MR. PHILIP CU UNJIENG: We’d like to thank President Marcos for giving us the opportunity and the privilege to have him as a guest here on The Sit Down of Manila Bulletin.

PRESIDENT MARCOS: Not at all. It’s a pleasure.

MR. CU UNJIENG: Okay. So, first question I wanted to throw at you, Mr. President, is you know we’ve had all these natural disasters over the last couple of weeks: Cebu, northern Cebu, Samar, and then the week before, the typhoon in Masbate. It seems we’re very disaster-prone and this year has been like a Pandora’s box in terms of natural disasters. How would you assess the Philippines or what grade would you give us in terms of disaster preparedness and in terms of resilience?

PRESIDENT MARCOS: In government, the best that we can do is really to be prepared, as prepared as we can possibly be, and move very, very quickly.

Just always – me… It’s very simple for me, I’m motivated by the fact, think of the children that are in distress now. What do they need? What do we have to do? You cannot wait. Don’t do it later. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now.

MR. CU UNJIENG: And I think the challenge with almost all disasters, especially globally is that the moment they get shunted out of the headlines or the news, ‘di ba, it’s what happening there and that there are people still suffering, still trying to recover ‘no?

PRESIDENT MARCOS: Yeah. Well, that’s why – that’s what I want to avoid. And that’s why I made it very clear when I went to both Masbate and to Cebu, I said this is not a one-time thing.

We’re here, we’re gonna stay here until everyone is more or less in a stable condition.

The difference between, for example, a storm, a typhoon – like what happened in Masbate – and an earthquake that happened in Cebu –

MR. CU UNJIENG: In Bogo City, yeah.

PRESIDENT MARCOS: ‘Pag bagyo, we can always say preemptive evacuation, dalhin ninyo sa evacuation center.

However, after an earthquake, the main damage is infrastructure, structure.

Pagdating ng lindol, sasabihin, dalhin natin sa evacuation center. Hindi tayo nakakasiguro sa evacuation center. We have to get the engineers to come in, to inspect. And as a natural reaction, the people do not want to be in concrete buildings.

Baka mag-aftershocks, so natatakot sila. So, they prefer to stay out.

We’ve already – I got the reports that in Cebu, the tent cities are starting to go up with the help of Dick Gordon and the Red Cross. They’ve been very, very, very helpful.

MR. CU UNJIENG: If you don’t mind, we will also shift to like obviously what’s still on the minds of a lot of people ‘di ba, starting from when they started marching on September 21 and even before that ‘no. You’ve been credited as being like the whistleblower in terms of all these ghost flood control projects that… Mayors may have been talking about it, but until you’d mentioned it in the SONA, it wasn’t really reaching the level of national discourse ‘no.

PRESIDENT MARCOS: No.

MR. CU UNJIENG: But the apprehension on most people’s minds now is what is the endgame, I mean, that you were possibly contemplating? And also is, what’s gonna happen if later on the trail leads to the backyards of your own allies?

PRESIDENT MARCOS: I think we’re already there. Why would I even start such a thing if it was of somehow for political advantage?

The reason I brought it up and made it part of the national discourse was quite simply because this could not go on. Because if it kept going – suddenly you discovered how deeply entrenched this entire system was.

I mean, there’s always been a you know – a sniff and the suspicion of corruption in government, you know, the different… But not this scale. That was the shocking part. And I said this cannot.

Nothing will happen to the Philippines if we carry on this way. Wala na talagang mangyayari sa atin.

The economy will never grow properly. People are not going to get helped. The schools will not get better. The hospitals will not get better. We will not get anywhere.

All of these were the things – will just disappear. And we will just be this little nation that’s feeding upon itself. And that’s why I brought it up.

And I will continue to bring it up because I do not see any point to anything that we are doing unless we move the country forward. If we resign ourselves to saying that, “Okay, well, we can’t do anything. I only have six years.” If you resign yourself to that, that I can’t do anything, you will not do anything.

And this is what we’ve seen over so many past decades. I didn’t want to be another one. I didn’t want to be a part of that kind of attitude, especially in terms of public service.

MR. CU UNJIENG: I mean, I know there are many who applaud you really for that. But I also worry sometimes does resigning absolve people of culpability?

PRESIDENT MARCOS: No.

MR. CU UNJIENG: Okay.

PRESIDENT MARCOS: That’s not sufficient.

MR. CU UNJIENG: That’s very good to hear.

PRESIDENT MARCOS: Oo, no. That’s not enough. That’s not enough.

