Remember The Monkees? Particularly their song “Daydream Believer,” with lyrics by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio? Its lyrics fit the message of hope that the 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA) by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is supposed to convey. Released in 1967, it was the last No. 1 of America’s answer to The Beatles. The pertinent verses say: You once thought of me/As a white knight on his steed/Now you know how happy I can be/Oh, and our good time starts and ends/Without dollar one to spend/But how much, baby, do we really need?
Yet, hope isn’t *sempiternal even as social scientific research maven Dr. Mahar Mangahas of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) said the since 1986, Filipinos consistently hoped for better economic conditions, decent jobs and equally decent pay, roofs over heads and the eradication of corruption. Of course, Filipinos continue to be frustrated as the democratic “restoration of 1986” replaced one faction of the ruling class with another, failed to repudiate odious debts and never democratized wealth or reform both agriculture and industry and reversing the policy of rapacious extraction of ores and minerals without trying to process them into higher value metals. The cage that imprisoned Philippine society from the Spanish colonial times onwards was never scuttled.
Forty years after 1896 and 54 years after 1972, we are back to watching the same annual ritual, with the Filipino people still without a dollar to spend despite the “earthshaking” news by the World Bank (WB), amplified by Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, that, thank heavens, the Philippines finally made it to the ranks of “upper middle-income countries” (UMICs), bestowing bragging rights to Marcos Jr., Balisacan and the country’s financial managers. While Balisacan believes that the country’s credit standing would improve with UMIC following the determination that the country’s gross national income (GNI) per capita has risen to $4,850, other experts insist the UMIC ranking merely guides the WB and the Washington Consensus in distributing loanable funds and slapping higher interest on wealthier nations. Since when has being slapped with higher interest rates on debt become a progressive leap?
Like the character in “Daydream Believer,” the alarm clock shatters his peace and pushes him to confront reality. SONA 2026 should not even talk about the country’s being an UMIC since it gives short shrift to the basic problems of the Philippines. For one, being an UMIC strips the Philippines of concessional rates, which is darn bad for a chronic borrower. Curiously, China still enjoys such concessional rates under WB’s reckoning and would continue to benefit until 2031. This despite the fact that China has become one of the world’s biggest lender even as it has failed consistently to redeem its investment pledges to the unlamented Rodrigo Duterte administration.
Only neo-liberals are gloating about it, along with economists who continue to dream that a higher gross national income (GNI) is a leap on the road to prosperity, counted in the number of cellular phones used, the expressways built by private profiteers, the “advanced” modes of transport and the obsession with consumer goods, along with false consciousness that K pop and whatever faddish foreign cultural products are superior when they invade the neurons of poor Pinoy kids and their elders. Chasing UMIC is like chasing the horizon, seeking to capture. As seasoned economists have pointed out, stochastic violence attended the march to UMIC-hood. The violence stems from the extraction of surplus, the repression of unions, the net decapitalization of the country as foreign capital uses the financial system to finance their operations and investments.
Even with the Philippines being a UMIC, Ibon Foundation executive director Sonny Africa says the worsened economic crisis has become a millstone around the neck of roughly 70 million Filipinos or 62% of the entire population live with families earning a total of P22,000 monthly. On the other hand, only 1-million Filipinos or 1.5% of the population earn from P180,000 to P17-million a month. GNI per capita actually masks the structural problems of the economy. This measure is a false measure inasmuch as it hides the unequal distribution of cash, with the bast majority scrounging for money while plutocrats swim in pesos and dollars. Ordinary citizens have little wherewithal and they are confronted spiraling inflation rate, now said to be hovering around 7%, and battered by higher fuel, power and water prices. The market-driven framework that favors big business and the wealthy few simply can’t hack it.
“The world has changed with huge geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts,” Africa said. “The Philippines can’t stay on its current path of underdevelopment that generates wealth for the few at the cost of high prices, joblessness and worsening poverty for the majority.” In sum, Africa argued, “the growth model that resulted in the statistical reclassification can expand economic output but is unable to create decent work with livable pay for the majority of Filipinos.” He added: “It is clearer than ever that growth from trade, real estate, privatized utilities, BPOs, foreign investment enclaves, and labor export cannot materially improve the conditions of the majority. It is critical to reverse agricultural decline, industrial erosion, and worsening technological dependence with a determined program of rural development and Filipino industrialization that qualitatively transforms the economy’s productive structure.”
Africa noted that manufacturing growth averaged only 2.5% from 2023 to 2025, the slowest in more than 15 years. Manufacturing’s share of the gross domestic product (GDP) slumped to just 17.4% in 2025, the lowest in 76 years since 1949. Agriculture’s 7.9% share of the GDP in 2025 is the smallest in history. Weak job creation, rising unemployment, and millions of discouraged workers not counted in official figures, are the realities that Marcos Jr, must grapple with. As of May 2026, 78% of employed Filipinos are in the informal sector, Africa stressed, with 38.7 million self-employed, own family farm or business, private households and workers in informal establishments. Officially reported unemployment of 2.5 million would zoom to 4.5 million if around two (2) million jobless Filipinos statistically excluded from the unemployment count are included. How can the UMIC mathematical reclassification provide respite for workers when wages cannot cover rising costs? The average daily nominal wage rate nationwide of P512 only covers 39% of the P1,301 family living wage for five. #
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WORD OF THE DAY: Sempiternal – lasting forever, everlasting, or continuing on without end.