WITH a 31-million mandate and 13 months in office, the Marcos Jr. administration’s first year has been a series of stumbles without a cohesive team in place, working together and clearly establishing what it wants to accomplish in its sixyear term. It literally stumbled on food and pricing, frontline services, peace and order, and corruption, which has landed the second problem the administration had to respond to.

Known for smuggling, the skyrocketing prices of sugar, onions and basic commodities, and the sudden penchant for rebranding and logos, plus the plagiarized tourism country branding, here comes now another institutionalized governance and leadership brand, “Bagong Pilipinas.” Instead of putting an action agenda on Bagong Pilipinas, it became another logo use that requires all “national government agencies (NGAs) and instrumentalities, including GOCCs and SUCs to adopt and incorporate the same in their letterheads, websites, official social media accounts, and other documents and instruments pertaining to flagship programs of government.”

That is according to Memorandum Circular 24 (MC 24) signed July 3, 2023 by the executive secretary. Bagong Pilipinas was introduced as an afterthought or as a reframing approach in time for the second SONA. An afterthought, because they merely lumped together certain programs of the Marcos administration that had already been made prior to Bagong Pilipinas. Mind you, the Maharlika Fund is not yet included in Bagong Pilipinas since it has yet to be signed as a law. A reframe because there is a need to tie things up and pivot from a lackadaisical first year.

The MC failed to elucidate on the “principles, strategies and objectives” of the Bagong Pilipinas brand of governance and leadership. This is the first time that I’ve heard of a brand of governance. Good governance is participatory, consensus-oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, and follows the rule of law. Is there a Marcos brand of governance? But leadership is multidimensional. A “personal brand reflects your priorities, the values you stand for, the

offerings or promises you consistently deliver, and how you go about delivering them.” What is the BBM leadership brand? Have we felt it after 13 months?

In fact, BBM said that an economist had given him a grade of “incomplete” and reasoned that he had five years to complete it. In the academic realm, Mr. President, an incomplete gives you a year to complete your course, and failure to do so would get you a failing mark. Clearly, the first year was not impressive, coming from a historic 31 million mandate. One would think that since he is a Marcos, and with that huge mandate, there is no need for a warm-up, and it would be a fast clip going into the first round. But it was not.

The Junior sounds like Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. all right, but that is the only thing that binds him to his father. The audacity is lacking, and the hard work ethic of solving problems and making the lot of those that need government assistance is not sensed. Frontline services have become worse. Illegal drugs are back with a vengeance, and the government, without anyone pushing things, appears to just float from one crisis to the next. The sense is that no one is in command. And there seems to be a cabal that has been milking certain agencies and creative communications, from production to ad buys.

Bagong Pilipinas seems to be synonymous with Bagong Lipunan. Another columnist in this broadsheet called it New Society 2.0. I wouldn’t use 2.0 because Bagong Pilipinas has not proven a thing. The 2.0 “refers to a version of something that represents an enhancement or improvement over the previous version.” Times are different, and the attendant circumstances in 1972 and 2022 are of varying hues.

The ideological roots of the “Bagong Lipunan” (New Society) concept can be traced to Marcos Sr.’s declaration of martial law in September 1972. In his rhetoric, Marcos Sr. contended that a system of “constitutional authoritarianism was necessary in order to “reform society” and create a “new society” under his authority. The New Society supposedly marked the era of reforms in the social, economic and political structure of government. The specific areas of the new society envisioned for reform by Marcos Sr. were identified during the early years of the martial law regime, namely:1) peace and order; 2) land reform; 3) education reforms; 4) labor reform; 5) government reorganization; 6) economic reform; and 7) social services. One can readily reminisce to the “Martsa ng Bagong Lipunan” penned by Levi Celerio and Felipe Padilla while reading MC 24.

MC 24 pegged the Bagong Pilipinas campaign to Executive Order 14, or the Philippine Development Plan of 2023-2028, the President’s 8-Point Socioeconomic Agenda and the Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino program. The brand of governance and leadership calls for “deep and fundamental transformations in all sectors of society and government.” Bagong Pilipinas is characterized by “a principled, accountable and dependable government reinforced by unified institutions,” with the “common objective to realize the goals and aspirations of every Filipino.”

Principled, accountable and dependable are constructs that need to be operationalized so that KPIs can be made to measure, monitor and evaluate the second year of the Marcos Jr. administration. Let it not be mere lip service and failed promises. Ambisyon 2040 is clear on its objective: “We will all enjoy a stable and comfortable lifestyle, secure in the knowledge that we have enough for our daily needs and unexpected expenses, that we can plan and prepare for our own and our children’s future. Our family lives together in a place of our own, and we have the freedom to go where we desire, protected and enabled by a clean, efficient, and fair government.”

If Bagong Pilipinas leads to Matatag, Maginhawa and Panatag, then we should all be supporting Bagong Pilipinas, regardless of the prints found in the logo. In the end, the design should help build public trust.

“Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.”