Tuesday, December 16, 2008

SONA sana (SONA 2008)

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

SONA sana
Saturday, 08 02, 2008

President Gloria Arroyo delivered her eighth State of the Nation Address (SONA) Monday this week, before a captive audience primed to applaud every other word of the dreary fairy tales she has dished out on the nation since 2001.

That’s a great consolation for her: the in-house applause and adulation, I mean; considering that out of the confines of Congress — that’s where her real audience is — only one in every 10 adult Filipinos says that her past SONAs had been truthful. And if all past seven SONAs had been a pack of lies, what’s to make her speech a recitation of unadulterated truth this time around?

In 2001, Arroyo trotted out for the nation Jason, et al., who heroically launched their metaphorical bangkang papel out into a sea of roiled waters. In that maiden appearance as unelected president before Congress, Arroyo was slyly suggesting that she, the master of the Ship of State, was determined to go against a sea of troubles and, by opposing them, end them.

Alas, the sea of troubles has turned into a maelstrom of corruption, the Ship of State has foundered, and the bangkang papel was sailing through a cardboard sea! It has all been make-believe.

Arroyo once again tried to make us believe in rosy visions of what we could yet become as a nation: Rich, robust, and on the road to prosperity.

Earlier she touted the opening of NAIA Terminal 3 as another monument to the greatness we are headed to. But wait, reverse the tape to eight years ago: wasn’t this project littered with corruption and devilry, which are the hallmarks of her administration? And when she bragged about the recently opened Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway as bringing the motoring public to the 21st century, this piece of news greatly agitated nine of every 10 Filipinos because, as one columnist has said, that stretch of road is more expensive per kilometer than the infamous corruption-riddled boulevard by the bay, which now dishonors the memory of Arroyo’s father.

Indeed, Diosdado Macapagal, were he alive today, would wonder why his daughter, a self-described economics expert, cannot run an administration that cannot even rein in the price of the poor man’s fish. Galunggong, which in Macapagal’s time could be bought by the handful — about 15 pieces — for one peso, now costs P150 per kilo. The situation becomes harsher if one, tiring of galunggong, tries to eat out at even the nearby turo-turo and discovers that the prices of cooked food have skyrocketed on account of the LPG which now sells at P671 per 12 kg. tank. Now tell me: Can Arroyo still make us believe that everything is going great and things are getting better?

Expectedly, she blamed today’s price of oil for the rising cost of energy, the prohibitive cost of transportation, and everything else that is fuel-driven. But could she honestly look us in the eye to tell us what she has done the past eight years to take us out of the clutches of the fuel barons? There is not even an energy policy to speak of!

The government is not all right. The ordinary civil servants are still paid a pittance while those lording it over them continue to enjoy their shameless luxuries and foreign travels. Arroyo is merely recycling her co-plunderers in posts where they do not even fit. Imagine the arrogance of placing a defeated senatorial candidate, who authored the monstrosity of the law on eVAT, at the helm of the supreme economic planning agency! So tell me again: Is the government operating efficiently, and that our economy is in for rosier times?

The insurgency and the banditry that pervade in the South have yet to be stomped. But Arroyo’s support for a postponement of the ARMM elections has only sent the alarming message that she is not serious in installing a legitimate government in the South that can, by its own, handle the insurgency and the banditry. So tell me once more: Can Arroyo honestly declare peace at last in Mindanao?

The erratic peso vis-à-vis the dollar is symptomatic of the government’s loose grip on the economy. Where are we headed, really, and what exactly does she want: A stronger peso or a stronger dollar? One day the government steps in to save the peso; the next day, it allows the peso to plummet. Just look at how the peso performed the five days of last week. Can Arroyo tell us where our peso is heading?

Corruption at all levels is still the norm. But Arroyo does not rationalize the ignominious rank of the country in the TI Corruption Perception Index. So tell me another time: Will she admit, once and for all, that she wants Joc-Joc Bolante extradited, so that we can put closure on the fertilizer scam that ensured her stolen victory in 2004?

Justice that is fair and just still eludes the many of us. The families of desaparecidos are still helpless and hopeless as to when, if at all, they will ever see their loved ones again. Cronies continue to flaunt the justice system to inflict prejudice on their perceived enemies. I saw my friend Jake Macasaet swear to the truth of the averments in his counter-affidavit in a case lodged against him and me by a presidential crony. Our crime? Writing about the truth in the plunder of a government-owned company!

Arroyo should be honest to herself and to every one of us about the truth. Otherwise, she will once more, for the ninth time in 2009, be long on speech and short in deed again. And she can tell it to the Marines.



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