President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. cited scattered development efforts in Mindanao during his 4th State of the Nation Address (SONA), but steered clear of the island’s more urgent and politically sensitive concerns, such as the slow rehabilitation of war-torn Marawi, the long-delayed Mindanao railway project, and the looming political transition in the Bangsamoro region. Marcos kept mum about the government’s unfulfilled compensation promises to thousands of Marawi residents displaced by the 2017 siege and did not reference the first-ever parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) scheduled for October. He also did not provide an update on the decommissioning of former combatants under the peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Instead, Marcos focused on infrastructure, electrification, public services, and youth development through grassroots sports in selected parts of Mindanao, including the expansion of road connectivity, the rollout of his administration’s P20-per-kilo rice initiative, and the implementation of car-free Sundays. However, his pronouncement about the “absence of any guerrilla group” in the country was met with criticism, with Karlos Manlupig, executive director of Balay Mindanaw, saying that Marcos “fell short” on peace and security and that his statement was “underwhelming and in fact dismissive.” Manlupig also noted that the President could have rallied more public support to secure territorial integrity and peace by expounding more about the West Philippine Sea and that the absence of indigenous peoples in the SONA was “a missed opportunity to affirm respect for the country’s original stewards.” The long-delayed Mindanao railway project, which has faced persistent funding and implementation bottlenecks, was not mentioned in the SONA, despite being previously touted as a vital part of the country’s transport and communications systems.
