Never a Sona into the future

ENQUIRY

DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Never a Sona into the future
Sunday, 07 26, 2009

The State of the Nation Address (Sona) should, by its nomenclature, explain itself: The particular condition that the nation is in under an incumbent administration and what the nation could expect for the subsequent year under that administration.

But if the gaggle of voices from the Malacañang spokesmen is to be believed, tomorrow’s Sona’s will be one glowing discourse wherein President Gloria Arroyo will unfold her vision for the country to serve as a guide for her successor.

Say that again: She will unfold her vision for the country to serve as a guide for the president who will succeed her. A departing president’s vision for the country?

In Arroyo’s first Sona in 2001, she regaled us with the allegory of the bangkang papel adrift on the Pasig River. The symbolism was not lost on us: The whole length of the river was the path that we would navigate until the end of her term in June 2004; the paper boat represented the fragile yet dependable structure of governance that Arroyo would steer in her presidency; and Jason and the two other innocents stood for the diverse peoples that comprise the Filipino nation, expectant of deliverance by the leadership of Arroyo.

Alas, even before the term of Arroyo was to end in June 2004, the boat had lost its bearings, the righteous members of the crew grew disgusted and jumped ship, and the craft ran aground in the sands of graft and corruption. The skipper managed to escape from being strung from the yardarm and tossed into river, to steer the ship of state for six more years. And there lies the irony or ironies: She built another boat and crewed it with officers adept in the arts of thievery, deception and plunder with impunity.

So how’s that again? Arroyo’s last Sona will have her talking about her vision for the country, and how she has brought the country closer to that vision over the last eight years of her presidency? That the speech will be about "pride in achievement, hope for the future and faith in the stability of our institutions?"

Let us then take pride in the achievement of her Agriculture undersecretary who distributed P728 million to favored officials to buy fertilizers and pesticides in the middle of harvest season, and in the haughty achievement of Jose Pidal to keep investigators away from prying into his bank account.

Let us catch a glimmer of hope for the future in an administration that brought us criminality in the Garci tapes, the treason of the Venable contract, the greed of the jueteng pay-offs, the briberies of the NBN-ZTE project, the venality of paper bags containing P500,000 each given to over 300 congressmen and local officials at one meeting in Malacañang.

Let us also take faith in the stability of an administration that managed to stage the "greatest train robbery in history" through the North and South Rail projects, and was denied a $232-million road-improvement loan by the World Bank because of rigged bids.

We do not expect Arroyo’s last Sona to be a confession of sorts, an admission of her failures. She has had eight years to do right for the country, but she fell short. The reality of the scandals that rocked her reign will not be mitigated by her vision for the future. A president’s vision is outlined at the start of her presidency, never at the time she is counting the days toward her exit. If she does the latter, she is presumptuous as to expect her successor to emulate her; worse, she is preempting her successor’s own vision.

Whatever she claims as her achievements will ring hollow. She has had eight years to pursue what should have been her vision when she grabbed power in 2001. Let her claim what she has achieved, and let the people decide.

For Arroyo to unfold her "vision" for the country to guide the next president speaks much of the arrogance of her administration, its inability to accept the stark reality that it has failed, and her personal wish to string out her influence to her successor.

Arroyo has absolutely no business to even present a roadmap of sorts to her claimed vision of the country after she leaves. Her eight years at the helm has not qualified her to be the mentor of the next president. Let her unfinished vision fade away with her exit in June 2010.

Her so-called unfinished vision is but a product of her imagination, designed to cover up the problems she is bequeathing to her successor. And what a larcenous hand-down it shall be: A negative economic growth and a huge budget deficit, an empty national coffer, the burden of paying off huge debts, a fiscal blowout that would take a toll on our cash reserves, and the real, looming specter of a recession.

On the political side, Arroyo’s sycophants pompously claim that a post-Arroyo administration will be involved in the "continuing search for peace and order, strengthening of our political system and democratic institutions." After undoing the gains of the Estrada administration with her policy of appeasement of the rebel and terrorist groups, here she is now assuring us that her successor will pursue the same failed policy that has brought our country ever nearer to disintegration.

As for the "strengthening our political system and democratic institutions" she should leave that to her successor. Under her watch, virtually all democratic institutions were destroyed or suborned, the Rule of Law perverted, and the Constitution tinkered with.

Tomorrow, Arroyo will have her last chance at redemption, by leveling with the people, by delivering her mea culpa, and making amends at the remaining year of her reign. Tomorrow, Arroyo would certainly be in a delusional state if she will stress that her final Sona shall be the roadmap of the country after her departure. No one will buy her visions and revisions — they have been out of focus for the past eight years that the images that we have been allowed to see have been only fairy tales about an Enchanted Kingdom.

So, what’s the difference between a fairy tale and a Sona? Answer: A fairy tale is a children’s story about magical dwarves and imaginary beings and lands. A Sona is a tall tale told by a dwarf about imaginary achievements in an enchanted kingdom.


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