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The Gilded Shield: How Statistical Sorcery and Subsidized Rice Forge a Fantasy of Prosperity

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Louis ‘Barok’ Biraogo

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The Gilded Shield: How Statistical Sorcery and Subsidized Rice Forge a Fantasy of Prosperity
Shielded by Spreadsheets: The Marcos Jr. Guide to Turning Global Luck into Personal Glory

By Louis “Barok” C. Biraogo — December 30, 2025

MGA ka-kweba, gather close. The Presidential Communications Office has just unfurled its latest masterpiece: The Shield™.

In this glittering press release, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is cast as the valiant knight who, in the year 2025, single-handedly protects Filipino families from the dragons of hardship. Armed with “sustained low inflation” and a “strong economy,” he has supposedly slashed inflation by more than half—from 3.4% in 2024 to a triumphant 1.6% (January–November 2025)—delivered ₱20-per-kilo rice, and steered GDP growth past the lumbering advanced economies of the world.

How touching. How convenient. How utterly detached from the daily grind of millions who queue not for victory parades, but for survival.

“BBB+ rating: Bail-out, Bluster, and Buff the numbers ‘til they’re Plus.”

1. The Core Narrative: The Administration as Shield

The PCO’s story is simple and seductive: decisive coordination has stabilized prices, secured food supply, and preserved household purchasing power—especially for rice, the item that devours the largest share of poor families’ budgets.

Executive Secretary Ralph G. Recto offers us a gem of pedagogical clarity:

“At 6% inflation, your ₱100 buys only ₱94 worth of goods. But at 1.6%, that same ₱100 now buys ₱98.40.”

A masterclass, indeed, in teaching citizens why losing less feels like gaining more.

The numbers themselves are not invented. PSA data, IMF projections, and independent trackers confirm:

  • Headline inflation averaged ~1.6–1.7% through late 2025.
  • November inflation for the bottom 30% income households hit -0.2%—six straight months of mild contraction.
  • S&P reaffirmed the BBB+ rating with a Positive Outlook.
  • 2025 GDP forecasts hover around 5.1%, second in ASEAN behind Vietnam.

These are partial truths, burnished to blinding brilliance. Partial truths, however, are the preferred currency of propaganda—they dazzle while concealing the shadows.

2. The Quantitative Mirage vs. Lived Reality

Low inflation is mathematically impressive. Yet its meaning evaporates under scrutiny.

This “victory” owes far more to:

  • Global commodity price normalization,
  • High base effects from the 2022–2023 surge,
  • Aggressive monetary tightening initiated before this administration,

than to any singular policy stroke of genius. Emerging markets worldwide rode the same disinflation wave.

And what, precisely, does this low inflation shield?

Price levels remain elevated after years of surges. Wages stagnate. Underemployment fosters in a labor market the PCO calls “vibrant.” Medicine, transport, education—these devour budgets untouched by rice savings. For the poorest, negative inflation in their basket is often a statistical quirk born of subsidized staples, not genuine broad-based relief.

A few pesos saved on rice do not compensate for absent safety nets, decent jobs, or affordable healthcare. Ask the families still choosing between food and medicine. Their “deflation” feels less like deliverance and more like enduring deprivation.

3. The ₱20 Rice Triumph: Potemkin Price in a Boutique Setting

Here shines the crown jewel of the narrative: the administration “delivered” on its promise to bring rice to ₱20 per kilo—roughly half the 2022 average.

Reality is less heroic. The ₱20 rice exists primarily as:

  • Limited stocks in Kadiwa centers,
  • Targeted sales for vulnerable groups (seniors, 4Ps beneficiaries),
  • Temporary administrative interventions.

Regular market rice still trades at ₱40–₱50+ per kilo, varying by region and quality. This is not a market transformation; it is a subsidized symbol—politically potent, fiscally straining, and structurally distorting. It discourages local production, deepens import dependence, and papers over decades of agricultural failure.

Semantic gymnastics at its finest: a boutique subsidy rebranded as national victory.

4. The Comparative Charade

Place Marcos Jr. beside his predecessors, and the triumphalism wilts.

  • Aquino III: Averaged 6.2% GDP growth with stable 2–4% inflation.
  • Duterte (pre-pandemic): Mid-to-high 6%+ growth amid infrastructure push.
  • Marcos Jr.: Inherited post-pandemic rebound and global disinflation; growth slowed to ~5.1% amid headwinds and downward revisions.

With our young population and consumption engine, why do we trail Vietnam’s 6.5%? Much of the current “success” is cyclical luck and inherited medicine, not bold reinvention.

5. Structural Rot, Politely Ignored

Beneath the headlines, foundational failures persist:

  • Agriculture remains the weakest link—subsidized into survival rather than modernized into strength.
  • The “vibrant labor market” produces jobs, but mostly informal, low-paying ones—a symptom of weakness, not vigor.
  • “Robust investment prospects” clash with bureaucratic bottlenecks, governance scandals, and infrastructure delays. S&P’s Positive Outlook rewards macro stability, not transformative reform.

6. Who Wins, Who Loses

The true beneficiaries are the architects of the narrative. Each statistic—S&P nod, IMF forecast, subsidized snapshot—serves as a brick in a fortress deflecting scrutiny of persistent poverty, widening inequality, and grand unfulfilled promises.

The losers are the millions for whom low inflation is no antidote to systemic exclusion.

Sharp Recommendations (That Double as Indictments)

  1. Retire the “₱20/kg rice” slogan in favor of a “₱500/day living wage” policy—because political symbols feed egos; decent wages feed families.
  2. Commission an honest press release explaining the difference between a subsidized price and a sustainable economy—one that finally modernizes agriculture instead of perpetuating dependence.
  3. Measure “shielding” not by headline statistics, but by how many Filipinos are lifted out of poverty’s grip.

Until then, the gilded shield endures. Reality, like market rice, remains stubbornly expensive.

— Barok

Key Citations

Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo

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