WHEN PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visited Naga on February 21, 2026, many felt a small, unexpected sense of relief. For once, the news wasn’t about mudslinging, trolling, or political pettiness. It was simply a president and a mayor, former rivals, standing side by side to talk about dredging rivers, preventing floods, and making life a little easier for ordinary people. It is a scene showing two elected leaders who are actually working.
Quite strangely, some corners of social media acted like the world had ended.
A quick fact check: the meeting between Marcos and Mayor Leni Robredo wasn’t a secret alliance, a political love team, or a 2028 campaign trailer disguised as Oplan Kontra Baha. It wasn’t even connected to Vice President Sara Duterte’s early presidential announcement.
This wasn’t politics.
This was governance.
Sounds surreal, right? But it still exists.
As mayor of Naga, Robredo has every reason to welcome national support. Flood control alone like the river dredging and drainage upgrades Marcos inspected costs hundreds of millions. The Department of Public Works and Highways estimates that long-term flood mitigation in Naga requires P1.2 billion in phased funding. Where will a single LGU magically get that?
This is why mayors whether named Robredo or Belmonte or Sotto go to Malacañang, seek funds, or knock on every agency’s door. That’s not politics. That’s their job.
What would have been immature, hypocritical, and downright irresponsible for Robredo was rejecting national aid just because she and Marcos ran against each other in 2022. No parent in Naga cares who won which election. They care that their house won’t flood knee-deep when the next typhoon hits. They care that the next generation won’t swim to school.
But of course, some Duterte loyalists lost their minds. They suddenly acted allergic to unity not because unity is bad, but because it doesn’t fit their narrative. They accuse Marcos and Leni of “political theatrics,” while conveniently forgetting the Vice President’s own mess: the P150 million confidential fund fiasco, the unresolved ghost employees, Mary Grace Piattos, etc.
And yet here they are, thinking they are in the best position to point fingers, moralize, and lecture about loyalty.
Where is their anger coming from? It’s simple. They can’t accept that two adults can disagree politically and still work together for the public good. They’ve gotten so used to drama, conflict, and victim narratives that basic governance now looks suspicious to them.
But here’s the thing: what happened in Naga is normal in healthy democracies.
It only feels strange because we’ve tolerated too much immaturity in ours.
Politics ends after elections. Or at least, it should.
Naga needs help. Marcos offered it. Robredo accepted it. Work continues.
If that’s offensive to anyone, then the problem isn’t the leaders.
Maybe the problem is what some people expect from them.
