Led by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT)-Philippines, teachers, education workers, and education students, broke through security and held a lightning rally near Malacañang Palace in Manila on July 22. The protest took place days before Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s fifth state of the nation address (SONA) on July 27.

The teachers held their program defying police repression and attempts to disperse the protest. They demanded adequate wages, proper benefits, increased funding for public education, job security, and respect for human rights and the right to unionize.

“Our country has been left in ruins by the piling crises under the Marcos Jr administration,” said Ruby Bernardo, chairperson of ACT. The regime touted a “historic” education budget in 2026, but ACT said, Marcos’s mark is actually a historically severe crisis in the sector.

Bernardo said teachers and staff have sunk deeper into debt under Marcos. “The administration repeatedly claims prioritizing education and extremely valuing teachers in the system, but we do not feel this,” Bernardo added.

Teachers also condemned the unprecedented plunder and corruption of public funds under the Marcos regime. According to ACT, Marcos and the equally corrupt former secretary of the Department of Education, Vice President Sara Duterte, are accountable.

Bernardo said no politician, especially those from dynasties like the Marcoses and Dutertes, will prioritize the people’s interests. “Both neglect public service, both are greedy for wealth and power, both burden the people, both evade accountability, and both are puppets,” she said.

ACT also condemned the Marcos regime’s warm reception of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his visit to the Philippines to attend an ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Pasay City. Bernardo said teachers and Filipinos should reject Rubio as an agent of US imperialist aggression and terrorism.

Marcos’s treatment of Rubio sharply contrasts with the violence experienced by protesting teachers. “His regime clearly shows it protects foreign interests instead of the interests of the Filipino people, and that its priority is to drag the country into imperialist intervention and aggression,” Bernardo said.

ACT called on teachers, education workers, and education students to act and join the people’s SONA on July 27. Democratic sectors and classes will use the venue to expose the true condition of the nation through collective action.