PR PODCAST: QUESTIONS LEFT UNAIRED

There is a difference between speaking to the public and being interrogated by it. A podcast hosted by a sitting president can feel like transparency—but it can also be a political mirror, reflecting only what the office wants the country to see. In the case of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s BBM Podcast, what plays out every week is not a forum for accountability—it is presidential public relations.

Launched in the aftermath of the 2025 midterm elections, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s BBM Podcast presents itself as an intimate platform where the Chief Executive explains policies, reassures the public, and projects empathy, away from the combative atmosphere of traditional press briefings. This move is hardly incidental. A study titled Beyond the Headphones: The Portrait of a Podcast Listener found that over 17 million internet-connected Filipinos, or 19.8 percent of the internet-connected population aged 16 to 64, listen to podcasts weekly. This marked an increase of 2.6 percent from 2023. In tapping into this rapidly growing audience, the President effectively positions himself closer to the public, controlling both the tone and the narrative. On the podcast, Marcos speaks at length about social programs, infrastructure visions, and even the emotional toll of corruption scandals, at times sounding introspective or visibly moved. In one episode, he lamented how ordinary Filipinos suffer amid corruption in flood control projects, insisting that “they don’t deserve it.” Yet emotional candor, no matter how compelling, cannot replace rigorous interrogation.

This raises a stark question:when will Marcos Jr. sit for a live, one-on-one interview with a journalist who will ask the unfiltered, uncomfortable questions that no polished podcast segment ever does? Not just safe queries about legacy or education budgets, but the hard ones on historical denialism, unabated corruption, ill-gotten wealth, and genuine accountability. The pattern is telling: during the 2022 presidential campaign, Marcos repeatedly skipped debates and major interviews, including those organized by the KBP and other legacy media forums, choosing instead controlled platforms that limit critical engagement—a strategy that has only continued into his presidency.

Consider the contrast: on his BBM Podcast, Marcos expresses frustration over corruption as if recently discovering it. Yet the ongoing public debate on corruption, from the Trillion Peso March to the controversial disclosures tied to flood control anomalies, has long demanded substance, not soothing soundbites. The podcast allows space for presidential explanation, but it does not make room for genuine challenge or scrutiny.

That carefully curated sense of control was evident closer to home. In BBM Podcast Episode 6, Part 3, Jannine Lagbawan—news editor of The Communicator—was among three invited guests meant to represent Generation Zs and campus journalists, tasked to raise issues grounded in students’ everyday realities. Jannine took the opportunity to ask about the budget cuts affecting the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, citing concrete figures and explaining how years of underfunding continue to burden students.

“Siyempre we’ve been experiencing low budgets for years… pero ayun nga, on the last part that aired, it didn’t make it to the cut of the podcast,” she later shared. The omission may appear minor behind the scenes, but in public discourse, it is emblematic: if a well-substantiated, community-relevant question can be edited out, it reveals how tightly the bounds of presidential “openness” are drawn.

This is not an isolated incident. Journalistic platforms rarely allow leaders to speak without scrutiny because the journalistic mandate itself demands uncomfortable confrontation. A president’s own podcast should not be the place where challenging queries are quietly edited out. When serious questions are selectively presented, the broadcast becomes less a tool of public accountability and more a vehicle of image management.

Therein lies the core problem. Marcos Jr., like many leaders before him, has not only inherited power but also the political instinct to control the narrative. On his podcast, he frequently speaks about unity, reconciliation, and the need to focus on the future, all important themes, yet he rarely confronts the structural and historical roots of the issues he gestures toward. When asked by another guest, law student Agripino John Patrick Ga-an, about his personal motivations for entering politics, Marcos Jr. candidly admitted that he did not originally want to pursue public office. It was a humanizing moment, but one that ultimately sidestepped the enduring controversies surrounding his family’s past and the accountability that comes with it.

More troubling still is how the president frames corruption as a surprise, a phenomenon that happened “over many decades,” without explaining how his administration will decisively confront entrenched systems. Emotional lamentations over the struggles of ordinary Filipinos, while rhetorically powerful, cannot mask the absence of concrete accountability measures when such accusations surface on the public stage. Remember, Marcos Jr. is the political boss of the budget, and the budget secretary is his chief technical operator. He drafts the National Expenditure Program (NEP), his allies in Congress produce the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) through backroom bicameral negotiations, and he signs or vetoes the resulting General Appropriations Act (GAA). Put simply, he had no excuse for being shocked by something fully under his control.

Podcasts have value. They can humanize leaders, they can bring nuanced conversations to wider audiences, and they can complement traditional media. But they cannot replace the essence of journalism, which is to hold power to account without fear or favor. A president’s podcast, especially if it is edited and controlled by the president’s own team, will never fulfill that role on its own.

What Filipinos deserve, and what our democratic discourse urgently needs, are not carefully curated messages. We need live, open, unfiltered conversations with leaders that include tough questions and honest, evidence-backed answers. Questions about historical denialism and the legacy of distortions; questions about unresolved ill-gotten wealth cases; questions about corruption probes that have stalled; questions that cannot be sanitized in post-production.

The real test remains: will President Marcos Jr. leave the safety of his controlled podcast and face a live, unscripted interview where a journalist asks the questions that matter most? One who will ask uncomfortable questions about the past, about responsibility, and about the future. One who will not let editing rooms bury the hardest queries.

Until such a moment arrives, the BBM Podcast will remain what it currently is, a controlled stage for presidential messaging. And the public will continue to wonder: Is this transparency, or merely another PR channel?

The answer to that question will not be found in carefully edited episodes. It will only come when leaders are actually held to account in real time, in real public forums, by real journalists asking the hardest questions. In the end, how can Marcos Jr. face the toughest challenges of the presidency if the toughest questions remain unaired?

Article: Ariane Claire Galpao

Cartoon: Lara Denise Tinos