A mountain of details at least has shape. It resembles a mountain.
A scattershot of details, without perspective, context, framework or vision, has no shape. It aims at no specific target. Or solve any particular problem.
The kindest thing that might be said about last Monday’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) is that it was shapeless. It was a speech without a predicate and without a clear policy direction. It is a speech without vision – and therefore without soul – patched together by a team of amateur wordsmiths bereft of a sense of its historical gravity.
In any year, the SONA is a most important speech. It sets the tone for governance. It sets the vision for the nation. It should capture the ethos of its time.
The speech should sum up the path that led us to where we are and indicate where we are going. At its heart, the speech should set the premises for the main reason the President stands before Congress: the budget proposed for the incoming year.
Strangely, this speech was silent on precisely that point. There was no mention at all of the National Expenditure Plan and why it is indispensable for national prosperity. It was not only silent about the nation’s direction. It says nothing about the next step.
It was as if the speech was conceived to be only minimally compliant. Get the speech over with and return to the comforts of the Palace. Do the engagement and flee. No bold statements to be made – therefore no room for mistakes.
Public expectation for progress in the investigation of corruption was at a historic high. For the first time, corruption outranked inflation in the hierarchy of public concerns. This year’s SONA opened by mentioning the cases to be filed against former speaker Martin Romualdez and then quickly moved on to other things. There was no assessment of the general effort to curb corruption and no promise to end this curse upon the nation.
Corruption is a systemic problem. It requires a systemic solution. The SONA offered none.
The speech then went into what was really a compilation of agency-level reports. It exceeded in the minute details – such as an enumeration of gadgets procured for classroom teachers. It lacked a general overview of how our governance might be finally reconciling with modernity.
Agency-level reports are notorious for having a toad’s eye view, looking up the well with only a partial view of the sky. A presidential speech needs to provide the expansive view of the sky. Last Monday’s speech did not.
Worse, the speech merely repeated agency reports without providing context. We know how many hundreds found employment through job fairs. But we are not told why unemployment is rising.
Not one word was said about why our economic growth slowed dramatically or why poverty rates are rising. Mentioning such things requires answers the administration is not ready to provide.
There was some credit-grabbing too. The President claims government supported Alex Eala’s rise. The tennis star’s family denied any support from government.
The President declares MRT-7 will be operating soon. He did not say this is an entirely private sector investment – one that needed to persist to get through the bureaucratic wringer.
The President claims indigent patients no longer needed guarantee letters from politicians. He did not mention the constitutionality of such subsidy programs outside the framework of PhilHealth are still in question. Or that the funds of PhilHealth itself have been seized to fund congressional insertions. The agency was denied subsidy last year.
Overall, the speech delivered was that of a beleaguered leader trying to convince the people he is effectual. He tried to drown the audience in detail without providing perspective. He tried to impress without contextualizing. He offers no comprehensive solution to why our farmers are poor and our young suffer high rates of malnutrition.
This is the speech that should mark this presidency’s complete descent to populism. It focuses on dole-outs but offers no solutions to the problem of receding fiscal space. It is a most imbalanced speech, bringing the nation many steps closer to a debt crisis. The BSP itself is reported to have expressed some alarm over the neglect of fiscal balance here.
The budget deficit has been chronic. This administration has relied on borrowing rather than revenue enhancement to fund itself. Under this President’s watch, our indebtedness will hit P20 trillion. Our children will be made to pay for this farther into the future, possibly under some severe austerity regime.
Since last year’s SONA, the President identified 53 bills as urgent. Only two have been passed into law – including the withdrawal of excise taxes on kerosene. Last Monday, no legislative roadmap was indicated, even as so many things in the President’s wishlist required congressional action.
At the very least, the President should have asked Congress to work a little harder. Even as a large cloud of public distrust of our lawmakers hangs. With all the money Congress allocated for itself, we probably have the most expensive legislature in the world.
An appeal to national pride is a sure way to draw applause. Last Monday’s speech was smart in choosing to close on a nationalistic theme, praising our imagined virtues as a people.
But, as one statesman said, nationalism is very often the refuge of scoundrels.