endeared Senator Marcos to both the supporters of President Marcos and Vice President Duterte. The results of recent surveys conducted by Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations (SWS) support this view.
She has consistently been the bottom dweller among the top 12 senatorial candidates in all reputable surveys. In the latest SWS survey, she is in a dead heat with Camille Villar and Senator Ronald dela Rosa for the 12th to 14th slots. Imagine that. The presidential sister fighting for the last slot with the daughter of a controversial property magnate and an intellectually tormented reelectionist tied to drug killings.
It’s not because the presidential sister isn’t working hard to get the voters’ attention. Senator Marcos is everywhere. Her face is on tarpaulin streamers dotting national highways and on big-ass billboards. You see her in television ads, on social media platforms, in the news.
The problem is not the lack of visibility but what she has been saying and doing.
For a senator who is the elder sister of an incumbent president, Senator Marcos has been acting in an unsisterly manner. That could be her undoing. – Rappler.com
Joey Salgado is a former journalist, and a government and political communications practitioner. He served as spokesperson for former vice president Jejomar Binay.