2025 State of the Nation Address

Also known as: SONA 2025 · Fourth State of the Nation Address of President Bongbong Marcos · Ikaapat na SONA ni Pangulong Marcos · 2025 SONA (Philippines)

Government

Definition

The 2025 State of the Nation Address was the fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the 17th President of the Philippines — the subject of this wiki’s entry on President Ferdinand Marcos — delivered on July 28, 2025 at the Batasang Pambansa Complex, Quezon City. The address is the constitutional routine of Article VII, Section 23 of the 1987 Constitution (“The President shall address the Congress at the opening of its regular session”), delivered on the day Congress convenes on the fourth Monday of July under Article VI, Section 15. Marcos spoke from 4:06 p.m. to 5:17 p.m. Philippine time — one hour and eleven minutes, mostly in Filipino with passages in English — before a joint session presided over by Senate President Francis Escudero and House Speaker Martin Romualdez. (Wikipedia — SONA 2025, LawPhil — 1987 Constitution)

The address is now remembered chiefly as the event that set off the flood-control corruption scandal traced in this wiki’s entry on the Flood Control Projects Scandal in the Philippines: Marcos reported that his administration had implemented over 5,500 flood-control projects, denounced anomalous ones as palpak at gumuho — failed and collapsed — with some existing only as ghosts (guni-guni lang), directed the DPWH to submit and publish a list of every flood-control project of the last three years for audit, and addressed those responsible with the widely quoted “mahiya naman kayo” (“have some shame”), a remark credited with foregrounding the investigations, charges, and detentions that followed. (Wikipedia — Flood control scandal, PCO — Fourth SONA speech)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	2025 State of the Nation Address (Philippines)
Wikidata	2025 State of the Nation Address (Q134882994)
DBpedia	2025_State_of_the_Nation_Address_(Philippines)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	SONA (Philippine English acronym of “State of the Nation Address”)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	State of the Nation Address Philippines 2025 Marcos flood control corruption audit Batasang Pambansa
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

SONA 2025
Fourth State of the Nation Address of President Bongbong Marcos
Ikaapat na SONA ni Pangulong Marcos
2025 SONA (Philippines)

Examples and Analogies

A speech that became a trigger: the flood-control passage shows a SONA’s performative power — three directives (list, examine, publish) and one shaming phrase (mahiya naman kayo) converted a corruption problem already visible in 2025’s floods into the Senate’s “Philippines Under Water” probe, COA fraud audits, and criminal charges, the full record traced in this wiki’s flood-control scandal entry. (Wikipedia — Flood control scandal, PCO — Fourth SONA speech)
The enumerated state of the nation: the address ran on figures — over 5,500 flood-control projects reported; 22,000 classrooms built and 40,000 more pledged; almost ₱60 billion for free tertiary education in 2026; 2.5 million households electrified; around 200 power plants planned; 600,000 Walang Gutom households in 2025, rising to 750,000 by 2027. (Wikipedia — Flood control scandal, GMA — SONA by the numbers, PCO — Fourth SONA speech)
Verified event data:
Presiding officers: Senate President Francis Escudero and Speaker Martin Romualdez — the last SONA both were expected to preside over
Security: an estimated 27,000 security and response personnel around the Batasan Complex, per the House Sergeant-at-Arms
Anthem: sung by Sofronio Vasquez, season-26 winner of The Voice (US)
Absentees: Vice President Sara Duterte declined her invitation; former President Rodrigo Duterte, detained at The Hague, was invited; Senators Dela Rosa, Go, Padilla, and Imee Marcos skipped the event
Protests: the BAYAN-led “People’s SONA” on Commonwealth Avenue drew an estimated 4,000–10,000 protesters

Usage Scenarios

1. Constitutional Reporting Duty

The address is the annual exercise of Article VII, Section 23 — the President addressing Congress at the opening of its regular session on the fourth Monday of July (Article VI, Section 15). (LawPhil — 1987 Constitution)

2. Announcing Anti-Corruption Policy

The 2025 SONA is the case study of a president using the address to launch an enforcement program: the DPWH list, the Regional Project Monitoring Committee review, publication for public verification, and a promised audit and performance review with charges “in the coming months” — machinery that produced the investigations traced in this wiki’s flood-control scandal entry. (PCO — Fourth SONA speech, Wikipedia — Flood control scandal)

3. Budget Signaling to Congress

Marcos warned that he would return any 2026 General Appropriations Bill not aligned with the National Expenditure Program — “even if we end up with a reenacted budget” — a threat that acquired weight when new flood-control funding was later stripped from the 2026 proposal. (PCO — Fourth SONA speech, Wikipedia — Flood control scandal)

