Second State of the Nation Address of Pres. Benigno Aquino

By: Archt. Merant B. De Vera, uap

August 6, 2011

A week before President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino’s Speech many were asking of the things that is expected by him to discuss and include in his second state of the nation address, I was about to make a list of topics that I should look forward to but as I started writing I was overwhelmed by the enormity of the agenda that I should incorporate in my checklist and so I decided not to continue with my Initial plan of having a detailed directory and just prepare a generic list of issues and plainly focus on listening in his SONA.

Overall Based on President Benigno Aquino III State of the Nation Address it is clear that our present government has a leader who will focus in breaking the succession of corruption, getting our investment fluid, implementing a strong national security policy, and finding a way for Mindanao’s growth and development. All of these visions did not let down those looking for focus and strong assertions of growth in these areas, the rest including Noynoys critics are unison in saying that the president’s speech lacks direction and deliberately targets the last administrations corruption issues.

Battle Against Corruption

President Aquino opened his speech with an attack on the “wang-wang” culture of the Philippine government. For Noynoy, the wang-wang culture represents the elite’s culture of power and flagrant discount for the law. He detailed his fight against corruption and described how these measures have saved resources for the people of our country. He described reform efforts to lessen funding waste while promising to advocate his attack on corrupt officials. President Benigno Aquino III even exposed several instances of extreme corruption under the Arroyo administration including the million dollar coffee contract of PAGCOR. With strong evidence and clear testimonies, Aquino promised that “these will be real cases, which will lead to the punishment of the guilty.”Aquino said that the appointment of past Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales as the new ombudsman would make sure that the prosecutions of high-level corrupt officials will continue.

In his speech Noynoy also discussed the electoral fraud in Mindanao something all of us has undeniably know by heart, saying that “politics there have been dominated by horse-trading and transactional politics” and thanking the Philippine Congress for passing a law synchronizing ARMM elections with the rest of the regional elections in hopes of reducing fraud not only in Mindanao but for the whole country as well is not new, he might elaborate it differently as compared to the other administration but having brought this up to us are not a surprise. Addressing the problems is not enough, he should have handed over solutions and schemes such as decentralization of policies, local governance and democracy at the local level, transparent and efficient municipal administration by totally converting all LGU’s and NGO’s to have website these concept will respond and remedy the problem.

The Aquino administration has filed several plunder cases against Arroyo and despite obstacle in many investigations over the past year, the investigations are now escalating. In order to follow through on Noynoy’s visions of battling corruption, he will need to ratify our judicial reform and introduce a better and a more tailored form of system as well as processes to respond to these requirements. Corruption in courts has been a main hindrance to social justice and expanding investment in the country that is why it is important for him to put down concrete strategies and on these areas.

Talking in Pure Tagalog, the president referred to Filipinos as “My Bosses” and kept his words straightforward and direct to the point, evidently reaching out to the people in the street. He picked up the theme of his first address and talked about how his government is moving to right what he feels are the wrongs of his predecessor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her administration.

While sounding an upbeat note and emphasizing “the straight and righteous path,” Aquino’s fame has rebounded after dipping from historically high ratings immediately after his appointment. In his SONA I noticed that he did not address key issues including land reform, infant and maternal mortality, extrajudicial killings, trade issues, or public-private partnerships, and a clear path of where we are going and how his visions that he laid last year will be transformed into reality.

President Benigno Aquino’s words were headlined by his reaffirmation of Philippine sovereignty over its exclusive economic zone the “West Philippine Sea.” “What is ours is ours,” he said, referring to the Reed Bank area. While there was apparent progress in the ASEAN China Foreign Ministers meeting in Bali, including new language indicating both sides will develop specific implementing regulations to move from a Declaration of a Code of Conduct (DOC) to a Code of Conduct (COC), Noynoy has been clear that the Philippines is willing to take the issue to the UN, there are clear signals that U.S.-Philippine ties have vastly improved since his election, despite standing up to perceived Chinese aggression in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. About halfway through his speech, Aquino made a pointed notably direct account on the disagreement with China in the South China Sea. He repeated his fresh, more assertive national security policy, “what’s ours is ours,” but went further by declaring “we are ready to defend what is ours.” He said the Philippines had acquired a Hamilton Class coast guard cutter from the United States and displayed two photographs of the ships, saying that he has plans to obtain more weapons including ships, helicopters, patrol craft, and light arms from the United States. With these agenda we might ask what will the underprivileged eat whenever they feel hungry, what will be the respond of a dying father to his son after he has been asked if he will be going to school next year. The president’s remarks built on Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario’s statements in Washington last month that the Philippines would seek to acquire advanced weapons systems from the United States to begin modernizing and rearming the Armed Forces of the Philippines. As he speaks of these plans I am imagining a very modern Navy ship in Manila Bay surrounded by starving Filipinos within their makeshift house located in dirty shanty towns.

Aquino did not mention the disputed Spratly Islands specifically, but he did single out Reed Bank when discussing national defense. The Reed Bank, called Recto Bank in the Philippines, is a small island considered by the Philippines to be within its exclusive economic zone and separate from the Spratly Islands. Two Chinese patrol boats harassed an oil and gas exploration ship on Reed Bank several months ago. Philippine Navy aircraft and ships were sent to confront the Chinese ships, but they had left before the Philippine reinforcements arrived.

Halfway in his speech I was looking for the plans on infrastructure and basic services, reforming of public utilities including regulatory frameworks, tariff structures and the promotion of market-oriented and demand-driven approaches to services provision. There is also no discussion on the development of affordable solutions to water, sanitation and energy in poor settlements including subsidized connection fees for the poor and urban transport, especially non-motorized traffic and public transports.

Overall he delivered a very powerful speech but overall he did not impress me. He could inserted and tackled Housing and slum upgrading, explaining his plans for our housing policy, secure tenure, legalization of squatter of settlements, revision of obsolete planning and building regulation improved land and housing markets, education and health facilities even in informal settlements.