Even while sitting out this year’s State of the Nation Address, Senator Robin Padilla found something in President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s speech to commend: the President leaned more heavily on Filipino, and the senator said that choice made the message land better with everyday listeners.
“Maraming salamat sa ating Pangulo at mas marami ang wikang Pilipino sa kaniyang talumpati. Mas naintindihan naming mga hampaslupa ang kaniyang mga nais isagawa sa loob ng natitira niyang termino,” Padilla said.
The senator was among the members of the chamber’s minority who stayed away from the Batasang Pambansa on Monday afternoon as Marcos delivered his fifth Sona. Rather than treat his absence as a rebuke, Padilla told reporters it carried no such meaning, describing the President as a friend he had no wish to embarrass. As he put it, standing quietly while a room full of officials rose to applaud would have been the more insulting gesture.
That framing marks a shift from a year earlier. In 2025, Padilla openly cast his boycott as a protest, tying it to the detention of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is facing proceedings before the International Criminal Court at The Hague over the killings linked to his administration’s anti-drug campaign. This time, he said, he simply preferred to catch the address by radio, calling the day a “family affair.”
Padilla was not the only minority figure to skip the event. Inquirer and Philstar reported that Senators Imee Marcos, Alan Peter Cayetano, Pia Cayetano, and Loren Legarda also declined to attend, with Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano saying he would follow the speech from a television set as his own form of protest. Several of the absent senators are known allies of the Dutertes, and their collective no-show underscored the fault lines running through the 20th Congress as it opened its second regular session.
Marcos, for his part, used the roughly hour-and-a-half address to press his anti-corruption drive, revisiting the flood control project scandal that has already produced arrests among contractors, senior public works officials, and lawmakers, according to the official transcript and Inquirer’s coverage.