4. Reading the Political Climate

The guest list and the streets read as a barometer of the Marcos–Duterte split: a vice-presidential boycott, four absent senators, and a protest framed around hunger, poverty, unemployment, and inflation. (Wikipedia — SONA 2025)

Strategies

Shame as instrument: the mahiya naman kayo passage aimed the presidency’s largest audience at named-off conduct — kickbacks, “SOP, for the boys,” ghost projects — putting personal stigma behind the audit machinery announced in the same breath. (PCO — Fourth SONA speech)
Publish to enforce: directing that the flood-control project list be published so the public could verify projects in their own areas converted citizens into auditors — the logic later embodied in the “Sumbong sa Pangulo” portal. (PCO — Fourth SONA speech, Wikipedia — Flood control scandal)
Enumerate accomplishments: jobs, rice at ₱20 per kilo, classrooms, electrification, PhilHealth benefit increases, and free college were presented as countable quantities for the administration’s final three years, paired with a veto warning on the 2026 budget. (GMA — SONA by the numbers, PCO — Fourth SONA speech)

Security and Safety Measures

Inter-agency security envelope: the estimated 27,000-strong deployment around the Batasan Complex — reported by the House Sergeant-at-Arms — secured the joint session and its approaches, with police arrangements keeping the People’s SONA rally on Commonwealth Avenue separate from the grounds. (Wikipedia — SONA 2025)
For researchers: the SONA’s project figures are the administration’s own reporting as of July 2025; the audit’s later findings — such as ₱100 billion concentrated in 15 of 2,409 accredited contractors — are the correction mechanism, and the two should be cited as distinct records. (Wikipedia — Flood control scandal)

Historical Context

Delivered as the Marcos presidency entered its final three years, the 2025 SONA followed months of flood anger: the year’s habagat and typhoons had inundated large areas, a pastoral letter of July 25, 2025 by the CBCP president had linked flooding to alleged corruption, and video of collapsing flood-control works had circulated widely. Against that backdrop, Marcos reported over 5,500 flood-control projects implemented, denounced anomalous works and the “racket” around them, ordered the three-step list–examine–publish process with an audit and performance review, and promised prosecution — the announcement this wiki’s flood-control scandal entry records as the scandal’s trigger. (Wikipedia — Flood control scandal, PCO — Fourth SONA speech)

The rest of the address surveyed the administration’s program: an improving economy presented as meaningless without felt relief (“palamuti lamang,” mere decoration, if families still struggle), ₱20-per-kilo rice to go nationwide through Kadiwa stores, 22,000 classrooms built with 40,000 more and nearly ₱60 billion for free tertiary education pledged, 2.5 million households electrified with some 200 power plants planned, PhilHealth benefit increases, the freeing of Red Sea hostage sailors, a “friend to all, enemy to none” foreign policy with the Philippines hosting the 2026 ASEAN Summit, and a vow to resolve the sabungero disappearances “regardless of wealth or power.” Escudero lost the Senate presidency and Romualdez the speakership in the months after, and the flood-control investigations the speech set off dominated its aftermath. (PCO — Fourth SONA speech, GMA — SONA by the numbers, Wikipedia — SONA 2025)

Challenges and Controversies

The Flood-Control Announcement and Its Aftermath

The central debate around the address is what its flood-control passage ignited: credited with triggering the investigations that led to charges and detentions of contractors, officials, and legislators, it also drew criticism that the scandals were of the administration’s own making — projects implemented and budgets released under its watch — so that the shame-the-guilty theater doubled as deflection. The 5,500-project figure itself stands as administration reporting pending the audits it announced. (Wikipedia — Flood control scandal, Wikipedia — SONA 2025)

Boycotts and the Fractured Alliance

The vice-presidential absence — Sara Duterte saying she expected nothing “substantial” while facing a February impeachment case from the House — and the skipped attendance of four Duterte-aligned senators made the joint session itself an exhibit of the Marcos–Duterte rupture, with the invitation to the detained former president adding a further controversy over propriety. (Wikipedia — SONA 2025)

Speech Versus Street

The People’s SONA’s 4,000–10,000 protesters, and overseas demonstrations in seven US cities, contested the address’s account of the nation — hunger, poverty, unemployment, and inflation against the speech’s enumerations — the perennial SONA dispute over whose state of the nation the report states. (Wikipedia — SONA 2025)