Our Empty Plates and Their Political Probes

The weary sighs of ordinary Ilonggos are becoming a national chorus.

“Even when I budget carefully, food prices take up almost everything I earn in a day,” says Analyn, a vendor at the Iloilo Central Market. “We work long hours, but our wages are not enough,” adds Ramil, a jeepney driver from Jaro.

Their words, echoing across markets, terminals, and households in our city, are not just anecdotal complaints. They are the stark, human reality behind a new national survey that should serve as a wake-up call to our leaders. According to the August 2025 poll by WR Numero, the top two priorities for Filipinos are unequivocally economic: lowering the price of food (42%) and increasing workers’ wages (39%).

This plea rises above political colors; the numbers show it’s a universal cry for help. In a rare display of national unity, these two “kitchen table” issues are the top concerns across all political affiliations—for supporters of President Marcos, the Duterte family, and the opposition alike. While they may differ on how to handle crime or corruption, they are fundamentally united by the struggle to make ends meet. The survey confirms what we feel every day: the most pressing crisis is the one happening in our wallets and on our dinner tables.

Yet, as this clear message echoes from every corner of the archipelago, what dominates the halls of power and our news cycles? The political theater surrounding the ongoing probes into multi-billion-peso flood control projects.

Let us be clear: accountability for public funds is essential. Corruption, if found, must be rooted out and punished. But the current spectacle—filled with grandstanding, finger-pointing, and political maneuvering—feels like a profound and insulting misreading of the national mood. While our leaders are busy trying to score points in televised hearings about last season’s floods, countless Filipino families are currently drowning in a flood of high prices and debt.

The disconnect is more than just poor optics; it is a failure of governance. It reveals a political class more attuned to the echo chambers of Manila than to the rumbling stomachs in the Visayas and Mindanao. When a family is choosing between buying medicine or a full meal, as a young call center agent from Mandurriao noted, they have little patience for legislative squabbles that do nothing to ease their immediate burden.

The survey data is revealing. National security issues like the West Philippine Sea (7%), social reforms like a divorce law (2%), and even the impeachment of the Vice President (6%) barely register compared to the overwhelming demand for economic relief. This is not to say these issues are unimportant, but it illustrates a fundamental hierarchy of needs. A nation cannot focus on securing its borders or reforming its social contract when its people are insecure about their next meal.

Our leaders must see this survey for what it is: a direct command from their constituents to pivot. It is a demand to shift the nation’s focus, resources, and political will away from performative investigations and toward the crippling, everyday crisis of cost of living. The most urgent probe needed today is not into concrete and steel, but into the broken supply chains, inadequate wages, and agricultural neglect that keep food prices punishingly high.

The Filipino people have spoken, not through partisan rallies, but through the quiet desperation of their grocery bills. They have presented a unified front, armed not with placards, but with dwindling budgets. The question now is whether anyone in power is listening.