Whether the 8th State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) was a failure or a success depends on which side of the political landscape you belong. The opposition as expected says it was a “Fairy Tale.” Former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada gave a confusing statement… that he didn’t care to hear the President’s SONA, but later said that it was all a pack of lies. Aren’t we a bit sick and tired of hearing Erap’s lies?
That the President was able to do a SONA at all meant that it was a success. Compare this to the SONA’s of the past years where many people were betting that she would not even be President before the day of the SONA came. But that was because of a hyper active political opposition that couldn’t wait to take their turn in running the reins of the government… trying all types of shortcuts available, like the Oakwood mutiny or that ill-fated Peninsula caper. But she made those SONA’s despite the opposition.
So the SONA’s over and done with… and this SONA seemed to have focused on our basic problems, food security, high gasoline prices, plain and simple survival. In her past two SONA’s she concentrated on infrastructure development and political change. These political reforms took a back seat to solving our rice crisis and the world gasoline crisis. In fact, if there was a big disappointed for me, it was that she didn’t even mention Charter change or federalism. In my book she should have given political change equal importance otherwise, after the 2010 presidential elections, we will see much of the same things in this country. That means, more stagnation for us!
During her speech, she brought in and introduced 14 different people from various sectors from a jeepney driver, businessman even a tribal chief just to show that her social development programs had uplifted many ordinary Filipinos. She used the Sona to openly defend her continued collection of the value-added tax (VAT) pointing out that the P4-billion VAT taken from the oil industry had helped pay for loans, calamity funds, college scholarships and livelihood projects.
She defended the ill-fated Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) not as a failure but a success saying that some 1.6 million hectares of private and public lands were given out from 2001 to 2007. She asked Congress for the extension of CARP with reforms as a priority, but admitting there were problems when she said, “I want the rackets out of Agrarian Reform.” We exposed those rackets in this corner, yet I haven’t heard that cases where being filed against these racketeers?
Perhaps the most welcomed part of her SONA was when she revealed that text messages would be reduced; I’m sure that this text crazy nation gave her a standing ovation, but this promo is supposed to last until October. Perhaps the President should insist that this be made permanent. So that’s the State of the Nation and it isn’t healthy at all! But in these times of crisis, we expect our people to unite together to fight our problems, but unfortunately, this is not happening with our current crop of politicians!
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Talking about our present crop of politicians… allow me to tip my hat to our dear friend and fellow columnist Ms. Chit Pedrosa who came up with two exposé’s on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani last Saturday entitled “Rudy Giuliani and 9/11” and another column last Sunday entitled, “Giuliani in Manila and Local Politics.” I hope our readers read Pedrosa’s column, after all we did get a lot of text messages from friends pointing us to look into what Ma’am Chit wrote about Giuliani.
That Chit Pedrosa told us the “other side” of Mayor Giuliani was something new to most of us who have been bombarded by the “great” things that Mayor Giuliani did especially during the infamous 9/11-terror attack. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the luxury of time to learn more about Giuliani until I read Pedrosa’s column. I’m sure that it would have been a column that the late Sir Max Soliven would have loved to write himself.
So allow me to go straight to the point… that one of the sponsors of Mayor Giuliani’s lecture in Manila is the J.C. Binay Foundation (of course with the usual crop of Makati-based sponsors) reveals volumes of why Mayor Giuliani was brought to Manila… perhaps without his knowing that he’s being used! As Ma’am Chit aptly wrote, “Others see the conference more as a good launch pad for Jojo Binay for President. After all, if the mayor of New York sought the US Presidency, so can the Mayor of Makati be President of the Philippines.” Seem quite subtle, but thanks to Chit “na buking” si Mayor!
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For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow entitled, “Straight from the Sky” shown every Monday only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 on SkyCable at 8 in the evening.