“Mahiya naman kayo!”—Said who?

“Mahiya naman kayo!”

It was the most memorable line of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s 2025 State of the Nation Address, aimed at those behind questionable flood-control projects.

Filipinos understood the anger. We have seen families lifting appliances above rising water, children wading through flooded streets, and communities asking why years of public spending have not protected them.

But the line should not remain a moment of presidential outrage. It should become the standard by which government itself is judged.

A State of the Nation Address cannot be measured by the applause it receives inside the plenary hall. It must be measured by the distance between what a President promises at the podium and what a citizen experiences on the street.

By that measure, the story of President Marcos’ first four SONAs is not merely how his speeches changed. It is whether life outside the halls of Congress changed with them.

The 2022 SONA set ambitious targets: annual economic growth of 6.5 to 8 percent, agricultural modernization and stronger food security. By 2023, the administration was already declaring that the “Bagong Pilipinas” had arrived.

By 2024, the administration was highlighting economic gains and thousands of completed projects, even as the President acknowledged that national statistics meant little to families still struggling with food prices and daily costs.

But by 2025, the government was confronting a harder question: Why were communities still flooding despite years of public spending?

The President reported that more than 5,500 flood-control projects had been implemented. In the same address, he condemned defective and questionable projects and demanded accountability from the contractors and officials responsible.

“Mahiya naman kayo,” he said.

It was effective because it echoed what many Filipinos already felt. It was also revealing.

When a President has to publicly rebuke those responsible for government projects, the issue is no longer merely whether money was released or construction was reported as completed.

The question is whether public funds produced public protection.

From promises to consequences

Government accomplishment reports are built around numbers: projects completed, funds released, beneficiaries served, seminars conducted and modules distributed.

But citizens do not experience governance as a spreadsheet.

They experience it through the price of rice, the depth of the floodwater, the wages they bring home and whether their children can read.

That is where presidential promises stop being rhetoric and become measurable obligations.

In agriculture, the administration repeatedly promised stronger food security, greater farm productivity and more affordable staples.

Yet during the first phase of July 2025, the national average retail price of regular-milled rice was ₱41.57 per kilo. During the corresponding period in July 2026, it was ₱49.30.

The lesson is not that nothing worked. It is that temporary price declines cannot be presented as a durable solution.

A family does not measure food security by whether inflation improved for one month. It measures food security by whether the same grocery budget can still feed the same number of people.

In infrastructure, the test should be equally straightforward.

A flood-control structure is not successful because it appears in an accomplishment report. It is successful when it protects the community it was built to protect.

The 2025 SONA demonstrated why project counts are insufficient. The President cited thousands of implemented projects while acknowledging serious problems in the quality and integrity of some of them.

That does not prove every project failed. It proves that quantity alone cannot establish whether the public received value for its money.

The proper measure is not how many structures were listed as completed. It is how many communities became measurably safer because those structures existed.

In the economy, the distance between the original target and actual performance is clear.

Gross domestic product grew by 5.7 percent in 2024 and 4.4 percent in 2025—both below the administration’s original target range. In the first quarter of 2026, year-on-year growth slowed further to 2.8 percent.

These figures do not mean the economy stopped growing. They do mean that the original promise and the present trajectory are no longer the same thing.

The labor picture is similarly complicated.

The underemployment rate declined from 14.8 percent in July 2025 to 12.2 percent in May 2026. The improvement should be acknowledged. But the latter figure still represented about 6.04 million employed Filipinos seeking additional hours or better work.

Having work is not always the same as having economic security.

And even for those with stable work, easing inflation does not mean prices have returned to previous levels.

In education, the MATATAG curriculum was intended to decongest lessons and strengthen foundational skills.

But changing a curriculum is not the same as changing a child’s ability to learn.

A new syllabus can change what appears in a textbook. It cannot, by itself, teach a child to read.

In April 2026, the World Bank cited an estimated learning-poverty rate of 91 percent, meaning roughly nine in ten Filipino children of late-primary age could not read and understand an age-appropriate text, accounting also for children who were out of school.

Although the estimate draws on the latest available large-scale assessment rather than a new 2026 nationwide test, its warning remains difficult to dismiss.

The meaningful question is not merely how many teachers were trained or modules printed.

The real question is: How many children can now read who could not read before?

Spending is not the same as solving

Budget utilization, procurement milestones and completion reports matter. Public money must be tracked and agencies required to show that funds were used properly.

But these are means, not ends.

A government can release a budget, award a contract and certify a project as completed without proving that it produced lasting public value.

When the state measures what it did rather than what changed, bureaucratic activity begins masquerading as public progress.

This is how failure survives accomplishment reports.

Before the next promise

Before another set of presidential promises is introduced, government should answer five questions:

1. What measurable outcome was promised?

2. How much public money was spent?

3. What project, service or policy was delivered?

4. What independently verifiable improvement did the public experience?

5. Who was held accountable when the result fell short?

These are not partisan questions. They are the minimum requirements of democratic accountability.

Not every government shortfall is caused by corruption. But every failure requires an explanation, and every peso requires an accounting.

When President Marcos said, “Mahiya naman kayo,” he directed the nation’s anger toward erring contractors and negligent officials.

But presidents do not stand outside the systems they lead.

Accountability cannot end with the contractor who poured the concrete. It must extend to the agency that approved the design, the engineer who certified completion, the official who authorized payment and the political system that announced success before citizens felt it.

“Mahiya naman kayo” must not remain a line delivered after the flood has risen, the project has failed and the money has been spent.

It should be the standard applied before a contract is awarded, before payment is released and before an accomplishment is announced.

It will belong to the flooded family lifting its appliances above the water.

It will belong to the parent counting whether the week’s salary can still buy enough food.

It will belong to the child waiting for the promise of education to become the ability to read.

And this time, the words will no longer come from the podium. They will be directed at it:

Mahiya naman kayo.