The pathways that once unseated presidents no longer carry decisive force. Military adventurism has been institutionally neutralized, and collapsing trust ratings — while politically damaging — no longer translate into removal from office. If a sitting president were ever to be unseated, it would not come from the streets or the barracks, but from the Constitution itself. Impeachment, with all its rigor and political cost, remains the only legitimate mechanism for removing President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. — a process that demands evidence, due process, and congressional will, not noise, pressure, or manufactured outrage. But even this avenue, because of how the present Congress is constituted, would be next to impossible to succeed.

This column does not argue for or against that outcome, nor does it serve as a defense of the administration or an attack on Vice President Sara Duterte. It is an examination of political reality as it exists, not as factions wish it to be. The analysis rests on observable shifts: a professionalized military, an electorate shaped by economic risk, and institutions that now absorb anger without collapsing. In that context, accountability must operate through law, not spectacle — and understanding that truth is essential before the country mistakes political theater for constitutional remedy.

That there is a credible attempt to destabilize the Marcos administration is an understatement. Some groups in and out of the Duterte circle have been trying to stir up unrest to cover up for its own crimes, using the scandal as its platform. They invoke the language of moral outrage, while carefully avoiding the harder question: who benefits when accountability is short-circuited into regime change?

The country does not need another political collapse engineered by actors who thrive under impunity. It needs a president compelled to finish what he started: prosecution that climbs, reforms that illuminate the budget’s darkest corners, and convictions that restore consequence to abuse of power. 

The demand shouldn’t be for Marcos Jr. to step down, but for him to step through — to carry accountability past speeches, past surveys, and past pressure from operators who mistake destabilization for salvation. In a system that has learned to absorb anger without changing, resignation is the easy exit. 

From my vantage point, in a constitutional democracy, military loyalty is not personal — it is institutional. It is owed to the Constitution, the chain of command, and the civilian authority established by law, and not to any individual leader. This distinction is critical when a senior officer publicly or implicitly withdraws support for the President, who, by design, serves as Commander-in-Chief. A soldier’s duty is obedience, but only within the bounds of law, honor, and constitutional mandate.

When such withdrawal is driven by personal disagreement, political affiliation, or factional sympathy, it marks a dangerous breach of civil-military norms. Armed forces do not choose presidents or referee politics; they serve the office vested by the people. Any signal of conditional loyalty — especially from senior ranks — risks unsettling morale, cohesion, and discipline. The proper response to irreconcilable conflict is not symbolic dissent, but lawful compliance or principled resignation. The soldier’s highest loyalty is to civilian supremacy and the rule of law — the quiet discipline that keeps a republic intact.

The absence of revolt in the Philippines is often misread as approval. It is not. It is inertia — produced by institutions that dampen disruption and narratives that redirect outrage. This explains why the country can absorb its largest corruption scandal in decades — ₱79 billion in suspected flood-control plunder — without tanks on the streets, even as dissatisfaction simmers just below the surface.

The decisive reason revolt has fallen out of fashion is not political fatigue or civic apathy. It is economic reality. The Philippines is navigating a fragile transition toward upper-middle-income status, and that transition rests on a foundation that cannot withstand political shock. This year, upheaval is no longer a tool of correction; it is an act of self-harm.

Stability is all that matters

This begins with a truth Filipinos understand instinctively: stability feeds the household. After years of inflationary stress, average inflation fell to 1.7% in 2025. On paper, it is a statistic. On the ground, it means cheaper rice, predictable transport costs, and breathing room for families living from paycheck to paycheck. Any political action that threatens that relief is immediately suspect.

That progress is reinforced by the country’s external standing. A BBB+ Positive sovereign credit rating places the Philippines one notch below the coveted “A” category. Crossing that line would lower borrowing costs, attract longer-term capital, and expand fiscal space for infrastructure, education, and health. It would signal graduation from volatility to predictability. But this entire trajectory depends on a single, fragile input: confidence.

In 2026, global capital does not wait for clarity. It moves at the first hint of disorder. Portfolio investors rebalance instantly. Multinationals pause expansions. Business-process outsourcing firms activate contingency plans that shift operations to Vietnam, India, or Indonesia. I see these decisions not as ideological, but algorithmic. Political theater registers as risk, and risk is priced immediately.

This is why modern revolts fail before they begin. The feedback loop is swift and unforgiving. Currency volatility raises import costs. Borrowing rates spike. Equity markets sag. Hiring freezes ripple across services and manufacturing. What starts as a call for “change” ends as job losses for people who had nothing to do with elite power struggles. For the average Filipino, stability is no longer a philosophical preference; it is a survival strategy. A revolt today would not deliver freedom. It would produce a shuttered economy.