There is a great deal of damage that has been caused – not only financial damage or economic damage – but damage to – actual damage to people’s lives.

I mean, very simple, a lousy flood control project that collapsed during the flood, that killed a family. I mean, how can you live with that? I can’t live with it. So, I won’t live with it. So, I – we’ll keep pushing.

MR. CU UNJIENG: So, you’ve also recently ordered the realignment ‘no of about P255 billion from DPWH “flood control projects” to other possible venues where it will be spent. Can you sort of like talk about where you wanna prioritize now this – ?

PRESIDENT MARCOS: Yeah, 255 and a half billion is basically because of the no flood control projects for 2026. So, that’s where we got that number.

It does not mean that we have given up completely on infrastructure because we cannot. We cannot. If we stop that, we will stop the economy basically.

DepEd for classrooms, specifically. We are going to put those 26 billion.

For Department of Health, 29 billion for medical assistance, ‘yung MAIP, and then the completion of all the other hospitals, specialty hospitals, that we were talking about.

PhilHealth, 60 billion, to increase the number of cove – the extent of coverage.

Thirty-nine billion plus will be going to the Department of Agriculture.

MR. CU UNJIENG: You vowed that every centavo of public funds will benefit Filipinos. But what concrete mechanisms are now being placed so that future budgets are free of these insertions and these anomalies? Is blockchain and AI one of the solutions to create that transparency?

PRESIDENT MARCOS: Well, I haven’t seen any AI that specifically geared towards that. Blockchain is something that could work.

However, what has happened has been – that we have violated the rules. Those rules exist and simply we don’t… In the last decade, they stopped following the rules.

For example, when I was in local government, when national government came in and it was going to do a construction, they come in, they do the project.

And then, at some point, they come back to the local government executives and say, “Tapos na. Natapos namin ‘yung project”.

Iinspeksyunin namin ngayon ‘yun. ‘Pag nakita namin hindi maganda ito, hindi tama itong ginawa ninyo, hindi ko pipirmahan ‘yung acceptance.

Dapat ‘pag hindi ko pinirmahan ‘yung acceptance nung local government, hindi mababayaran ang contractor.

Tatawagin ‘yung contractor, “Tingnan mo ulit. Hindi tama itong ginawa ninyo. Ayusin mo.” Pagka naayos ninyo ‘yan, pipirmahan ko ito, mababayaran kayo. Iyon ang sistema noon.

Apparently in the last administration, they removed that entirely. And I didn’t… I was shocked. I was shocked because this is the standard procedure. This is like – you don’t think about this anymore.

MR. CU UNJIENG: Yeah. ICI has been getting a lot of flak also now ‘di ba because people are sort of prematurely judging what’s gonna happen in terms of what the ICI is out to do.

PRESIDENT MARCOS: This is a process. Much of what we’ve heard are allegations.

MR. CU UNJIENG: Right.

PRESIDENT MARCOS: Si ganyan nagnakaw eh, si ganyan binigyan ko ng pera, si ganyan… We have to prove it. We don’t want to go after people who are innocent.

Now, we know many of these people are not innocent. But if you are going to bring them to court, you must have a very strong case.

Look, anong mangyayari? Minadali natin. Hindi kumpleto ang ebidensiya natin. Malabo ‘yung ebidensiya natin pero pinilit natin. Natalo ‘yung kaso.

Can you imagine? I think that will be much, much, much worse.

MR. CU UNJIENG: But I think that’s also something that the people who like marched on September 21 have to kind of understand also ‘di ba?

PRESIDENT MARCOS: Yeah, but you know, it’s understandable din eh because it’s… The sins committed – and I call them sins; it’s no longer mistakes or corruption – the sins they committed are hard to swallow.

I understand that but if we… You know, we are a nation – a people of laws.

We have to follow the law. Otherwise, whatever we do is not legitimate. “Ikulong mo ‘yan.” Sasabihin, “Hindi, wala ka namang ebidensiya. Wala ka namang ipinakita. Hindi mo sinagot ‘yung ganito. Hindi mo sinagot.”

We have to be thorough also. If we are actually going to punish these people, we have to be very, very clear about what we are doing, and we have to be very, very clear that we go after the guilty ones. You know, because some of the guilty ones they are trying to – they are trying to derail the system.

“Hindi ako ‘yan. Si ganito ‘yan.” Eh baka mapunta sa tayo doon. Let’s make sure that we get iyong talagang…

MR. CU UNJIENG: And then confuse the issues ‘di ba?

PRESIDENT MARCOS: Well, that’s one of the political and legal strategies that people employ.

 

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