[In This Economy] Marcos’ Cabinet reset: Strong or weak flex?

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It’s hard enough to ensure the continuity of projects from one administration to the next. But it’s an altogether different challenge to ensure the continuity of projects across two sets of Cabinets within an administration.

Shaken by the dismal results of the 2025 elections, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced on May 22, 202 a very drastic move: he instructed all his Cabinet secretaries and advisers to hand in their courtesy resignations.

As pointed out by historian Manolo Quezon on Facebook, this is a “midterm tradition as old as the Philippine presidency — and the US presidency for the past century actually.” Specifically, a Cabinet sweep happens whenever an administration gets pummeled in the midterm elections. (Only six of Marcos’ 12 bets won in the May 12 polls.)

Ostensibly, this Cabinet shakeup was done to “[give] the President the elbow room to evaluate the performance of each department and determine who will continue to serve in line with his administration’s recalibrated priorities.” Previous to this, the Palace said, “This is not business as usual…. The people have spoken, and they expect results — not politics, not excuses. We hear them, and we will act.”

Marcos is already being called an “early lame duck,” and now he wants to show the Filipino people who’s boss. He wants to project strength and decisiveness. In a post-election podcast, he said in an interview with Anthony Taberna, “I want to be respected but maybe fear is better.”

As of writing, nearly all Cabinet secretaries and presidential advisers handed in their courtesy resignations. And the Palace just announced Friday afternoon that Marcos accepted the resignation of three Cabinet members.

Is this the strong flex Marcos thinks it is? Does the problem lie with Marcos’ Cabinet, or himself? Wouldn’t it be saner to first conduct an internal review of Cabinet members’ performance, then surgically remove the ones who are chronically underperforming? Why ask everyone to resign all at once?

The thing is, you could do worse with the current crop of secretaries. A handful of them are doing great work in their respective sectors.

An example is Education Secretary Sonny Angara, who gave the Department of Education a much-needed boost in morale and integrity after the disastrous stint of Vice President Sara Duterte. Angara is deeply invested in fixing the many broken aspects of the education system, just like his father — the late senator Edgardo Angara — who was a former president of the University of the Philippines (from 1981 to 1987) and chairman of the original Congressional Commission on Education in the early 1990s.

Another notable figure is Rex Gatchalian of the Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD), who is hard at work fixing the many broken and ill-targeted social protection mechanisms of the government.

Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla, formerly an academic and former faculty member at the UP School of Economics, is also one of the smartest guys in the Cabinet. You’ll be hard put to find someone who knows better the many intricacies of the energy sector. But he will be replacing Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga.

Although only three cabinet secretaries have been replaced (two of them only reassigned to new posts), the Palace said that more adjustments will be announced. 

A further revamp of the Cabinet poses huge risks.

First and most obviously, the next set of secretaries may be a lot worse than the current one. Second, it may derail or push back many of the policies and programs put in place by the current crop of Cabinet members.

It’s hard enough to ensure the continuity of projects (say, big-ticket infrastructure projects) from one administration to the next. But it’s an altogether different challenge to ensure the continuity of projects across two sets of Cabinets within an administration.

The Palace took pains to assure the public that “pending and existing projects will not be affected.” To be fair, the rest of the bureaucracy exists for the very purpose of ensuring the continuity of programs regardless of who sits in power.

But in the Philippines many programs are driven directly (or at least to a large extent influenced) by the Cabinet, so much so that without certain figures in power many projects may be derailed, discarded, and ultimately forgotten.  

Remember that Marcos only has three years left in office. That’s hardly enough of a runway to continue the programs that are going to be disrupted by the current Cabinet shakeup, let alone start new ones. Severe disruption could make it even less likely for the administration to meet its lofty 2028 targets, including reducing poverty to single digits and significantly lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio.

A new set of secretaries also means that many partners of the government (from the private sector, multilateral organizations, and non-government organizations) will have to deal with a new bunch of people who may not necessarily see the importance of their respective advocacies or projects with the government.

If many of these projects don’t push through, that adds a layer of uncertainty about the Marcos administration. Is the government really serious about pursuing meaningful reforms?

All in all, Marcos should be careful. A Cabinet revamp may not be the show of strength and resolve he was aiming for. He might even weaken his image in the public eye — and in the process bolster the image of rising presidential contenders in the run-up to 2028. – Rappler.com

JC Punongbayan, PhD is an assistant professor at the UP School of Economics and the author of False Nostalgia: The Marcos “Golden Age” Myths and How to Debunk Them. In 2024, he received The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) Award for economics. Follow him on Instagram (@jcpunongbayan) and Usapang Econ Podcast.