Limited tolerance disorder

The Philippines’ march toward upper-middle-income status has narrowed tolerance for disruption. At lower-income levels, instability is sometimes accepted as the price of change. At this stage, instability becomes prohibitively expensive. Growth now depends on continuity — steady investment, predictable policy, and credible institutions. After pandemics, supply shocks, and inflation surges, voters have learned how quickly gains evaporate. The result is a quiet consensus: grievances are real, but they must be resolved without detonating the economy.

Nothing illustrates this better than the ₱6.793-trillion 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA) — one of the largest and most socially targeted budgets in Philippine history. Education receives record funding. Agriculture secures its strongest allocation in over a decade. Health, infrastructure, and social services are calibrated to close long-standing gaps. Definitely, this budget is not an abstraction. We can view it as classrooms, irrigation, clinics, scholarships, and local jobs.

When destabilization escalates into political crisis, it does not merely weaken a presidency; it attacks the GAA fund. Every week spent firefighting manufactured turmoil is a week stolen from implementation. Every delayed project compounds inefficiency. In this context, calls to upend the government without constitutional cause are not acts of courage. They are acts of fiscal vandalism.

Political theater carries hidden costs. Crisis management consumes executive bandwidth. Policy planning stalls. Regulators retreat into risk aversion. The cumulative effect is paralysis — an invisible tax on growth that hits hardest at the margins. Farmers waiting for support gain nothing from televised outrage. Investors deciding whether to build factories do not distinguish between righteous anger and reckless instability. They see only risk.

Stability as the New Revolution

Likewise, military intervention is no longer viable. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is more professionalized, better compensated, and more deeply embedded in institutional incentives than at any point since 1986. Pensions, procurement, promotions, and post-service careers are tied to stability, not adventurism. Coups once thrived on ambiguity. Today, they fail on predictability and cost.

People Power has also structurally decayed — not because Filipinos are apathetic, but because mobilization has been atomized. Anger disperses into timelines; it does not converge rather in public squares. Disinformation fractures consensus faster than outrage can consolidate it. Protest is not suppressed; it is diluted. Economic precarity completes the trap. When household margins thin, revolt becomes a luxury. Survival dominates. Dole-out programs anesthetize unrest just enough to prevent ignition — creating not stability, but managed stagnation.

This is where polling enters the story — not as a rebuttal, but as corroboration. Surveys do not arbitrate truth; they measure narrative penetration. In a political culture shaped by personalism and tribal loyalty, respondents can rank corruption as a top concern, while trusting figures persistently linked to graft and corruption. This is not a polling error. It is cognitive dissonance embedded in the system.

The durability of Sara Duterte in surveys reflects the lingering power of strongman mythology, which reframes accusations as persecution and opacity as strength. Polls record this faithfully without interrogating it. By contrast, Marcos Jr. suffers from fatigue without a counter-myth: a technocratic presidency in a culture that prizes symbolism over systems. Indifference, in surveys, is deadlier than anger.

Taken together, the absence of revolt and the paradox of polling reveal the same structural failure: accountability has been decoupled from both mass action and public opinion. Revolts no longer erupt because incentives suppress escalation. Surveys no longer correct behavior because perception has been severed from proof. Between them lies a void where corruption metastasizes without consequence.

Marcos Jr. does not face tanks or crowds. He faces normalization. In this environment, legitimacy is no longer earned through popularity or survival, but through enforcement. Convictions — not speeches, committees, or surveys — are now the only credible signal of reform. 

For the rabblerousers, invoking the Constitution to justify its violation is a pitch that no longer persuades. Filipinos have grown clear-eyed about who truly bears the cost of upheaval: not the loudest agitators, often insulated by wealth and offshore options, but ordinary citizens whose livelihoods depend on continuity and peace. Chaos is a luxury for the few; stability is a necessity for the many.

In 2026, the country’s most radical act is not rebellion but resolve — the insistence that disputes be settled within the institutions we built, through courts that decide, legislatures that deliberate, and ballots that correct. The age of highway revolutions has given way to the harder work of nation-building, where credibility with investors and fidelity to the rule of law — not spectacle — define progress and power.

The Philippines of today neither topples leaders in the streets nor corrects them in surveys — and that is precisely the danger. When anger dissipates and myths endure, power faces no natural constraint. In that vacuum, corruption does not provoke collapse; it festers. When corruption festers, it causes significant economic damage, erodes public faith in governing bodies, exacerbates inequality and poverty, and can ultimately lead to a rise in political instability and social unrest. It creates pervasive, systemic issues that negatively impact every facet of society. 

What has become the new revolution is stability — not as an end in itself, but as the only platform from which justice can still be pursued without burning the house down. – Rappler.com

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